When I was in the 8th grade, I would constantly purchase magazines looking for the newest trends in fashion, makeup, and food. The first Seventeen magazine I purchased had Zendaya on the cover and I was elated to learn about what new skincare products I should buy next.

In the middle of the magazine, there was a piece of cardstock paper attached with a bikini body boot camp workout. Immediately, I was intrigued by the fact you could workout at the comfort of your home and get results like the models on the magazine (the lovely mindset of a 12-year-old!). I tried the workout and got bored and stopped after the first repetition because I was bored and I didn’t think it was going to give me the immediate results I wanted.Then I saw more workouts and started collecting the ones I received from each issue.

Before I knew it, I was doing at-home bodyweight exercises 3-4 times a week. This was only the beginning of my fitness journey.

Even though I never saw visible results from these small workouts, I loved the feeling of consistency and the ability to have control of your body and the way you want to change it. Convenience was another thing I adored about these workouts because you could do them anytime and anywhere and find results within consistency. I wanted to find something else I could stick to, and before I knew it, I was running six days a week. The way a runner’s high felt after a brisk run through the neighborhood made me feel like I was invincible. I soon found that it was addicting falling into a pattern where I saw results and felt changes in my body because I was finally taking care of myself.

The beauty of fitness is you don’t have to be near a gym to get a killer workout. There are multiple options and muscle groups you can work on, which makes the variety endless. Over the course of six years, I have tried almost anything and everything regarding fitness because I wanted to test my body’s strength, flexibility, and endurance. Sometimes I only did weight training, or bodyweight focused exercises.

I’m not a size 0, but I have strong legs that make me proud every time I put on skinny jeans. I don’t have the most toned body, but there’s a little bit of a difference that makes me want to work harder every day. Fitness keeps me distracted from all the ups and downs in life while being a major stress reliever. It keeps me down to earth when the world is turning upside down (which is what it’s doing most of the time).

If it weren’t for that issue of Seventeen magazine, I don’t know what I would be doing right now.

I think about if my motivation would still be the same, or if my body would look different if I did an exercise for a prolonged period of time or if I rarely worked out. When these aspects come to mind, I become grateful for all the workouts I’ve done and the effort I’ve put in because they shaped me into who I am today, which makes me pretty darn happy.