Member Spotlight: Angie

Angie started at Gifford Fitness through our 2021 Winter Kickstart. Over the past year, Angie’s made significant strides in her health and fitness. Old aches and pains have disappeared and she’s able and ready to take on physical activity and adventures outside the gym at a moment's notice!

Q: What brought you to Gifford Fitness?

A: Before Gifford Fitness I had been active at other gyms and did running on and off throughout my entire life. I felt like I was working really hard and spending a lot of time but I never really stayed with anything because I became bored, lacked motivation, and didn't see results. I often had a lot of joint and muscle pain for days following a short 2 to 3 mile run/walk.

I felt like my health was OK but not great. I was watching my parents and other friends and family battle various preventable health conditions, some very serious. I decided I don't want that for myself and that I needed to do more to take charge of my health and fitness.

Q: Was there a moment where you decided that you needed a change?

A: Following a traumatic experience that really had nothing to do with my health or fitness, I had a crystal clear moment where I realized that I needed to let go of some of the stresses in my life and focus on doing this for me.

Q: What was your first impression of the gym?

A: Before I joined Kickstart, my daughter had been training regularly for several months in the teens program. Through her experience and my own, I felt a sense of family/community and that the gym was a no-judgment zone. I felt full support from the coaches and other members and felt that they were able to meet me where I was at.

All of this has only grown stronger over the last year.

Q: What was your first big personal achievement at the gym?

A: My two most memorable achievements so far were getting my first box jumps and showing up one Saturday last fall and running a 10K with one of my Kickstart buddies, Missy.

Box jumps for me were so hard and took so long for me to get. I knew physically, I was capable of doing them but it was a mental challenge. Once I was able to overcome my fear, the box jumps finally happened. Now I'm working on increasing height whenever they come up in a workout.

The 10K run day was huge for me. I had never run that far. I think back to when I ran my first 5K (before CrossFit), I trained for months just to do that. Now I feel like because the gym is a part of my regular routine, on any given day I could show up and run a 10K or do lots of other hard things that I thought I could never do.

Q: What are you working on now at the gym? Where is your focus?

A: I'm working on consistency; attending four to six days a week, showing up and working hard at every class.

I'm trying to fit in more strength days than I did in the past. I don't have any real weight goals in mind, I just want to continue to improve my overall strength, fitness, and health.

Q: When you’ve hit bumps in your normal workout routine what’s driven you to keep going to classes?

A: I've had a lot of things going on in my life that, in the past, would have been used as excuses not to attend. Now they are motivating factors. I'm driven to keep going because it's one hour out of my day that is mine, where I am able to focus on nothing else but the workout.

I know what working out regularly means for my physical health and also my mental health.

I know that I have full support from every coach. They meet me where I'm at and help me personalize the workouts to my level of ability and still make it challenging.

The Gifford Fitness community is also a huge motivating factor. I've grown to love all my GiffyFit buddies for their support, camaraderie, and friendship. I miss them if I'm not able to make it to the gym for a day or two.

Q: If you could go back in time one year, to just after you started, what would you tell the Angie of one year ago?

A: "This is going to be hard, but you will be OK and it will be worth every moment of blood, sweat and tears" (I've had all three).

Q: What would you tell the version of Angie before she started?

A: "You should've done this a long time ago!”

March 10th, 2022