How I Learned to Love Training Hard (And Actually Look Forward to Leg Day)

Confession: I used to skip gym class, and tear workouts out of magazines I could never get myself to actually do. But now? Training hard is one of my favorite parts of my day — and it's not because of how it makes me look. 

In this episode I'm walking through how my mindset around exercise completely changed: why "I choose to" beats "I have to," why chasing numbers in the gym instead of the scale changes everything, and why I started treating leg day as something to look forward to instead of something to survive. And ironically, it made my body change and improved my body composition SO much more. This one's part gym talk, part mindset work, and pretty much exactly how I'd explain this to a friend. 

Y'all know I like to go in-depth with the details and education on topics like this (so it actually makes sense + is simple for you to apply and see results), so I put all my advice + what I've learned over the years about building muscle while minimizing excess body fat, and put it in a Lean Building Guide. Free to download, because I will never gate-keep this info from the women who value strong > skinny 💪🏼

Download it here: https://lainijojo.com/lean-building-guide 


Love you ladies, now go do something your future self will thank you for. 

Transcript

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Welcome back to Her Revival. I'm your host, Lainey Gibson, and we talk all things fitness, nutrition, mindset, personal growth, all the stuff that I'm obsessed with and such a nerd over, and just wanted to find other women who love this kind of stuff too. Today is a topic that I absolutely love. My clients now love talking about. Y'all, if you did not know this, my degree is in exercise science, health, and human performance. Was an in-person trainer for a while, online fitness and nutrition coach for a while. I love training. I love exercise. I love the gym. I did not use to. And especially if you have any physical goals that you are wanting to work towards, um, you might know it's really hard to do so if you don't actually enjoy going to do the workouts and actually giving your best effort to the workouts to give your body the stimulus that it needs to change your body. So I want to talk about how to actually love the gym and love training and not just love training, but love training hard because that's something that I honestly never thought that I would say. I was literally the girl who hated gym class when we had units where we had to run or do weightlifting. I would skip. I would full-on skip. Or me and my other friends would be like, oh, we got like our period, we can't work out. And the teacher would be like, Oh, yeah, that's fine. And we would just like sit there and never did any sports. And now here we are. I would literally, no, I wouldn't spend my entire day working out. That's a lie. But I would work out, do some kind of physical activity. I do do some kind of physical physical activity every single day. Sometimes it's a walk, it's a stretch, but I love it. I love it, I love it, I love it. And I never thought I would say that. So whether you are someone who's like, girl, you are crazy, how do you love that? I could never be me. I said the same thing. Or if you love it too, like we can we can nerd out over it together. And if you're someone who maybe you work out consistently, but you have a hard time really pushing yourself, or maybe you go, but you're just doing it because you have to and not because you love it. I really want to help change your perspective here. So I took a couple of notes. Y'all know me. I'm very, I'm like type A B. I'm organized, but not obsessively organized, if that makes sense. So I took some notes to make sure we could stay on track with everything. But I first of all, like I I love working out, like I said. And I love the physical progress that comes from it, not just the aesthetic part, but I would be lying if I say I didn't love that. I literally did bodybuilding for a while. I still train like that largely, just because I think the human body is beautiful. That is what got me into my degree and my career path in general. I thought the human body and anatomy, physiology, biology, biomechanics, it's just so fascinating. The body's so cool, y'all. And I thought it was super fun to learn about it, but then to be able to see the physical changes, be able to see your delts grow and like see that muscle more is so cool. Or to be able to train a certain way, to be able to get your glutes to grow or your quads to grow or to see more of your abdominal muscles. Like it's just so cool. I'm just such a nerd over it. It's so fun. But outside of just that, the mental benefit of being able to do that, and I don't just mean where people say the gym is therapy and like, yeah, it totally is. But the person that you become when you consistently exercise and consistently train hard is infinitely better than the version of you who skips it because it's challenging or you don't feel like it sometimes. But I I want to just make sure I can be so clear. I have days and weeks and seasons where I don't feel like it. I don't always feel like working out. I don't always feel like going to do my workout. And most of the time I still go do it because I say those days where you don't feel like it, those days count twice. They count two times as much as the days that you feel like it. Cause it's easy to go when you feel like it. It's easy to push hard when you feel like it. But the days that you don't feel like it, those are the days where if you skip, number one, you don't see the physical and performance progress that you want. But number two, you're proof, you're giving yourself proof, your brain proof that you are someone who can't follow through, who can't do things when you don't feel like it, who can't do things that are hard. That's not just affecting your fitness journey. That's affecting every other area of your life. Point blank, period. Like giving your brain the proof that you can't do something challenging because it is objectively hard to go and lift weights and get on that dang leg press if it's leg day and load up the weight and go to a point where you're like, I don't know if I can get another rep and you still push for another one. That's really, really hard. And if you can do that when you don't feel like it, that is gonna give you so much more confidence and belief and trust in yourself in any other area of your life that is hard. Because I guarantee there's gonna be so many hard things, way harder than getting yourself to go to the gym, might I add. So many hard things that you have to go to in life. And going to the gym when you don't feel like it, and going to the gym and still giving the best effort that you have to give that day, that is gonna build your character and your resilience and your grit. And that is gonna help you in every other area and season of your life. You will never convince me of that otherwise, because I have seen that play out in my life. I would not be where I'm at today if I hadn't built the things that I built in the gym, mental and character-wise. And I guess a little bit physical-wise, because my job is like physical training, all that kind of stuff too. But like the person that I became is because of going into the gym and literally building her the way that I built my body. So the days that I don't feel like it, the times that I don't feel like it, I don't love those. I wish that I always felt like going. But the thing that I will say helps me on those days is saying I choose to. Like I'm so big about the words that I pick. Even in the Bible, it talks about it so much where the tongue has the power of life and death. Like your words are so powerful. And if you say, I have to go to the gym, I have to, you don't want to, you're not choosing to. You have to. You're forced to. You don't have an option. That doesn't sound fun. That doesn't sound like good to me. So I have to. Or if you're talking, you're out to dinner with somebody and you're like eating, you're choosing to eat healthier, you're you're focusing on your goals and your health. So you're getting something a little bit healthier, and you're like, oh, I have to. I'm on a diet. I can't have that. They're gonna be like, are you okay? Like, is someone forcing you to do this? What's wrong? No, you're choosing to. You are choosing to do it. It's not I want to go to the gym today. Maybe I don't want to, but I'm choosing to go to the gym today, especially because of the self-love and the self-respect that comes from that. Not this, I'm having to force myself and this sucks and I'm punishing myself, kind of mindset that I used to have. I'm choosing to go to the gym, even though I don't feel like going to do leg day. I'm choosing to go do it. Again, little caveat. If I'm like real down bad, I'm like, maybe it's a rest day, maybe I swap my leg day for upper body, maybe I just stretch and do core. I don't know. Sometimes that happens, but most of the time I'm going to choose to follow through and just use that discernment to decide when my body actually literally needs a little bit more of a rest. But you are building so much more than just your muscles and your body when you still show up and when you're consistent with that. And I want to kind of walk you guys through how my mindset has changed over the years when it comes to working out, especially if you're at any other points within this to kind of show like you can get to a spot that you really love it and not only actually love it, because it's fun to enjoy exercise. It's fun to enjoy doing all of that. But your body, your physical progress, your body's capabilities, your strength progress, that is all gonna get so much better and come so much easier when you actually enjoy it. It is very easy for me to maintain the body that I have. It took me a long time to get here, and it's not like I got here overnight. It took a lot of time building muscle and getting to this point, but it's easy for me to maintain it now because I, because of the mindset that I have, quite frankly, when it comes to training, not only with the consistency, but the intensity and the effort that I bring to the workouts that I do have and the intention that I bring to those because it's so fun for me. So when I first started getting into working out it, or when I first started wanting to get into working out, I was in high school, it was maybe a junior sophomore, and I'd never played sports before. And I had like no muscle. I was skinny fat for sure. Because I had no muscle. And I would see other girls who like they played sports and they had muscle. And uh, I was like, well, I should, I should work out because that's like how you get there. I understood that as much. But I would find my workouts on Pinterest or I think it was 17 Magazine is what I would always. One of those, 17 magazine, I think is what it was. And they'd have this goofy little, goofy little workouts where it's do 30 seconds of, you know, arm circles and then a fire hydrant, just body weight, and that's gonna tone and shape your muscles. And I totally believed it because I didn't know anything otherwise. And I would rip those out anytime that there would be a new workout in the magazines. I'd rip it out. And I remember I had this by this little folder, and I organized it by muscle group. And I don't think I ever did a single one, maybe one. I kept this folder for maybe two years, and I never did them because I couldn't get myself to do it. Because my mindset with it was like, this is not fun, this is not enjoyable, I have to do this. And it I could not get myself to do it. Like my mindset was just not there. My why by reasoning was not strong. I'd never played sports, I never really had to force myself to do things that I didn't want to do. So I didn't have the mental ability to get myself to do that. And it didn't feel good. Being so for like it really didn't feel good. And if there's anything as I've gone through my life, whether it was that or when my relationship with food was really, really bad and it did not feel good, I was like, I refuse to keep myself stuck in this. When I was struggling with just trying to figure out on my entrepreneurial journey, I was like, I refuse to let myself stay stuck in this. This feels really bad. And I want to figure out how to be able to accomplish the things that I want and give myself the results and give myself my best. So I need to find a way to overcome this. And the first place that I learned to do that was through exercise, was through getting consistent with exercise. And then I could apply that to helping myself with my relationship with food. I could apply that to with school and with entrepreneurial endeavors and my relationship and other things of that nature. But the gym is where I learned that. Like there's so much personal growth and development that comes from that. And it wasn't even the gym, it was working out at home. Let me correct myself. I didn't work out in the gym for a while because I was very intimidated. So I would had ripped out the little magazine thingies, and then I heard all about the cardio because that's what all of us women are told. Just do a ton of cardio and you just keep your dream body, which is totally not how it works. Uh, don't, don't worry. I tried, I tried that for a lot of years. It doesn't work like that, unfortunately. Actually, fortunately, it's not fun to make yourself do a ton of cardio. But and I would like go for runs, I would do the elliptical in my parents' basement, I would do just a bunch of cardio because I didn't want to. I just thought I had to. And it wasn't enjoyable. It was hard to be consistent, and it wasn't fun. And it just felt like punishment. And like I said, especially because I'd never played sports, I never had to get myself to physically do hard things. It was really unenjoyable at first. I just knew that exercise was something I was supposed to do. Like my mom didn't work out a ton, but I would see her sometimes do workout things in the living room and I would see it in magazines. Like I just understood that exercise was something you were supposed to do. And I was just really trying to find a way to be consistent and enjoy and see results from it. So I just kind of kept trying. And eventually I got into doing body weight circuits, like HIT workouts. I don't know if y'all know who Sarah's day was, but I followed her for a while. Um Loki had not great relationship with food and exercise in my body because of the stuff I would see from content like that, but that's a story for another thing. Um, but yeah, I would do stuff like that. Not what I would recommend by any means, a ton of hit workouts. But what I did love from those, and what it made me actually start to enjoy from working out, was the feeling of really pushing myself and enjoying it. Like that was really, that was different. That was someone like her and other people I followed uh on social media. It was like YouTube at the time, Instagram. I think it was a thing, but it like I didn't really use it. But YouTube I loved. Like I fight these couple of fitness YouTubers, but I would follow these people, mostly like bodyweight circuits or things like that, and they would do hit and they would push themselves, or they would do sprints, or they'd do a bunch of burpees and jump squats. And I just thought that was so cool that they could really push themselves to the point where they were like exhausted, and you could tell that they could like barely finish it, and they were like panting and their face was red and they were out of breath, and they're just like smiling afterwards, and they loved it, and they were like doing it with other people, and it was like this fun thing. And I was like, I want that. That looks super fun, and that's what made me really just get interested in like I want to be able to push myself more. I want to enjoy pushing myself, I want to figure out how to do that. And granted, I first was getting into that for the wrong reasons of wanting to be skinny or lose weight, whatever it was. And that's why I was wanting to like really push, but then that kind of helped change my mindset of she just looks like she is having so much enjoyment out of this. Like that's crazy. And it like the physical goal results are awesome when someone's really pushing themselves. Like I was putting that together. I was like, people really push themselves and they look good. Like the people that are really pushing themselves in the gym, not only or their workouts, not only do they look great, they have like the abs or the toned legs or arms that I want, but they really love it. Like it's fun for them. It's like I want that. So I started doing that with my workouts, with the HIT workouts. And then I was like, okay, I'm like kind of seeing a little bit of change because I went from not working out to do, of course, I'm gonna see some change. And then I literally wasn't seeing a whole lot of change. And I was still kind of confused, didn't understand the nutrition thing. That was also a piece of it. I did that for a little bit and then I found weightlifting. And I found weightlifting because funny enough, when I was skipping the weightlifting units in gym class uh in high school, we had to do one in college and I got on the pin loaded leg press, and it was probably like 40 or 60 pounds. Like it really wasn't that heavy at all. And I do like whatever a set of it, and I was like, this is so cool. Like this is so fun. Like I could feel my muscles working and they were like burning, but I was like kept pushing. I was like, this is fun. Like I actually love this. This is crazy. And I thought I was gonna hate it. This is so fun. I was so scared walking into that weight room, mind you. So I literally went up to the biggest dude that I knew. And I was like, Can you can I work out with you? Can you teach me how to lift? So I would literally go with him to the gym, whatever time he said, whatever workout he was doing, absolutely no clue what was going on. And I would just had the best time ever. It was so fun. Like we had great conversations, but he was teaching me how to do the form. We were total bros. It was the best time. And then I just remember because we would do the same workouts for a while, and then we would change and do a different workout. So I was able to focus on getting the form right. And that was really gratifying to figure out how to do the form right. And I could feel the muscle. And he's like, Yeah, good job. And then I could get stronger and I could add more weight. And I remember front squats were super fun to get strong at, bench press. Remember the first time I got an arm pump, and that was the coolest feeling ever. It was just fun to be a total newbie and just learn and just be like a kid in the gym. It was like Disneyland. It was so cool. And I just got to get better and I loved where it would be like really hard. And he would say, You got this, you got this, you know, get two more. You come on, keep going. And it felt amazing to be able to think that I was someone who, when I first started doing those little circuit workouts, I couldn't do a burpee. I not even like a push-up burpee, but like a burpee, let alone the pushup burpee. Like I could not push myself back up. I didn't have the strength. Or I would tip try to do skater lunges with my mom and my legs would give out before hers would. And I was like, wait, I'm younger. I'm supposed to be more active and fitter than her. What the heck? And for me to be able to now be squatting all this weight, and I mean, it wasn't anything crazy, but like squatting all this weight, doing Spider-Man decline push-ups, doing pull-ups. It was so fun. Just because the goal was never about how I looked. I actually didn't have any physical goals when I was doing it. I saw, I saw changes, but it was just so fun to push myself. And then with running, I got more into running, not because before I was doing it to burn calories. Let's just be so for real. I was doing it to burn calories because I thought I had to. And then I got into it because I loved the feeling of being able, especially sprinting. Like I like sprinting, is what I found out. I don't like long distance running, I like sprinting to push yourself so hard to get to the point where your legs are burning and you're like, I can't feel them anymore. And I'm huffing and my lugs and puffing and my lungs are burning. And I don't know if I can keep going, but I got 15 more seconds. So can I keep going? Or I got this other list last little bit of the lap around the track. Like, can I do it? Can I go faster? Can I push myself more? And the feeling of being able to do that is so euphoric. Like the runner's highlight, the euphoria that you get from it of being able to push your body to what you think is its limit and mentally where your limit is and to keep going is the best feeling ever. As someone who could not get herself to do things that she was that she struggled with or couldn't feel like doing or was bad at, to be able to choose to go do something hard, to choose to go do something where it's your brain is telling you to stop and you keep going. I don't even know if I have the the words to explain what it feels like. Like it feels so good. So anytime someone tells me they don't like working out or they don't push themselves hard, it's like, I just I beg that you try. I beg that you try because the feeling of how good it is, you are going to be so grateful that you did. And then, of course, if you're pushing that hard, if you're giving yourself that kind of effort, that's what truly gives your body the stimulus to change the best and the fastest. And I'm not saying like run yourself into the ground, make sure we can recover and everything, but that's what's going to change your body so much. And that mindset shift of not just doing it for the physical goals. I think that's what helps so much. If people are getting into the gym, they're like, well, I have to because I don't like how my body looks, or I have to because my doctor says I have to lose weight. I have to because of XYZ. And it's just for the physical, maybe the health, but a lot of times it's the physical. And we just, we know we should, we know that's what's gonna make our arms look more toned and our stomach flatter, blah, blah, blah, butt percure, whatever. Yeah, that's gonna happen if you work out and you build some muscle. But if you're just doing it for that, that's often not a very strong why. So when you don't feel like going or when it's uncomfortable, it's really hard to get yourself to keep going and pushing through. But if you are doing it for the mental, not just the physical, of being able to push yourself, of being able to do hard things, of being able to say, I don't want to be somebody who can't do hard things. I don't want to be somebody where when it feels hard, I quit. Because I've been that person and I don't like being that person. It doesn't feel good because I know that I have all these big goals that I wouldn't even let myself say out loud, let alone really like tell anybody or think, because I didn't trust myself that I could do it. Because accomplishing a big goal is going to require you to do really hard things that's really uncomfortable and go against probably everything that you think or know about yourself, because you have to change, you have to do things that are difficult and different to get a different outcome. And I wouldn't let myself dream big because I couldn't even trust myself in the small things of doing things that were challenging, especially when I didn't feel like it or when it was uncomfortable. And I didn't want to be like that anymore. So I when I'm going to the gym, yeah, it's for physical goals. Again, I train hypertrophy style, like bodybuilding style for most of what I do. It's to have a physical goal. But when I'm doing my workouts, when I'm in my set, like the the physical goal helps me select the exercises and it helps me understand, like I do need to push hard. But when I'm actually doing the exercise, it's just the mental, it's the skill component. It's getting good at something that I was previously bad at. It's getting my body to do something and progress and get better and do something where I look back a few months ago. It's like I couldn't even have touched that weight before. And now I just did it for reps. I was terrified of that doing that exercise. And now I own that exercise. Like the mindset stuff that goes into it, it feels so amazing. I hope that you guys can feel that with how I'm talking about this. So if you're someone who has a hard time going or pushing yourself, doing challenging things, the I hope that it's making it sound exciting the same way as when I saw those girls on YouTube and they're having so much fun with it. I was like, I want that. I want that feeling. And of course, I want the physical results, but I want that feeling. That's what you're going for. That's what you're working towards. So the other thing that I think is so helpful is especially a lot of times as women, we chase a number on the scale. We chase being smaller, we chase the physical, but especially the numbers, right? We chase a number on the scale, we chase the number on our clothes. And that's what we're doing it for because not the no fault of our own. That's what diet culture told us. Diet culture absolutely sucks. Y'all know I hate diet culture. I'll say that with my chest. It sucks. But diet culture taught us to focus on the scale, to focus on the size of our clothes. And if we're chasing that, it makes it really hard to do to enjoy the process and do the right thing. That's what I've seen time and time again for myself and the clients that I've worked with. So if We instead of chasing numbers on the scale, we chase numbers in the gym. Number one, you're going to push harder, you're going to get stronger, you are going to see better physical progress, but you're going to actually enjoy the process because your goal is to get stronger, is to progress, to get better, not to just get smaller and get skinnier. But because you're pushing harder, because you're instead of just saying, oh, I'm only going because like I want to look better, maybe we're kind of half-assing the exercise. Maybe we're just stopping because the rep range sets to, maybe because we're just stopping because it's starting to burn a little bit. We're saying, no, I'm going until I can't. I'm going until I got eight last time. I'm getting nine this time. I don't care how it feels. I'm taking extra breath between them if I need to, I'm getting nine. And we're chasing that. That's giving your body a way better stimulus to change. But the mindset benefits that come from that is gonna make it, it's gonna be so addicting. Maybe that's the word. It's addicting because it feels so good. You're like, I want to keep doing that. And it's like a healthy addiction, right? It's one of the only healthy addictions that we could probably have. But it feels so good to be able to do that. And then being able to kind of with that is we're seeing the gym and exercise as skills to get better at. So when I'm going to do an RDL, for example, or if you're going to do a squat or a leg press, most movements are pretty technical to do them properly, to actually use the right muscle, have proper tempo, proper form, proper range of motion, proper intensity. It's a lot of skills to be able to, number one, just the neuromuscular component of coordinating your brain to talk to your muscles, to get them to contract and all of it to coordinate at the same time. That's a skill. And then to be able to brace your core and hinge and then pause and then squeeze your glutes to pull you up. And like there's for the RDLs I'm talking about, there's a lot of skills involved in it. So when I'm doing an exercise, I'm not just thinking of, oh, I'm doing this to grow my glutes. Yeah, I am. But that's not the first thing I'm focusing on. It's the skill of being able to get really freaking good at doing the RDL and then get really freaking strong and still have really good forming control over the weight and then keep trying to progress and just seeing how strong I can get in it. If I'm focusing on that and it's a skill that I want to get good at, or maybe it's a Bulgarian squit squat. We love to hate those. It's a skill. That's a very technical exercise to be able to do and get good at and actually do properly because a lot of people don't. To get good at that skill of it feels so good. And then especially if there's an exercise that you are terrified of or it's really hard and you kind of avoid what I would what I would tell myself is I'm gonna make this exercise my biage. Um, I'm gonna make it my biage. For a while, that was actually Bulgarian split squats. I got real strong, real strong at those. I loved those because they sucked and I avoided them and I hated them. Then I said, this is silly, and I'm I'm hating an exercise that it's making me feel bad. It's a freaking exercise. I mentally want to be able to overcome this. So I'm gonna do it until I get really good at it. I'm gonna let myself be bad. It's okay to be bad. It's a skill. I'm just a kid at this. I'm new at it. If you go into it like I'm just new and it's okay for me to be bad, and I'm just learning and trying, it just frees so much pressure. I'm just saying, it frees so much pressure. So I would say, I'm really bad at this. I'm gonna focus on the skill to get good at it. And then each week my goal is just to get a little bit better. It doesn't have to be perfect, just a little bit better. And then you master the exercise. You get really good at doing it, and now you can get really strong at it. And that feels amazing. That's like why I was saying when I could finally do push-ups, I would bust out push-ups all the time. We do an exercise, and then I'm like, oh, while I'm resting while my trading partner's going, let me do some decline Spider-Man push-ups because they're freaking fun. Let me do some pull-ups because I could never do pull-ups and now I can do pull-ups. So I want to do pull-ups now. It's just fun because to be able to think of it as a skill to be able to do. That's the key for anything in life. Everything is a collection of little skills, and you focus on the little skills, and that's how you get better. I think that's what Alex Hermosy talks about. It's so true. Everything is just little bits of skills that you're putting together and you can focus on those and you can be humble enough to say it's okay if I'm bad at it. I'm actually okay. And that's the other thing. The gym teaches you it's okay to be bad at things. It's okay to be new at things. It's okay to be a beginner. It's okay to get it wrong. It's okay to fail. It's a great place to fail. If you're hitting failure, that means you're trying hard. I was actually just talking with a client about this last week. And we were talking about, hey, we we were really working on our training intensity. You're you're very, very far away from failure. Your body's capable of a lot more of where you're stopping. And she said, I'm just, I don't want people to see me struggle. And I said, Oh, girl, the gym is a place where it is very admirable to see someone struggle and fail. If someone hits failure on an exercise, they are pushing themselves hard. If someone never hits failure on an exercise, they just like fling the leg extension around, they get up, pop up. Yeah, that's not impressive. Like, I love that you're there. Let me, I love that you are there. But what's really, really, really impressive is someone who is going to failure, who is really strolling those last couple of reps because they are, it's mentally hard when their body's telling them to stop and they keep going. And they're able to push towards that. And that's obviously what is going to cause more muscle growth and cause more progress for that person. That's really admirable if someone is doing that. You see someone doing that, you freaking clap for good freaking job. Maybe don't do that. Cause then they're like, Why are you watching me? But in your head, good frickin' job, right? We want to be able to fail in the gym. We want to struggle in the gym. We want to work hard in the gym. The amount of times that I have had random people come up to me and just say, I see how hard you trained. That was a good set, or you've got great form, whatever. Good set. That feels so good. Cause I used to not. I used to not. It feels good, not gonna lie. When people say that, you're like, that feels really good because those were skills that I worked really hard on. That feels so good. That I would say feels better than the physical because the worth and the whole reason, like, yeah, the physical is part of it. It's a benefit, but the mental is the biggest thing that I'm focused on and knowing that I put in that effort mentally and physically to get to that point, that's what's really gratifying. Not just looking a certain way, because that's pretty, that that's pretty empty, not gonna lie. Focus on the mental aspect of it, focus on just the getting better part of it. And you're gonna be so satisfied regardless of where the physical part is at. If you're at the goal, if you're not, if you're just starting, and then just being excited to show up. Something, something I wanted to just confess here, because I think this is gonna help some people, is I have always up until maybe the past year or two, I've always hated leg day. Hated it. And I would say I hate leg day, and I would think I hate leg day, and I would skip leg day. And partially I think because of my spinal injury that acupuncture is actually helping a lot with with the nerve innervation, because I have some injury stuff going on, but because I would skip leg day and because I wouldn't want to push myself hard, or I would maybe skip like the squats or the leg press and just do like the leg extensions, the hamstring curls, like the booty stuff. I don't have the biggest legs. Not that I need massive legs, but I would love for them to have more muscle. So I'm I'm a little behind compared to how long I've been lifting because I never pushed that hard, or I never was consistent with it because I kept saying I hate leg day. And the reason I hated leg day is because it's hard. Leg day is the hardest thing to train because your legs are big muscles and it's really heavy weight that we have to use. Going to failure on a shoulder press ain't got nothing on going to failure on a hack squat or a leg press. That doesn't feel good. It just doesn't feel good. It feels good, but it doesn't feel good. You know what I mean? So I would skip it because I was so focused on just how unenjoyable it felt to be bad at it and to physically be struggling uh so bad with it. And I got to the point where I was self-conscious about my legs, let's just call it what it was. And I said, I'm doing this to myself. And Loki, I'm sick of this. I'm sick of my own crap. So I'm going to do something about it. So I told myself that I'm looking forward to leg days. I changed my wording, my mindset. It's not that I love leg days. I'm not gaslighting myself because if you say it but you don't believe it, it doesn't change anything. That's not how the subconscious mind works. So I wasn't gonna lie to myself because I wasn't gonna work and say, I love leg days. No, I'm looking forward to it. Because every leg day I had, where I actually did the compounds, I actually pushed really hard, and I did the movements that I had been avoiding, and I just did it. Every workout that I did was getting me one workout closer to having more toned, muscular, strong legs like I wanted and not struggling with leg days. Every workout was me getting closer to that. And every workout that I kind of sandbagged or skipped was me holding myself back from it. And that's how I viewed it. I'm looking forward to it because it's getting me closer to my goal. And I knew if I really pushed myself and I got stronger and I got good at the movements, I was getting a step closer to not only the physical goals, but actually enjoying it. Because the same thing with the pull-ups, it was enjoyable when I had done it consistently and I was good at it. I was strong enough to do it. And I saw the physical progress from it. I enjoyed it at that point. So I was like the same thing for my leg days. It's like, okay, well, now the whole thing is just us showing up and just doing the hard thing, changing our mindset with it, and we keep doing that, and that makes us that makes it suck less. That makes us dislike it less. That makes us actually look forward to it. If you, if you hate, if you say you hate it, if you don't enjoy it because it's hard, change that thought process. Change the way that you think about it. Say you're looking forward to it because you want to be someone that enjoys it and is good at it and gets the results from it, and you're looking forward to it. Because when you get that workout done with, you're one step closer to the thing that you want. When you skip that workout or you sandbag that workout, you are just holding yourself back and you're gonna stay stuck and feeling like I want this, but I'm not giving myself it. And that feels really bad, like we talked about. And you deserve to give yourself your best. You deserve to give yourself better. So we're gonna give yourself better. I think this also ties into the other thing I was gonna talk about. It's with Pilates. So different. But I started doing Pilates recently, and especially if it's like the Legris or the Reformer or even the Matt one, and you're just freaking pulsing for forever and it burns, and your brain is trying to tell you stop, or even with the weightlifting, whatever it is, or the running, your brain trying to tell you to stop. I think it's really enjoyable to keep pushing. And then for me to look around the class of other people, I can just tell my experience of it is very different than some other people with a weight room or at the Pilates or whatever it is, because when it's really hard, I it sucks. Don't get me wrong, it's painful, it sucks. But I love that. I don't like when it's not hard. I don't want the entire thing, but I want some parts to be hard because the mental feeling of that feels so good. So I'm when it gets to that point, I'm excited and I'm like, I got this. I'm gonna hold out until she says stop and rest. I'm gonna keep going. I'm gonna keep going. Oh my gosh, I don't know if I can keep going. You got this, you got this, you got this. Oh my gosh, it's another, I don't know, I don't know how much longer we got, but lame, you got this. And I'm like coaching myself through it. And it's so it's so fun. It's so fun because I choose to have that mindset. And then there's maybe some other girls in the gym in the in the class or the gym, and they don't have the same mindset and they're like stopping because it got hard, not because they could anymore, because it got hard, and you could tell that they're like, this sucks, or they're like frustrated, or it's not fun. And it's like, girl, I just want to like give you my mindset with this because this could be so fun, so fun to challenge yourself physically because you're challenging yourself mentally and you're getting the best of both worlds of benefits for both of those. So I just want to and I hope this is kind of a little bit of just a mindset chit-chat about all this. If I'm being honest, a little bit. If you're still listening, hopefully you're like resonator getting something from this. But this is just something I talk about with my clients, I talk about with my friends, I talk about my husband and I talk about this all the time. He's a professional bodybuilder, y'all know. And we just I love when women especially can use a gym as a way to not only get stronger physically, but just stronger mentally and be able to just really work on themselves physically and mentally. The mental part I'm so big on, and we don't see the gym like that. And having discipline, being able to push yourself, that is the ultimate form of self-respect and self-love. I say that with your fitness journey, but consistency and pushing hard specifically in the gym is this ultimate source of self-respect and self-love because it's objectively challenging and painful and hard, and you want to stop, and your brain is telling you to stop because it's hard. And you, you guys know, like I've talked about this before, but your brain wants to stop anything that's uncomfortable, anything that's new, anything that's challenging, because it just wants to stay where it's easy and comfortable and predictable. So for you to go against that, like it feels scary to your brain, but then you get through that and you get over it, and your brain realizes, oh my gosh, I was actually capable of this. And it expands your capacity. And it expands your capacity with what you think you're capable of physically and everything else else outside of it. And I really just can't stress that enough. The gym, and then working on that relationship with food too, but we're talking about the gym here. The gym is one of the best ways that you can build self-discipline and be able to build self-trust and build grit and build resilience that you need if you are going to accomplish anything great in life. And I can just even think of like just doing really, really hard things and enduring that. I have so much more trust in myself to endure hard things, whether it's mental or physical, because I've have so much undeniable proof stacked up from all of the physical, the workouts that I've done with that. When I'm gonna be honest, I'm a little nervous for when I have a kid and I give birth. That sounds real traumatizing. But I'm like, I can do it. I can do it because I've done hard things. I've freaking died on that dang leg press. I can push a baby out. It's gonna hurt way more than that. But like, I can do it. You know what I mean? Like there's this things in life, like life is freaking hard. We gotta do a lot of hard things. But if you can not only build your body into something that you feel so confident in, so strong in, and people look at you and they're like, dang, she's disciplined, she's committed, she works hard, she's strong. That's what it looks like when someone has a strong, toned fit body. That's what you're seeing. You're seeing what it what it takes mentally to achieve that physically. And you can't tell me that that is not gonna give you, help you give yourself a better life. It's and you can't tell me that it's not going to, because I've experienced that. I know it does. So if there's anything that you take from this episode, it's that anytime you go and do some kind of hard workout, whether it's cardio, whether it's weightlifting, whether it's Pilates, I don't know, whatever it is, whatever floats your boat. I think it's weightlifting for anybody that listens to this because that's that's what I talk about the most. And that's kind of like what I always show. But I pray that when you go into those workouts, that you focus on the mental component of it, that you focus on being able to push yourself, that you focus on being able to get to that point where your brain is telling you, stop. That's enough. That's really uncomfortable. And you seek that. You you keep going until you find the hard reps, until you find that spot, that threshold, that ceiling of if you stop, you stay the same. And if you keep pushing, that's where you grow, that growth outside of your comfort zone. I pray that the next time that you go and do some kind of workout, that's what you're searching for. And you, when you get there, that you are so dang proud of yourself, that you experience the euphoric feeling that you get from doing that, and that you carry that into all the other workouts that you do. Because not only is that gonna give you an incredible physique and strong, fit, fast, like whatever you're applying that to, like it's gonna help your progress with it. But the woman that you become that can do that, that's that's gonna be your favorite part. That is. So that's all I have for you guys this week. Not a whole lot of science in that. I feel like maybe we do a science-based episode next week. I don't know. Let me let me know if you guys have anything that you guys want to talk about specifically. But I love you. And I think that it's only fair that when I say go do something that your future self will thank you for, that you apply what we just talked about to your next workout. Because your future self, ain't no way she's not gonna thank you for that. But I love you guys, and I'll see you in the next one. Bye, y'all.