This is for you: whether you’ve just begun your fitness journey, are five years deep, or maybe you’ve been yearning to get yourself in the gym and into shape for some time now. I want share my number one fitness mistake that I’ve witnessed more times than I can imagine and have also made myself.

Have you ever heard someone say, “I’m obsessed with fitness!” or “I’m obsessed with being in the gym!” And somehow they’ve glorified this notion that being obsessed with fitness is the key to reaching your goal weight or desired body type. Well let me be the one to tell you that being “obsessed” with fitness is NOT healthy, and let me explain why.

The term "obsessed" is defined as "preoccupying or filling the mind of (someone/something) continually, intrusively, and to a troubling extent". So for obvious reason number one, the term and act of being obsessed is by design a negative action. Now, if these “obsessed fitness fanatics” are in fact obsessed, then their relationship with fitness is not where is should be, when ones goals is to be a happy and healthy individual.

From personal experience, and from what I have seen in the fitness industry, the beginning stages of one's fitness journey are typically the most vulnerable phase for any individual to begin developing obsessive actions. There's a lack of knowledge we posses, which plays a key foundation as to why people take an unhealthy route to being healthy. From experience, when I began my fitness journey, I absolutely fell in love with what working out and eating clean did to my body. I became so entrapped in how my body looked, I ultimately lost sight of the importance of friendships, family, school, work, having a social life, and ultimately what healthy living meant. My body become my number one focus and in reality, my fitness journey wasn’t centered around me loving my body, but it was because I loathed my body. But at the time, I had no clue I was making this huge and detrimental mistake with my health and fitness. I was on a strict low calorie/low carb diet. I tracked every single thing I ate, and every calorie I burned. I worked out twice a day for about two years, from running about 4-10 miles every morning and lifting every night in the gym. My body looked “fit” but I was so mentally and physically unhealthy and exhausted, I couldn’t even see it. I felt like I needed to always look better, never eat anything unhealthy and exercise more, more, more.

I was mentally obsessed with achieving my fitness goals, I thought it would eventually bring me happiness and confidence, but I was constantly at a loss with being unhappy and not confident. Something was missing, and when I began to stop obsessing about how I looked, and focused on how I felt internally, I found my balance. I learned to love and accept my body whatever weight and physic I’m at as long as I never gave up. I discovered that it’s truly about loving yourself internally in order to love you externally. It’s about gaining confidence in both the positive and negative aspects we feel we posses, to then accept the full beauty of who we are. To this day, I love fitness, I love being in the gym, I love challenging myself and working daily on being healthy and confident in my body. But life is far more fun with balance, eating the fun, unhealthy foods in moderation, working out the right way, not the obsessed way, and enjoying every second we can with our beloved friends and family.

The key to reaching our fitness goals is never being obsessed and counting every calorie we eat, but the key is knowledge, determination and discovering how to love ourself every step of the way. Fitness should then complement our life, not be a defining factor of every second we think, eat and breathe. Learn to love yourself first before you do anything else.