I first met my friend, Christine, during my first year in law school. We sat next to each other in Civil Procedure, my LEAST favorite subject of all time. I don’t remember how exactly we started talking, but I do remember that when we did, we could hardly stop. We were probably known by other students as those weird girls yapping for hours in the parking lot.. because that’s exactly what we did. We’d walk over to the parking lot, fully intending to leave for the day, only to continue talking in the parking lot for at least a couple of hours before we finally left. It was just our way!

Some fun pics of me and Christine =)

One of the many things I admire about Christine is that fitness has always been a very high priority in her life. She’s always been very active, involved in every activity you can think possibly think of. And her biggest fear about growing old is losing muscle mass. So she does everything she can to maintain what she has… and she’s got a lot!

As if arm wrestling in a club didn’t fully illustrate Christine’s badassery, I’ll share with you one of the funniest memories I have of her, which incidentally also shows how hard core Christine really is.

We had just wrapped up day 1 of the bar exam and I was EXHAUSTED. We had 2 more days to go, 12 more hours of testing. And if that weren’t scary enough, my friends and I were all still feeling unprepared despite the fact that we had spent basically 50-60 hours a week for the past 3 months studying for that dang test. So, it only made sense that after a quick dinner that night we all went back to our rooms to review.

I was sitting on my bed, desperately trying to cram, and as I was cramming, Christine was swimming laps at the hotel pool. The next thing I know, I look up and she’s doing a series of pilates drills in our hotel room. I was thinking in my head… What in the world is she doing?? Doesn’t she know we still have 2 days left?? After she was done with her pilates, she wanted to get in a game of tennis with me. haha I was seriously astounded. Physical fitness is so important to Christine that she couldn’t even let a day go by without working out.. not even when those days coincide with the bar exam! Hard core!

For the majority of my life, I’ve been the complete opposite of Christine. In elementary school and junior high, I loved to play games and I guess you could say I was a pretty fit kid. When high school hit, we said goodbye to recess and with less activity, I slowly started to get “softer.” I wasn’t as fit anymore and I started to gain weight. I followed this trend for basically the next 10-15 years, until I was about to turn 29. Then one fateful night, Christine and I had one of those long, rambling parking lot conversations.

You see, I’ve always thought about getting fit and losing weight, but primarily for very superficial reasons: I want to look freakin’ hot! hahaha ok, not really. But I do want to look and feel better. I knew that getting fit and losing weight were all great things and made you healthier, but Christine brought up a point that I don’t think I’ve directly thought about, the nitty gritty bits of life… that being fit could make some things easier for us. Things like, going through pregnancy, giving birth, and even fighting off and recovering from illnesses, sometimes serious ones are easier when your body is in good condition.

I know… it was a total DUH moment.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, especially since in the short span of 2 months, I’ve managed to get sick TWICE already. When I was my most active (during my first year of running), I didn’t get sick at all. And I attribute that completely to my being more active and healthy and fit. Now that I’ve been off the band wagon for some time now, I’ve been injured and sick and injured and sick. And now, I’m dealing with some bizarre situation with my hands and my forearms (a story for another day). Things were just better when I was in good shape. Shocker, I know ;)

My family background also gives me a big reason to stay fit and healthy. We’re plagued with a myriad of medical maladies, so it’s even more important for me to maintain a healthy lifestyle. The key is prevention!

So, I guess the main point of this rambling post is that having a long, healthy, better-quality life helps motivate me to keep at it. And to help me get there, I need to channel hardcore Christine and make fitness a priority in my life!

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