So today I am your guest blogger! My name is Molly Ritterbeck and I blog over at Miss Molly and I am so blessed to be writing as a guest today!

What I am going to talk about today is motivation. What motivates you? Let me tell you about what motivates me!

I am a working mother who has two beautiful daughters and a husband that serves in the military - that is enough stress in itself isn’t it? Well let me tell you with the bills that come with kids and life in general and job changes to boot I was getting stressed. My tension headaches, anxiety, and sore shoulders (my stress goes straight to my shoulders) I just didn’t know what to do. I was also starting to really lose myself in taking care of everything and everyone else that I was kind of fighting off some depression.  I didn’t want to turn to medicine and I knew if I went to a doctor that is what I would get.

My husband told me I needed to get active and change my diet - but I was never going to something because I was told - I needed to do it for myself. I had friends who went back and forth with new diet fads (meal plans, pills, prescription pills, etc) and I saw how they aged, fought self confidence issues, and more. I didn’t want to be like that. Being a gymnast for over 8 years I thought I was still in shape despite no doing anything for a long time….so I decided one day to run a 5K with NO training. Not one of my brightest moments. I paid for that for a couple days after.

As I was sitting in pain one of the days after I was mad. I was mad that I couldn’t do it. I was mad that Nick finished in 21 minutes and came back and ran half of it with me again. I didn’t need his help to finish. I didn’t want his help to finish ever again. I was going to do this.  I started running little by little and building distance. I found friends to do it with me. I joined a running club. People were motivating me who didn’t even know me. I was not the best but they didn’t care at all. They thought it was awesome to do what I could and so did I. 

I also started to notice the pain in my shoulders was gone, the anxiety was gone, and the headaches were gone. I had energy and could get more accomplished in the day. I was happier and was eating better. I was becoming what I had wanted and it was all because I didn’t want to be beaten. My motivation was to not be beaten. 

I only had one moment of doubt and that was when my friends started to notice that I was losing weight and asked about it. Since I do not weigh myself very often at all (the gymnast in me swore I would never worry about a scale again), I had no clue - and I honestly said I didn’t think I had lost much so I couldn’t tell them. One of my friends stopped and looked at me and said “Well what’s the point if you aren’t losing weight?” I stopped in my tracks. Wow - what was the point I thought. The best part is - it only lasted a moment and I was able to say “The point is I feel better, and I now know I can do anything I put my mind to.”

I was mad at my friend for asking such a shallow question, but at the same time I was glad that I could answer her with the right answer and not a shallow one. 

My motivation is myself and my family. It will never be to get to a number on the scale, but maybe to fit in my jeans better. It will never be to in the “in crowd” and be skinny because lets be real - strong is the new skinny. I will be strong for myself and my family.