“I am who I am and that is all that I will ever be” -Shay-lon

So I have decided to update my “about me” since life has changed a bit since graduating and now I have new goals in mind (somewhat) and not to mention I feel like I want to make this more formal than the first one. To begin with my name is Shay-lon, most people feel more comfortable calling me Shay and that is fine by me as long as you know “Shay” isn’t my full first name. In the beginning I was in school for exercise science and graduating in May and well it is May and I have graduated in exercise science! I am going to continue my education for another year (fingers crossed) it won’t take longer than this in exercise science. Then.. I will go where life takes me.  I reside in Ohio and have been residing here for the majority of my life up until after my ninth grade year when I had moved to Texas for 2 years then moved to Colorado for another 4 years then coming back to Ohio to the same town I have grown up in. I don’t like this town so I will be moving to a larger city once my education is finally through.  I am going to be certified in personal training by the end of this summer if not sooner than this is my hopes and I will be my own contractor and work inside a gym possibly.. depending on the situation and how well it works around college. I will be taking the ACSM certification, since I already have all the books I need to study for it. 

My first taste of fitness and health came at a young age, I have always been one to play sports and want to stay productive. I started playing sports from the time I could walk all the way to college and sometime beyond that (I play summer and fall league softball right now).  My major in college wasn’t always exercise science, previous to this, my major was physical therapy and I was dead set this was want I wanted to do. Well during my college years it became very stressful because I wasn’t accepted into the program due to me being 5- however many points off and it seemed like I wasted 2 years waiting to be accepted (bummer) but I always knew I needed a plan B for when I didn’t make it in. I researched other majors that seemed to be of interest but one stood out to me the most because of the classes and at that time I was in an “unhealthy” stage in my life. What I mean by this is I had gained weight to the point where it was very saddening and I was throwing myself away. I weighed 175 and was very unhappy with myself but didn’t want to do anything about it until my family mentioned it and helped me to realize how different I was.  It was also because of exercise science I decided to hop on a more healthy way of life and did what I needed to do, lose weight. I lost 25 pounds in about a month.. and was set on changing my eating and exercising more often than I had. I struggled with diets, fads, cardio vs weight training, what I wanted my ideal body to be, and how I was going to get there, and constantly found myself comparing my body to other females. I had a real issue with who I was inside and outside and it was plain to see at times that I wasn’t happy; because I didn’t know who I was and what made me happy. 

When I started the exercise science program,  I was working two jobs and it was fairly stressful because I was so exhausted most days and other days I was in a bad mood because of my jobs. Class was my escape besides home because what we did in class really opened my eyes to what it means to be “fit” and healthy” and dedicating my life to my studies also made it easier to dedicate time to my physique. During these classes, I was actually working out and lifting weights, it took ONE class for me to realize who I wanted to be and what made me happy, it took ONE class for me to decide how I wanted to live my life and who I wanted to surround myself with (not saying I was with the wrong crowd) but hanging with like-minded fitness individuals was a bonus! From then on, I was all about fitness and health and I found myself making it my everyday conversation and being more and more engaged in class discussions and feeling more and more confident in my major and myself. I went from going to the gym every once in a while to going to the gym 3-4 days a week to now I go pretty much 5 days a week in the mornings and Saturday morning CrossFit class if I am off work then add softball season and my days are very productive and busy. 

I started blogging sometime in December due to my professor bringing it to my attention and sharing with me how to go about presenting myself to the community so that I am able to bring in clients, revenue, and stand out. This particular professor really pushed me to believe in my capabilities and strive for more so that I can deliver more information, have more experience and gain more perspective and achieve more success.  To be honest, he made me want to work twice as hard to make twice as much of an impression on the world and he knew my goals and why but he wanted to make sure I focused on getting there, I thank him for all he has invested in me and I am thankful for what I have learned in all his classes, and emails. My blogs are a replica of what I want to teach, discuss, share and give to people & how I plan on training my own clients.  As of now, I currently blog on 3 sites and share them on all my social media sites (facebook, twitter, instagram, google plus, etc) and I have one blogging site currently with Adsense to make a bit of profit on the side. It is hard work and can be time consuming but I love blogging because I love networking and sharing what I know with all of you. This summer, hopefully sometime in May or beginning of June I will start making YouTube videos that discuss my blogs, fitness/health and I might have some randomness in there so be on the look out. I also am hoping to have a book published by the end of this year or at least started so that I can reach more people and make a name for myself locally and build myself within the fitness industry. I will continue blogging and right now I signed up to blog for “Livestrong” and signed up to be an affiliate for Amazon just to see what it can do for me and how it can help me in the long term. I am still learning about blogging and what makes a good blog a good read.  

With all this being said, I will bullet point some random facts/information about me so that you know the tidbits and any questions you may for me, you can leave me a comment or email me. 

• I have two siblings
• I am 24 years old (March 22nd)
• I do IIFYM
• I meal plan
• I squat 200 lbs 
• my bench press sucks lol
• I love weight training and hate cardio 
• I prefer HIIT when it doubt, try it out
• I am not a huge fan of TRX because I am awkward when I use it but I like that it is versatile 
• I graduated with honors, deans list and have 3 letters of recommendations (one being from the Dean)
• I like wine over beer anyday
• I am very sarcastic and comical
• I love to dance and used to sing when I took it more seriously
• Never been out of the country
• I weigh myself hardly ever but last time I checked I was around 150
• I am 5″8
• I LOVE talking fitness/health
• I eat food & love it
• I spend too much money
• The majority of my closet is fitness apparel
• Personal trainer in the making, coming soon to a town near you
• I love helping people feel good about who they are and reaching goals
• I am kinda nerdy sometimes
• I don’t like fast food but I love eating at pubs, local restaurants, etc
• I am single <— this really shouldn’t matter but some people like to know.. 
• I like what I like 😉 
• Not a huge chocolate fan.. 
• I love to cook
• Yes that is a recent picture of me.. like so recent it was taken maybe 5 days ago
• I am kinda a badass but no one knows this yet.. kinda a secret I am sharing with all of you
• I drink water.. and hate it lol
• Supplements are cool. I take aminos and will be starting whey protein soon and I take some recovery supplements
• I did my clinical hours at an University as a strength and conditioning aid and got a shirt that says “strength and conditioning coach” or something like that..?
• Once I am certified .. I will be available to take on clients without the chance of being being sued lol
• Went to my first Arnold classic this year [amazing experience]
• I am starting up my cleanse again in June.
• I love my followers, all of you Rock! 
• the closest thing to me as a best friend is my bed 🙂 [ I love my friends though] ❤

Okay so I think that is enough for now but I am more than okay with all of you asking me questions about me or about my blogs or whatever comes to mind. Thanks for reading about me! 

 

Shay-lon xoxo

 

This is another popular question among people who are just starting off in the fitness scope of things and want to “build” muscle and be able to look the part. Now assuming this question is true and life was just this easy, as a personal trainer I could tell my clients “lift weights and you will have bigger muscles” and the problem is solved but because life doesn’t work this way, lifting weights builds muscles depending on how you are going about lifting the weights. What this means is: hypertrophy, strength and endurance. Remember these three words because they are very important from this blog post on.  Not a whole lot of people know what any of these words mean or how to build muscle the correct way using these terms and this is why I see so many people plateau or do exercises and strain their muscles, injuries, no sense of proper reps and sets, over-train their bodies and wonder why they don’t see the results they want to see.  Well, because of this, I am here to help you so you have a better understanding of lifting weights to gain muscle and explain what these three terms mean in the fitness industry.

Deciding whether a client or yourself will get “bigger” muscles depends on: genetics, gender and training intensity. 

Genetics meaning muscle fiber types: fast twitch, and slow twitch.  Fast twitch muscle fibers will have an easier time gaining muscle than the slow twitch ( I will tell you what each of these mean)

Gender, males normally acquire larger muscles than females (this doesn’t mean females cannot have large muscle because female bodybuilders are perfect example of large muscles but men typically will always have larger muscles)

Training intensity is one thing you can control and can help determine how big your muscles do get. This is where I will talk about the terms

• Hypertrophy: The enlargement of an organ or tissue from the increase in size of its cells. What this means is to build muscle mass, you have to work on hypertrophy first. If one wants to work on hypertrophy they should be doing at least 80 percent of their 1RM (1 repetition maximum).  For untrained clients or those of you who are not conditioned, you should start off at 60 percent because this could be your 1RM; but to know for sure, you need to test your 1RM and then figure out what is 80 percent of this. I will make a blog post explaining how to find your 1RM.

 

 

So I realize I need to be celebrating my graduation but doesn’t mean I won’t post something fitness/health wise. Especially since I have an extra minute and it isn’t being spent productively. This will be something that all of you can read and comment on for when I am gone today. The topic of discussion is “What is the best way to lose fat”?

Now while this seems like a simple question that comes with a simple answer, people still til this day want to know how to lose fat the best way possible. Now we have some obvious answers like exercise and eating “healthy” but I think using those as an answer is lazy in sense that people want details and already know the obvious. I am going to discuss with you in my opinion the best ways to lose fat and will be the more efficient way in losing fat so that you lose it the right way and are safe losing it and not doing things that are not recommended by specialist. To begin with, why do people want to lose fat? what is the reason for wanting to lose fat? is it because you want to lose weight, do you want your percent of body fat reduced? are you uncomfortable with your body? was it the scale that told you to do so? are you competing? are you an athlete? are you on the verge of either getting diabetes or another disease/condition? peer pressure? perception of yourself when you look into a mirror? & then ask yourself how quickly do you want to lose this fat, within a week, month, years, days, hours? because by answering all these questions for yourself.. you can create a goal and follow it. 

Fat/Lipids are one of those things that most people are grossed out by and want nothing to do with, but did you know we need some fat, we can’t not have fat at all because things could malfunction and we could get sickly if we don’t take care of our bodies appropriately, now I do realize some people have hardly any body fat but I want to hope that is because they have muscle because if they don’t have either one.. this will cause significant health issues in the long term. Fat doesn’t have to be a “bad” thing if you know the difference between good fat and bad fat and know more in depth where you feel on your body could benefit from losing the fat.  Most people find themselves wanting to lose fat around their midsection but others have fat under their arms, thighs, butts, back fat, etc. All these places on the body have an order of importance because some places on the body are okay to have more or less fat.   Down below I will bullet the answers for your question:

What is the best way to lose fat?

• There is NO best way to lose fat.

 

Today is my GRADUATION! I know some of you already know but just in case someone was born yesterday, now you know. lol

I am very proud of myself and how far I have come and the success I have had in college. I know this is only the beginning.  I appreciate all of you whom have wished me a congratulations, I appreciate it. I will definitely have a post about what my plans are after this weekend and will get back to fitness/health talk as well. I just wanted people to know you are more than welcome to add me on social media & if anyone has questions while I am away from the computer, leave me a message and I will get back with you ASAP:) 

I just want to say I GRADUATED one more time! 

Shay-lon xoxo

P.S to anyone who is also graduating (young or old) congrats to you as well and I wish you a very amazing celebration with your loved ones!

This is an off the topic post because I wanted something to talk about that had to do with my own life and give you all some insight into my world, somewhat. I will continue writing about fitness and health but this was just something random to talk about because every once in a while I like to surprise my readers with something that isn’t necessarily fitness oriented. Everyone has a life outside of their blogging topics and I want my readers to connect with me on multiple levels and not just one. So as most of you know I graduate Friday May 6th in Exercise Science and I am very excited about all my achievements and very ready to start a new chapter in life no matter the path .. (but I will speak on this after graduation) be on the look out. I just feel like this whole month of May is bringing so much at me at once, not only do I graduate Friday but it is also my grandmother’s birthday that day and it is mother’s day (I don’t have kids) but I do have a mom.. and while my head has been spinning about over my anxiousness and eagerness to graduate, I have forgotten other people’s celebrations. If it wasn’t for a good friend of mine reminding me, I would have forgotten it was mother’s day weekend and probably would have slipped my mind that it would be my grandma’s birthday.. and I feel horrible because I want to celebrate their day as well as mine.  

I decided a while ago.. last minute that instead of attending my graduation ceremony that I would instead have a graduation dinner with both family and friends and while some of you may judge my choice to not attend a one time ceremony celebrating my graduating and achievements; it was a very difficult decision. I will be honest in saying that I was very late in preparing for this day and I didn’t allow people enough time to get the day off properly or even give my family a far enough heads up that I didn’t feel it would be right to pressure them to all show up to my graduation that takes place 45 minutes away. This means I will not be wearing a cap and gown or taking pictures on stage with my graduating class and not shaking the hand of the dean and vice president of the college. I hold myself accountable for these mistakes I made in preparing for this particular day and have chosen and slightly less selfish choice in honor of other people’s day. I am not sad nor upset with my choice but after having a professor try to talk me into going, and having people ask me why 100x over, I have decided to blog about it to get my irritations out of the way. First of all this is for my associates degree, so in my opinion it isn’t the last time I will be in school and hopefully graduating and while an associates degree is just as good, I don’t feel like it means much to me personally. In all honesty, if I had partied and cared less about my peers, I would have graduated with a BA in 2014 or 2015 but I chose a different route in life and was handed my own consequences & not to mention changed my major twice while attending college and probably wasted a fun amount of money.. who knows. 

Instead of getting a dress, shoes, waxed, nails done and accessories for a graduation ceremony.. I got all this done for Fridays dinner with my loved ones and close peers. I am still celebrating my own achievement but at the same time I am celebrating my journey forward.. and I have 2-3 letters of recommendations that professors and the Dean have written out to me. I am most proud of myself and how far I have come to end up at this point in my life where I have to make big decisions that determine my future. Chances are I will work harder than I have before, continue down this path where I know where I am going & how I am getting there. Sometimes I may get lost or be unprepared and end up regretting my decisions.. but other times.. I enjoy the wind blowing me in a direction of the unknown. I know this was quite a serious blog post, but I wanted to make sure I was open about why I chose to not attend my graduation ceremony; something tells me the next graduation I have .. I will attend it because then I will know how hard it was to finally get there and not worry about who is there with me. Thank you to all my readers who have been nothing but supportive!

Sincerely,

Your Fitness blogger Shay-lon xoxo

P.S

Only one person from my graduating class (of exercise science) chose to walk in the graduation ceremony.. so I don’t feel so bad that I am not the only one.