10 years ago I graduated high school. I was once athletic diving to hit the volleyball, accomplished becoming a blue belt in Tae Kwon Do, a fast walker. Things went downhill when I started getting injured with first my ankle and tearing my ACL. Two surgeries in my left leg later on top of gaining the freshman college pounds plus being comfortable in a relationship, now I am at the point where I have to make a change in myself or else my health will be affected with being overweight. I always admired strong and powerful women, especially my favorite comic book character Wonder Woman and Jean Grey from Xmen. I've experienced pitfalls with being overweight and less confident in my own abilities, because I've been mocked about my weight. I thoroughly believed I was judge based on my weight not my major life accomplishments of obtaining a masters degree. I had to find a way again to not be afraid to exercise, because I had the fear of spraining my operated knee and ankle from just walking around the parking lot. I've carried too much brokenness in my life not just from food but also emotional burden that I used food as an emotional outlet.
Then I gained interest in powerlifting, specifically bench pressing and dead lifts. I feel like with both these powerlifts I have to learn to accept failure and keep on getting myself back up to accomplish personal records. Its not easy to fail and I am constantly comparing myself to women that have been training for years on social media. I admire the hard work all these women from different backgrounds and sizes. I am disappointed when I try to deadlift a new PR and my body can't even lift the weights off the ground, but in January 2018 I started this new weightloss transformation journey of clean eating and powerlifting/strength training to rebuild and reawaken that athlete in me again. I started off with struggling to bench just the barbell and deadlift 95 lbs almost 3 months ago.
Last week I accomplished benchlifting in the 100 club, I am now 30 lbs away from the two 45 pound plates. My personal record for the deadlifts is 195lbs. Although I couldn't get 200lbs off the ground today, I accepted the ups and downs of powerlifting. I am thankful for my trainer for pushing me, I feel that I am learning who I am again thanks to powerlifting: a fighter. I don't know how to quit and I am no longer afraid of lifting heavy weights. I am still not sure how much weight I lost but I did drop a pants size so far. I encourage all women to lift heavy weights! Seriously, there's so many health benefits to weight lifting for women. Don't believe in the myth: "women we look muscular like men". I will talk about it more in my next blog entry.