A long awaited blog...

I guess I should start with a quick introduction. My name is Nicole, I'm 25, & I'm from NY. In April 2011 I decided that I needed to change my life. I was unhappy with how i looked, the people in my life, and any other depressing thing you could think of. I'm Italian so of course our lives are revolved around food. I was always taught to finish everything on your plate and never to waste food. When ever I was happy or sad I knew I could rely on food to be there. It was the one thing I could control...but i didn't realize I was not in control, food was. Food is there for one reason: survival. We don't realize that food can be an addiction. People with addictions such as drugs or alcohol can simply remove themselves from situations that would influences them to keep up their addiction. But where can you go when you are addicted to food? No where. You need food to survive. You can not live without it and that is what makes this addiction serious.
Ok let's get back on track here, there is no magic get start plan. I have told myself numerous times in the past "ok tomorrow is the day I start" and then I don't. You have to be mentally ready to make a change and for everyone that reason to change is different. For me it was a broken heart and $300 (I'll get to that later). When you find that reason hold on for dear life because that's the fire that will spark a new you! Everyone asked how I did it, and as much as I don't want to admit it was a crazy insane diet (supervised by doctors). Enter in $300 dollars, but that money made me do it because I wasn't going to waste that money and not get results. The place was called Medi weight loss (google it) they pretty much restart your whole outlook on food and help you stay on track with weekly visits. After the 1st month I lost weight but still haven't stepped into a gym, I needed to start exercising. I found an amazing outdoor bootcamp that I instantly became obsessed with. I started to see even better results. At the beginning of the summer I heard about Spartan Race and that it was coming to my hometown. I wanted to, no needed to, do this. I stayed up til 3am one night watching videos of races and thought how I would feel if I did this. A few weeks later my aunt told me about a training classes for the spartan race that she was doing because she already signed up for the race. I then signed up for the race and did that class. It was hard and intense but I felt confident because of my prior bootcamps. I was obsessed with it. I continued to do the bootcamps to prepare for the race and in september I completed my first Spartan Race(an 8mile obstacle course) I cried when I crossed that finished line. I felt so accomplished. How many people can actually say they have done that? I've never been so proud of myself.
So fast forward to now. I have a trainer and continue to do bootcamps and other classes. Unfortunetly my local Medi has closed down so, I've been recalculating my diet, I luckily remained the same during the holidays thanks to my workouts but now I need to make a new game plan. I intended to use this blog to share my wins and fails (hopefully more wins) I have a lot of goals for 2012, such as numerous obstacle course races including The Spartan Beast (a 12 mile obstacle course on a ski mountain in Vermont). These goals will keep my going and hopefully inspire you to make a change. Get off the couch and join me in a race. Thank you for listening to my story and I hope you'll come back and check out what else I have to say.

Stuff I Mentioned in this Blog:
Spartan Race
Medi Weight Loss
Breaking Free Outdoor Bootcamp
Spartan Training NY