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Find Your Best Workout By Ashley Centers
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hile the focus of this edition is mostly on outdoor adventures and those certainly tie in with my piece here, I was recently reminiscing with a member about when time spent in the gym or within our fitness regimen, was a point of solace in distressing periods of our lives. This current topic was at the forefront of my mind when I was asked to contribute. I do always try to write what is most close to my heart and mind about fitness in these articles. As many of you know I am the general manager of a gym, and some of you know, my fitness background started when I was a pre-teen in competitive Powerlifting. What many of you don’t know is that for 5 years I was completely out of the fitness industry and did not even step foot in a gym in that time. Due to bad food choices, too many excuses to count about why I wasn’t working out, and the stressful hectic environment of my previous career, I gained a lot of weight and even worse, a lot of health issues. Ultimately, I had allowed myself to become very unwell in the pursuit of my career goals. Nearly two years ago I went through a major health scare that brought me out of the fog of my workaholism and brought about more mindfulness to my health and well-being. I began to focus on my nutrition, started exercising again, not too long after this, the position at Anytime Fitness came available, and of course — as they say, the rest is history. What I have gratefully found within my journey is that when I come back to something I had loved and stepped away from, I truly find the very best parts of myself again. The times in my life when I was physically strong I felt mentally strong and prepared. The times when life got hard, my solace was always found in the gym or within a physical activity. For years I had found my peace and comfort in knowing and pushing my own physical limitations and when I found that again I was regretful I had allowed myself to lose it in the first place. It’s not necessarily about escapism, using the gym or your fitness to escape situations or problems, stressors, etc. Although, that can be a great way to channel the negative effects of daily life
||VIEW VIEWON ONMAGAZINE MAGAZINE||May/June May/June 2020 2020
