Around this time last year, I revealed to you all how much I weigh, and celebrated the fact that I was ringing in another year of life 15 pounds of muscle richer. This year I celebrated my birthday three pounds lighter, but what I gained, you can’t weigh on a scale.

I am in the BEST shape of my life. I run with the same comfort as I walk, pushups are my jam, I can do splits and handstands, I have energy for days, and if I was on Ninja Warrior, I would probably make it part of the way through the first obstacle.

I owe this to a continued shift away from cardio to more action-y, strength based movements that have me channeling my inner Buffy, and caused a guy to call me “thickness” on the street. Which I’m choosing to take as a compliment.

I also owe this to a COMPLETE diet overhaul. Despite all the deliciousness you’ve seen me post on my Instagram, I’ve become a protein shake person, who counts out her almonds, looks forward to walking the aisles at GNC, and only needs a few bites of the food in my photos.

Those protein shakes are all a part of what I call, at risk of being sued by Bethenny Frankel, my lazy girl meal planning. I treated myself to a cute leopard print tote bag, and every day I fill it with shake ingredients, lunch, and portioned out snacks. It was hard to get used to bringing all my food every day, instead of hitting up Pret, Hale and Hearty, or (swoon) Lenny’s, but my lazy girl plan has been totally doable with a full time job, extracurriculars, and a packed gym schedule. Not to mention copasetic with limited funds. Anyone who wants to know more about this, feel free to send me a message. Happy to give more info on my diet, but less happy to bore everyone else here with the details.

One thing I will give you details on is the key to my success. Three years into my fitness journey, my progress should have plateaued, and it totally would have if it weren’t for one very important group of people. My gym friends.

My gym friends span all shapes, sizes, nationalities, and professions, and are simply the best. I spend my day looking forward to laying our mats down next to each other, catching up, and quickly getting to work. We’re bonded in our efforts to become our best selves, and are dead set on having fun in the process. We motivate each other with texts and Facebook posts, and save each other spots in class. On Mondays we wear grey, on Thursdays we wear black, and when someone new shows up, we welcome them with open arms.

One of my gym friends took this photo.

These friends have been everything, and I’m convinced that because of them, things outside of the gym have been changing to. This year at times sucked REAL hard, like needing to get over my fear of being vulnerable and ask people for help hard. BUT the residual positive vibes from my gym friends and healthy lifestyle made it all a lot easier to manage. And as I start year four of my fitness journey, I have a very clear goal.

I want to be as confident in real life as I am at the gym.

I want to always hold my head high, feel two inches taller, and smile at everyone I see. I want to be as open to everything that comes my way, as I am when my amazing instructor Angel presents the class with another crazy ass variation on a push up, or puts me on the receiving end to demo new ways of face punching.

Also, I still reeeeally want to do a pull up, but that too will come.

So now that I have my diet and exercise on lock, it’s time to focus more on the part of life where I’m out of the gym in (smaller-sized) real clothes. Cause if I could make this many friends exercising, who knows how many I’ll make just being me.

Thanks to everyone for their support so far. I can’t wait to see what I’ll be writing next year 🙂