I am an athlete. Regardless of whether I’m on any sort of team, regardless of whether I’ve practiced recently, and regardless of the fact that I haven’t been in a pool in months, I will always call myself an athlete. I have the mentality that comes from twelve years of swimming. It’s the attitude and the drive and the determination that can only come from practicing six days a week, two, three, four, or five hours a day for half of your life.

So when I stopped working out for about six months straight, I started going crazy. Not at first- at first I enjoyed myself and my free time. I had just moved in to my new apartment, I was living in a new place, trying new things, hanging out with my boyfriend, meeting new people. I was starting a new job, which was stressful. I thought I was too busy to go to a gym after work, because after working all day, then cooking and eating dinner and cleaning up afterwords, when would I have time to unwind if I tried to throw a workout in the mix?

So for six months, I chose to relax. Looking back, I probably watched too much dumb TV and drank too much wine. But I enjoyed it for a time. I slowly started to feel sluggish though. I felt winded going up two flights of stairs. I felt slow and tired and saggy, if you will. My weight was the same, I generally looked the same as I always had, but I felt terrible about myself.

So starting in January, I bit the financial bullet and joined a gym. I made sure it was a gym I could walk to, that was open at the times when I needed it to be open. And I signed up for three months of personal training.

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