For those of you who don’t know, my name is Mack and I’ve been behind the Blue Lion blog for the past few posts. The reason I’m introducing myself is because this post is about fitness as a lifestyle, something I have been implementing in my every day life for some time now, and something I have been inspired to do because of my mom.

All my life I’ve been involved in athletics. I was lucky enough to get recruited out of high school to play division one field hockey at the University of Iowa in 2014. After deciding to leave and venturing back to Michigan to continue my schooling (a story you can read about on my personal blog), I lost my way a little in terms of not having a sport to rely on for my daily workout. During the summer of 2015, my mom discovered Blue Lion and knew that after me raving so much about loving the lifting I did through field hockey at Iowa that I would love what this gym was all about, and boy she couldn’t have been more right. Before I get into how fitness became a lifestyle for me, let me introduce my mom.

Leslie, as many of you might know her, is the woman behind Seq Fit, which has been the most recent edition to the Blue Lion Fitness class schedule. She has always had a passion for fitness, and it absolutely shows in the way she teaches. When I asked her to tell me about choosing fitness as lifestyle, she said, “there has never been a day where I’ve regretted working out. It has always been a constant in my life that has never let me down.” She stressed that she couldn’t imagine her life without it, and that, “there are so many good things that come from working out besides just the health benefits.” The one thing she said that stuck with me, and has obviously continued to inspire me as I make fitness a lifestyle, is this: “throughout my life, I’ve gotten satisfaction, strength, and confidence through working out that has carried over into just about every other aspect of my every day life.”

Now, let’s get an obvious fact out of the way: dragging yourself to the gym early in the morning, or after a long day at work is not easy, and in fact is usually ridiculously difficult. But if we’re being honest with ourselves, once we get there, knowing we got that workout in makes the rest of the day, or the rest of the evening, that much better. Choosing fitness as a lifestyle has been one of the best decisions I’ve made in terms of my life. I get so much joy out of pushing myself to hit new PR’s, and getting my sweat session in for the day makes me feel like I can reward myself more often by enjoying a cookie after dinner every now and then. Like my mom said, the confidence and strength I have gained in the gym has carried over into more aspects of my life than I could have ever imagined. I feel like I can take on more tasks, I push myself to try more new things, and for those of you who know me and how shy I can be sometimes, I’ve absolutely become more outgoing and talkative. I can’t stress enough how much just taking one hour out of your day to workout can change so many little aspects of your life that will start to add up to an amazing, all around transformation. Feeling happier and healthier after each lift is definitely a good start, and something I wish upon every one of you Lion Chasers. Keep up the hard work around the gym!