Meet the Blogger

It's launch week here at Abs & Anchors and I decided to kick it off with a week of posts sharing my story, favorite workouts, and a few other goodies that you don't want to miss. We're going to start the launch off with a "meet the blogger" post. If you already know a little bit about me, then this post will explain why I've started another blog. If we're just meeting for the first time, then this post will explain a little bit more about who I am!

Hello and welcome to my brand new health and fitness blog! Now that you've found me, I'm going to consider us friends, which means you can call me Pam from here on out.

I could give you my entire back story - where I was born, what I did as a kid, and so much more but instead I'm going to give you my health and fitness background since that's what this blog is focused on.

I was very active as a kid - always bouncing from one activity to another. I spent several years of my life as an active gymnast, competing and everything. We had a trampoline in our backyard and it was often overused. On the weekends, my sister and I liked to bike up to the air base exchange or one of the nearby parks. We were literally always moving.

Then middle and high school came and our movement slowed down some. We were still pretty active, but it wasn't as consistent. Our gymnast days were behind us, the trampoline had given out, and bikes were eventually replaced with cars. We were still active, but not as consistent. Academics took the forefront for a while as I pursued scholarships to make my teaching dream a reality.

All of my hard work in my studies paid off and I was able to attend college without going in debt. College brought new obstacles and even less movement than high school. Let's just say that I'd always been naturally skinny and didn't realize that nutrition and physical activity were important.

Life and your habits catch up to you though. Sometime after college, I started to pack on the pounds. I wasn't unhappy about my weight or my life. It took some hard work but I eventually made my dream of teaching a reality. I discovered a new level of activity with teaching and some of those extra pounds came off on their own. I honestly didn't think anything of it.

Then, I met a boy (at a bar of all places...not my usual hang out at all). And this boy turned out to be the one. He also turned out to be in the military and moved across the country to California. After a year of long distance (during which time I started Hodge Podge Moments), I packed up and moved to California. (Oh yeah - we also got engaged and married in there!)

This is when I embarked on a new leg of my health and fitness journey. You see, the husband was stationed on a  boat that was gone most of the year. This meant that I spent a lot of our first two years of marriage alone in a new place. I needed distractions and things to do. This is when fitness (and as a result nutrition) came into my life and I fell in love with being active again.

I'll be sharing exactly how I got started and how badly I failed on the blog tomorrow. I hope you'll check back for the next part of my story!

As I mentioned above, this is launch week here at Abs & Anchors. As a small thank you for checking out the blog, I've put together a launch week goodie pack filled with some of the health and fitness printables I've made over the past two years. There are meal planners, trackers, goal setting worksheets, and even a coloring page included in this pack. So, before you go, don't forget to grab your launch week goodie pack!