Welcome to Litsy!

I‘m really glad I read this book. I‘ve been focusing on my health and fitness goals more this year, and I‘ve been strength training 2 or 3 times a week (among other things) consistently since June. It‘s still a love/hate relationship but I‘m leaning more towards love as time wears on. When I got sick and missed a week, I was full on craving it. Seeing this book come up in my feed on IG really intrigued me and it didn‘t disappoint. Continued ⬇️

“Strength, I was beginning to understand, isn‘t about who you are when things go well, but how you respond when they don‘t.”

“In the grand scheme of things, if you only ever go places that you think you can win, you‘re gonna leave a lot of opportunities untried.”

“…lifting has taught him to face everything with tenacity and has shown him that while strength doesn‘t make you impervious to setbacks, it does help you learn how to manage them.”

“I don‘t have to quiet the voice that keeps telling me I can‘t do it… I just have to get around it for long enough to shift my focus to what I‘m going to do, rather than how I feel.”

“I wondered what it might be like to allow my body to exist for me, not for anyone else‘s idea of what a female body should be.”

“‘If femininity only depends on having muscles or not having muscles,” she says, ‘then what happens to the woman who, let‘s say, has a mastectomy? We‘ve become so inured to the Playboy centerfold image that it‘s really a slap in the face to women, because women come in all shapes and sizes. And yet so few of our images are accepted. It‘s just one narrow image that‘s accepted and it‘s not real.‘” - Carla Dunlap (Ms. Olympia, 1983)

Was feeling restless so I needed a change of pace… it‘s been a while since I‘ve headed out somewhere on my own that wasn‘t an errand or an appointment.

“…if you connect the mind to the body, your body will go further than your mind ever thought. It‘s just literally telling your mind to shut up and do it.”

“…the pressure I felt was completely self-imposed. When I competed that day, I tried to embrace the idea that no one would love me any less if I failed…”

“No matter how much you want to increase your weight in a lift in a single session, no matter how aggressively you stomp your feet in frustration, your body will simply allow for only so much progress at once. You can get angry… or you can accept that growth will come when it comes and learn to appreciate the process.”

“Those days when the results of my effort becomes tangible and I know I‘m starting to slowly master something that seemed impossible? That‘s what makes me come back for more.”

“In other words, he just does it scared.”

If you look a bit further down my posts, I quoted the last book I read with a similar line just yesterday. Two completely unrelated books; one fiction, one nonfiction. I feel like the universe is trying to tell me something…

“Something about knowing that even if I failed spectacularly, at least I could say I tried was enticing.”

“I couldn‘t explain it, but going to the gym was bringing me back to life. I walked a little taller… I could face the rest of the day with the sense of accomplishment that comes from trying something difficult and overcoming it.”

“When I signed up for a marathon despite barely being able to run a mile without stopping, I knew I would cross the finish line. I understood this meant that I might have to crawl there, but I would see it through.”

Already feeling a sort of kinship with the author. I‘m nowhere near where she is now, but she started somewhere just like I am. Just a few weeks ago it took me half an hour to finish a mile… continued in comments ⬇️

My next read is nonfiction. I saw someone post about this one on IG. I‘ve been on my own fitness journey the last few months, so I was intrigued.