My other hobby, outside of letter writing, is lifting weights. I mean, I guess you could call it a hobby. It’s almost more of a “thing I do”, not something I’m passionate about. But I love it. My boyfriend introduced me to weight lifting when we first met, he tried to get me squatting within the first month of us dating. It wasn’t until after we moved to Rhode Island that I began to take it seriously. I can’t believe it’s been three years since I first picked up baby weights.

I have always been the type of person who hated exercising or physical activity with a passion. I always begged my mom to write me notes to get out of P.E. in school. When I broke my arm in elementary school, it was a godsend. I remember the one (and only) time that I ran the entire mile in P.E. I swore I was dying. I get absolutely nothing out of feeling exhausted. Needless to say, when my boyfriend brought up exercising, I was quick to tune him out and shut it down. I won’t do it!

JK. How quick feelings change. To be honest, I still absolutely hate exercising; I just don’t view lifting weights as exercise. Yeah, it can be difficult but I don’t run out of breath when doing it and I never feel tired. It’s nothing like running or doing some aerobic exercise. It’s just about working up your strength. You start with baby weights and move to adult weights. It’s easy in the weirdest way possible.

I encourage everyone, especially women, to lift weights. There is seriously nothing like being and feeling strong. Muscles are amazing. I flexed my bicep the other day and was in awe of how my arm has changed. Of course, my muscles are still hidden under fat because I can’t be bothered to eat like an adult. That’s also another really great thing about lifting weights, which can be summed up by a quote by Dan John that is on my gym worksheets, “When she presses an impressive weight overhead, her entire system has to gather up resources, and then adapt and recover from the effort. When little Edna at my gym thinks the five-pound dumbbell is heavy, she isn’t going to tax her body very hard. Edna can’t eat cake.”

If you lift weights, or are curious about the kinds of lifts I do, check out my Fitocracy.