Let's get visual

A final thought about this whole fitness goal thing.

Discovering and writing down the right fitness goal gives us direction and motivation. It can be just as inspirational to have a visual goal. Find a picture of yourself, friend, a celebrity, your hairdresser, the dry cleaning lady – anyone! -- that totally motivates you to stick with the program. Every time you have that double-stuffed Oreo in your hand, you can look at the picture. You just can’t help but think to yourself, “I want to look like THAT. I CAN look like that.” Then you graciously hand the Oreo over to your husband.

My younger years were filled with a lot of poundage, so I don’t have an arsenal of “I wish I still looked like that” pictures filling the scrapbooks. Except for the one photo taken when I was in my bathing suit walking on the edge of the Colorado River. My father swears up and down that was when I was “at my best” (his exact words). I was eleven. I’m not joking.

When I first started working out 12 years ago, my trainer had me go through this process and I immediately knew who my fitness inspiration would be. You probably don’t even remember her and I have no idea what she is doing these days. Karen Voight. Oh yes, Karen brought me back to the gym and running bleachers many a day. I’d borrow my friend’s Shape magazine—we were too poor for our own subscription – and each month Karen Voight was a model for workout clothing for Nordstrom (another place I was and am too poor to step foot into). I have saved her pictures over the past eleven years…

From Collage

Gorgeous.

Moving onto today. I have a new inspiration; however I think I’m old enough to be her mother. Oh well, she’s the Athleta fitness model – the one who has graced the cover of the Athleta catalog month after month. Athleta sells high end workout clothing (another company that doesn’t get much business from me). However, I love drooling over the clothes and getting inspired by their fitness models. This model in particular reminds me of what I’m working towards:

From Collages

If finding inspiration from a celebrity, it is wise to choose someone who has a similar body type to yours. For instance, if you have some booty, some muscles under there somewhere, and have always been a little, shall we say, thicker – then why rip a photo out of People magazine of Angelina Jolie’s skin and bones to post on your fridge? Heck, I don’t even think she’s ever opened a refrigerator – the girl needs to eat. The purpose is not to starve ourselves until we are red carpet worthy, but to just have a visual picture posted somewhere where you will see it (on the fridge) in order to keep to focused on your fitness goals.