There I am, in the middle of that photo! Can you see me? I'm seated at an upright bench, in the middle of the gym, in what used to be, for me, the scariest part of the gym, the part in front of the mirrors where all the Serious Weightlifters work out.
And now I lift weights alongside them, and watch my form in the mirror, and I'm actually watching my form and going "damn girl!" instead of feeling super self-conscious about my body and wishing parts of it were smaller.
Part of that is that certain parts have gotten smaller. But part of it is also that now I'm proud of the strength I've built up.
This past year, since June, I've devoted myself to learning to lift weights. (You can read the whole story in this post from last month, about why I started, how I've done it, and how it makes me feel.)
This last month, I've been devoting time to eating better, too... eating as fuel for my lifts. I'll post about that sometime this month, as it deserves its own post.