Many thanks to Lori for opening up her lovely blog to guest posters. I hope she’s having a grand time on holiday!

My name is Andra and I write the blog Love to Eat, Hate to Exercise. And I really did hate to exercise or at least I thought I did until I decided to give it a chance. When I started moving I began experiencing many of the mental and physical benefits that I had read about in women’s magazines over the years. Once I got a taste of the increased energy, mental clarity, reduced stress, amazing endorphins, increased strength, endurance and balance (did I mention amazing endorphins?) not only did I start to not hate to exercise, I actually started to look forward to it.

I began walking at home with Leslie Sansone in my living room a few times a week, graduated to walking around the block to eventually multiple mile trail walks at Kennesaw and Red Top Mountains near our home in Marietta, GA. I also added some strength training, you know the kind, going from machine to machine and don’t forget those crunches. Boring! But it was a start. Then I worked with a personal trainer for a few months and l learned about interval training with weights but a trainer is expensive so he had to go but I wanted more. I found Finding Radiance and Lori’s posts about the New Rules of Lifting for Women and my interest was peaked. I followed Lori’s progress and was utterly impressed by how strong she is. Needless to say, I bought the book and read it through. It was the first fitness book I had ever read. I read through the Stage 1 workout section again and printed off the warm ups, workouts and progress sheets. Then I re-read the book from cover to cover after I did the first two workouts. It made so much more sense once I had actually experienced the workouts as they are laid out. I can’t believe I was actually doing deadlifts with the Olympic bar and prone jack knives!

I’m just a few weeks into the program and I’ve already seen improvements in my strength and balance. Imagine what will be accomplished in 6 months! I’m really excited to take that journey. If you are fed up or bored with your current fitness program, I recommend getting a copy of the New Rules book. It’s a good read that busted so many fitness myths that I had been spoon fed over the years. The recipes look good but I haven’t had a chance to try them yet as I loaned the book to my fitness buddy. If you haven’t started to embrace exercise because you think you hate it, give it a chance. It will pay off in way that you can’t even imagine unless you experience it.

This is me on exercise…

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Thank you Andra for sharing your story with us!  New Rules Rocks!!