Childhood Dreams Defined My Future

When we’re young we have big dreams. We have plans and goals and sometimes we make decisions that affect our lives years later based on those dreams of youth. At one point I wanted to be like Janet Jackson.

 She was the only strong, beautiful, and talented African American woman I really looked up to (let’s face it Whoopi Goldberg was awesome but she wasn’t a role model for girls in middle school). I stayed up late one night, way past the time my mother had told me to go to bed, so that I could watch Janet Jackson on tour. It was glorious. I found her captivating. She was beautiful, she could dance, and she could sing, all things I dreamed of being able to do. During one of the interviews they asked her about how she stayed so fit and she talked about how she did 75 sit-ups every single day. Every day! No matter what happened, or where she was, she carved out time in her super busy schedule to do 75 sit-ups. So, in true pre-teen mental fashion, I decided I wanted to be awesome like her and the way to get there was through sit-ups. I knew I had a ways to go when it came to fitness, so instead of 75 sit-ups a day, I would do 100. For years I kept up that habit. I wasn’t always consistent with a daily practice but I was pretty consistent in doing 100 sit-ups multiple times per week. I even developed some abs. I didn’t have Janet’s rocking ab definition but I did have 2 ab muscles that were clearly defined, nestled right under my breasts. Years later, when I lost the habit and started gaining weight, I still had definition of those two muscles. I don’t have them anymore. I lost sight of my goals for a while and gained a bunch of weight, seriously, it took tons of weight gain before those muscles disappeared. But something I find even more interesting is how that one choice has affected so much of my life. I’m 32 and even now when I’m needing to burn some energy or craving a nice work out, my first thoughts are still “Oooooo sit-ups! Must do sit-ups…” 

Which has all lead me to my current passion for health, nutrition, and fitness. However, that's a topic for another day. I think I'll go do some sit-ups now...