We all know who they are. There are the people at the gym that might be a little chunky, but man they can lift and run just like the people at the gym with their biceps bulging out. The gym is a place where some people immediately judge you on your physical appearance, which makes it hard for some people start going to the gym in the first place. I am ashamed to admit this, but the minute I walk into the gym I catch myself judging others on how fast they are running, how much weight they are lifting, or by how defined their muscles are.

That being said, I'm not really what you would consider fit. I consider myself fit because I know the amount of time and effort I put in at the gym, but just by looking at my appearance you'd probably think I'm just another curvy girl who doesn't know what she's talking about when it comes to fitness, which isn't true at all. Sure I don't workout everyday for multiple hours, but I know the basics when it comes to training. I love going on Pinterest to find new weight routines and alternative cardio activities to try out at the gym. There's nothing better than exceeding at something you once thought was impossible.

I say this because before I went off to college I wasn't physically fit at all. Yeah I had a gym membership, but I mostly only took Zumba classes and swam in the pool. When it came to the weight and cardio room I had no idea what I was doing. I understood the logic behind cardio and weights, but I had now idea which machines worked which muscles or how much time I should be putting into each exercise. But once I moved away to college I fell in love with working out. In the winter of my freshman year I had a few sessions with a personal trainer, which is where I learned my understanding of how to do certain exercises in a sequence to work on specific parts of the body. After those few sessions I wanted to learn more, so I did some research on my own, which I continue to do, and my knowledge about fitness has grown in the past year and a half.

That being said, I haven't lost a single pound during my fitness journey. In fact, I've gained weight. Sometimes it's hard for me to accept the weight I've gained, but then I see how much my physical strength and agility has improved, which makes me feel better about the weight I've gained. Even thought I can tell I've grown a lot of muscle because of how I can lift more now than before, I still don't have huge guns like the people you see in magazines or under the #fitness tag on Instagram. So I wanted to give some encouragement to anyone in the fitness community that isn't totally ripped. Just because you don't look like some guy on the cover of Sports Illustrated doesn't mean you're not giving it your all in your workouts. My number one piece of advice when it comes to working on your fitness is to focus on your own fitness journey instead of comparing it to someone else's.