Have you always been into fitness or did you get into it later?

If only. I wish I’d tapped into the power of fitness and wellness earlier on, but it took needing it to seek it out. Fitness certainly hadn’t been my planned career path, nor was it really a passion. As I kid, I’d file myself under anti-PE and even as a young adult, I wasn’t that into working out. My relationship with fitness evolved while consulting in order to combat my hectic schedule and long workweeks. I was running myself into the ground — taking multiple flights per week, eating all my meals at airports, consistently working overtime and getting pretty used to the feelings of anxiety and stress. In what felt like the blink of an eye — but was actually five years — I became constantly exhausted, unhappy, on edge and, as the story goes, I gained fifteen pounds. I realized I was in urgent need of self care and started to run 10 minutes a day. Even that little taste of doing something good for myself made me feel like the most accomplished athlete in the world. Running became my gateway drug to other exercise disciplines and classes, and all of a sudden I found myself craving daily sweat sessions and finding anyway possible to fit them in.

[Photo via @yayabonetti]

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