Welcome to the next 90 Days of my life

Hello to all of you in the blogosphere!

I am new to this so please bear with me as I take you along a 3 month fitness journey that is sure to be a delight.  For those of you that do not know, I have taken on the 90 day challenge at Albany Crossfit along with 120+ other members to get ourselves looking as best as humanly possible butt naked ;)

First, I would like to take a some time to enlighten those of you that do not know much about my fitness background.  I was a college softball player at the University at Albany (Purple Fam 4Life-you know what I'm talking about Burkharts, Kowal and Sheehan!) where I was a catcher and badass liver of life (just kidding Mom and Dad, sort of).  After graduation, I remained at Albany where I gained my Masters in Higher Education Administration and Policy Studies and 40lbs.  Apparently, I thought that I could remain eating and drinking like a college student for the rest of my life and quickly found out that walking up a flight of stairs was hard (weighed 210lbs).  This was a huge wake up call for me, as I was just about to enter into my first collegiate coaching gig and I wanted to be fit not only as a role model, but so I could throw front toss without being attached to oxygen! Circa January 2008, my parents graciously offered to help me out with Nutrisystem and a gym membership, which completely changed my life.  I became addicted to the gym and eating healthy and lost 40lbs by June and was in the best shape of my life.  Along with my newfound body, I adopted a love for running.  This was a completely outrageous thought for me because when I was a youth my Dad used to make our family go on 20 minute runs and my little pudge nugget self would cry the entire way through.  So when my friend Lindsay asked me if I wanted to run a half marathon in February 2010 I was like sure! Little did I know that sneaky lady went ahead and signed up for the FULL BLOWN marathon in New Orleans.  So of course, I did too. And then I signed up for the NYC Marathon a few months later and officially regained my hatred for running back.  After I finished NYC my body was shot and I couldn't even run a few feet without being in pain.  I needed something new, and I was looking at some pics online of my friend Shannon Kennedy doing crossfit and thought, that looks fun.  I missed the lifting days from college and really wanted to find the "team" atmosphere I know and love again.  So there I was, in the parking lot of ACF, watching Caleb and Kevin rake leaves with no shirts on and all I thought was "this is the greatest gym ever!" So I did a trial with Caleb, couldn't breathe after a 5 minute WOD and I have never turned back. 

It has now been 8 months into crossfit and I am full blown addicted.  I have re-discovered my inner competitor that I had in college and love going in and learning something new every day.  I am entering myself in this 90 Day Challenge because I want to keep seeing gains in my training, clean up my diet, and wear a sports bra and booty shorts in a WOD (aka-improve my confidence).  I couldn't be happier to be embarking on this journey with some of my closest friends at ACF, and I am especially thankful for Shannon as we have decided to be partners in this journey.  She is going to be there to talk me off the ledge when I want to just by a whole loaf of bread and eat it, or drive to Hershey Park and swim in the chocolate vats! And I will do the same for her.  We plan to hit WODs together and encourage eachother the whole way through.

So in closing, I will be blogging my journey to you once a week and I promise it is not going to be a list of what I ate for the past 7 days.  It will simply be me updating you on my progress and hopefully giving you a chuckle or two along the way.  I am going to leave you with my goals for the 90 Day Challenge and some words of wisdom for those of you who are also involved:

Diet-Primal/Zone
Goals: To lose weight without negatively effecting my strength, achieve strict body weight movements through volume training (pull-ups, ring dips, hand stand push ups), RX Fran (don't care about time, just want it RX), Grace sub 2:30 (current time is 2:34), Deadlift of 300+
Mom's Goal:For her daughter to become more domesticated in the cooking department

Words of Wisdom: Make Good Choices.  If you wake up every day and decide to make positive choices for yourself, the rest will all fall into place.  Think of your glass as half-full (with water of course) and it will bring a world of difference to your life. Good luck and love you all <3