Good morning my friends! Happy Friday and Happy October! I want to wrap-up last night’s post. I truly loved all the growth and support it provided us and still believe it did great things. At the end, I am simply ready to move on from such topics on a daily basis. I do feel so blessed that my rambling thoughts on what helps build self-love inspired many of you. Thanks to Ela from Ulterior Harmony and Meg from Life Is Better Than Fiction for posting their reflections on the experience as well. 🙂

Now to segue into today’s post…Can I tell you how good it felt to start the morning like this?

With no pressure? Just a cup of coffee, my mind, and the netbook keys? Along with a Reader’s Request. 😉 Maria from Oh Healthy Day submitted a reader’s request asking to hear more of my thoughts on food and workouts from back when I competed in a fitness competition.

Disclaimer: Please note there will be pictures and discussion of calories/workouts in the rest of this post. These are in no way my thoughts on what someone should be doing to lose weight or what people should look like to look “fit”. This is all relative to my competition. Please, read accordingly.

Before I started training for my fitness competition, I didn’t restrict at all. I was mindful of my intake and focused on eating as wholesome foods as possible, but did not count calories fanatically or deny myself of cravings. Following that approach, I managed to get into pretty dang good shape at only 9 months post-partum. I easily maintained it and felt really, really, really good here.

Even looking like this, for a fitness competition I had to lean out more so the muscle definition (the point of one of these competitions) would be more distinctive. To reach the goal of competing, I had to change up my diet and workouts.

Diet: I diligently tracked my food. My food choices didn’t change drastically, but simply having to make things fit into a certain ratio of protein/fat/carbs and a specific calorie range drove me mad! I did have to limit fat consumption and calories below normal. I followed a 45% Carbs – 15% Fat – 40% Protein diet with 1500-1700 calories per day on average. Not fun trying to manipulate food day in and day out to fit!

Workout: Madness! I do not recommend following training like this for regular workouts. This was strictly for competition prep and wore my body out. It was required to get to the level of leanness for show, but never intended to upkeep longer than a couple months. I did heavy weight workouts 5 days each week. I did intense cardio for over an hour 6 days per week – intervals, spin/kickbox classes, loonnngg and grueling hours spent on the stepmill, plus tons of plyometric drills. All to get here.

In the process, however, I grew to hate my workouts. I began craving all those “naughty” foods again and profiling things as good or bad. I felt food guilt and anxiety that I hadn’t in a couple of years. I wanted the competition to be done and not have to do anything fitness related ever again! It was all too easy to gain the weight I needed to for my body to regain its menstrual cycle and allow us to try to conceive after the show. My motivation fell to nonexistent. I had to fight tooth and nail to get back to the gym before gaining more weight than I needed. I battled a couple episodes of binging for the first time in years the first couple weeks after my show ended.

I could go on longer, and if you want to read more I do have a full post on the topic here. Basically, the pressure of the show and having to do things removed the joy. Similar to how I felt by the end of this past month. I do not enjoy placing pressure on typically enjoyable actions for me. I don’t mind hard work. I don’t mind working towards a goal. But having to do things that otherwise were purely pleasure and hobby frustrates me to no end. It makes me want to give up, instead of powering forward in the natural progress achieved through continued practice and effort. Which is why you will never see me do another show and why you see me so excited to just go about my passion for this blog in a less-structured and lighter manner. Life has too much pressure already! 😉

Have you ever experienced pressure in something you normally enjoy for fun? How did it affect you?

READER/BLOGGER FUN QUESTION OF THE DAY! – Pick 3 words to describe yourself. For those who missed last night, I want to get to know all of you more and will ask a fun question of the day. Share your answers and I’ll randomly pick a few to post for us to find new bloggy friends. 🙂 My answer = passionate, caring, and analytic.

Motivational Quote of the Day: Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Today started off like any ordinary day. I woke up and got the morning’s 30 Days post written. Then I spent the morning with Makenzie and preparing breakfast. We had one of the standard fall breakfasts I have enjoyed recently – some waffles with a pumpkin + maple almond butter topping.

We then headed off to playgroup, where I spent time in the company of good friends. And where Makenzie pursued her little love interest.

After that, we came home to eat lunch then get her settled for nap time. Nap time = my time to get blog posts done and catch up on other things. Nap time today = hit a mental wall time for me.

It’s not often that I can’t come up with some sort of topic to share. Normally, so much rumbling goes on in my mind that the words just flow when my fingers hit the keys. I could only think about one thing today though. I feel a bit hesitant to share. It may even fall under the description of a confession. Since that is all that I can think to write…and I don’t sugar coat my thoughts, feelings, etc…I will share this confession. Here goes….deep breath…I am happy that the 30 Days of Self-Love is over. Really happy.

Please do not take that the wrong way. I stand behind the topics and the purpose for starting it in the first place. I believe in everything I shared. My sincerity and care filled each post written. Beyond all that, however, part of me felt that the 30 Days didn’t mesh quite as well as I hoped with my blog as a whole, with my personality, and also with many of you all.

As much as I loved writing each post, I think thirty days straight of such serious topics was a lot to swallow. I realized I much prefer sharing such messages and encouragement in smaller daily snippets through my regular posting. I don’t enjoy feeling like I overwhelm my readers and I know I felt overwhelmed at times with the day in and day out heavy topics. I do believe they played an essential role in helping us grow and reflect on important messages, but I would be lying if I said I wasn’t happy to move on to a more laid-back approach again.

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So, where does Faith Fitness Fun go from here? I plan for Faith Fitness Fun to continue to be a blog sharing positive messages through my daily life, regular experiences, and the thoughts or lessons I garner from them. The same mindset behind the start of the 30 Days will still show because it is an essential part of who I am. I believe everyday moments can carry great inspiration and I hope to express that here.

I desire to continue a community of support, friendship, and fun revolving around many different areas of life. In light of how much I loved learning about you all and my appreciation for everything each of you gives to me, I want to share some blogger love. Each morning I will post a special, fun question so I can learn more about you. Then, the following day I will share a random selection of a few of the comments with fun blogs to check out. I know I always love finding other bloggers! After the 30 days I don’t want to tie myself to anything, but I figured this would be fun to try out and a way for all of us to discover new friends. I really feel like doing something light and fun after the past month. Are you with me?

• What pros/cons did you feel during the 30 Days of Self Love?
• Do you have any constructive criticism you want to share? Things you would like to see more or less of on Faith Fitness Fun?