I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend! I was thinking of you all while I hit the hotel gym right before you started the Turkey Gobbler. It looked like there was lots of fun Thanksgiving fitness and Turkey tossing going on here in the Burgh! All of the posts and pictures made my heart smile!
We had a Thanksgiving to remember in NYC watching the Macy’s Day Parade with my In Laws and celebrating my mother in laws birthday and Makenna’s 13th birthday together!
On Thanksgiving we started reminiscing about past holidays and recalling all of the different ways that we had spent them.

In my 20’s I spent several holidays away from my family and fiance, now husband on the cruise ship. I remember being in Puerto Rico one Thanksgiving and calling my family from a payphone to talk. We were excited that they were serving “Thanksgiving dinner” on the ship and not so excited when we were presented with black bean stuffing and sweet potato pie.
Then there were a few years in Los Angeles when we couldn’t make it home and we celebrated with our Los Angeles friends and “family”.

13 Years ago I had just given birth to Makenna in LA and they let me leave the hospital a day early to celebrate Thanksgiving at home.

There were years where I hosted 40 people and cooked two turkeys
and then years where it was just a few of us and a quiet cozy Thanksgiving.
There were years with sick kids, years where we lost loved ones and years with newborns.
This year was another new way to experience Thanksgiving, one that we will always remember and one that we were blessed to be able to share with a part of our family.

The years have taught me to appreciate who and what I have in my life at the moment because there are no guarantees for the future.
Every experience holds it’s own beauty, good, bad, happy or sad, it makes us who we are and reminds us to be grateful for where we are.

We are entering the holiday season. For some it is magical time and some may be struggling. Maybe you are struggling. This can be the most wonderful time of the year but it can also be a lonely and stressful time of the year. Let’s join together to bring as much love as we can to those around us this holiday season!

Let the Countdown Begin!!!! Stay tuned for tomorrows tips on how to Reset from your “Holiday Hangover”!

ONE DAY LEFT TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THESE AWESOME BLACK FRIDAY DEALS!
Treat YOURSELF!

*10 Classes $110

*20 Classes $189

*4 Months Unlimited Classes and 2 small group weekly $155 a month

*4 Months Unlimited $105 a Month

($80 Savings)

Stay Tuned for MORE holiday specials through December!

There Will Be One Special Weekly,

Including a 7 Day New Year Reset and Partner Personal Training Specials!

It was a busy Weekend with FitHouse Activity and a great reminder of all that there is to be thankful for!!! Friday night we ended the week a MyZone MEPS party. It was 2 hours of fitness and a whole lot of FUN!!! Relay races,  musical mats, the fish game and Sand Ball Toss were a few of the highlights! We were on a mission for MEPS but turned it into a few hours of fun! 

Over the past month our members have brought in items for the boxes of love. We have some of the most generous members!  This weekend our family tied up the odds and ends and packed them up to take to the City Mission. It was so good to see the kids off their electronics and really engaged in a great cause. They kept coming up with more and more ideas of what we should add to the boxes. It’s great to know that 6 families will have a little more happiness to their holiday thanks to all of you! 

Today we ran The Run 10 Feed 10 on Peters Trail. It was a virtual run and the registration covered the cost of feeding 10 local families. Things started out a little cold but warmed up quickly and it was a great morning for all who participated. 

Lastly, tonight at midnight we wrap up The Coast to Coast MEPS Challenge. We had 34 participants from FitHouse battling it out for the past 30 Days with 6 other facilities across the country to earn activity points based on our heart rates through the MyZone system that we have.

We only have two hours to go it is safe to say we will take a strong second to a Team called The Energy Lab from California. I am so proud of our team and how they played this past month. We started out in front and then went head to head with the Energy Lab for the past two weeks. Competitions are always a lot of fun but can also be a different experience for everyone involved. These are some of my takeaways from the Coast to Coast Challenge.

 Challenges can often help you realize that you are capable of more than you ever thought, they can help you step out of your comfort zone,  or meet someone new, that is truly what it’s all about.

YOU are the only one who can determine your success!!!

As with everything in life…often you get out of it what you put into it. That factor can change an entire experience. 

This challenge motivated me to do some things that I haven’t done in awhile…bleacher workouts, outdoor runs, night time pushes and brownie eating…thanks to the Bentzs!!!

It was a reminder that getting out of my comfort zone is a great thing and there are many ways to do that. It was great to see like minded teammates on a mission, believing in each other, supporting each other and motivating one another. Things are better with a team!!!

It is an incredible thing to be able to do what we did with our bodies this past month. There are many out there who can’t. DON’T take any day for granted, don’t take a body that is healthy and strong for granted, honor the days that you have time to exercise because you CAN!!! Ignore that voice in your head that says I don’t feel like it because there will be plenty of days when life gets in the way and you really can’t. 

This weekend reminded me how grateful I am for the FitHouse Community!  We are all on different journeys but our passion to be healthy and fit, to be the best version of ourselves has brought us together. It’s not always easy to make our health and fitness a priority. We are on this mission to live our best, feel our best and have fun while we are at it!!! Being surrounded by an amazing Community makes it a lot easier. #GRATEFULFORALLOFYOU!!!

Click HERE for  eight minutes of inspiration by Inky Johnson

I had the opportunity to see Inky Johnson live this past summer and he and his story were a true inspiration. He is a tremendous speaker and leaves it all out there when he speaks. The adversity he experienced in his life has catapulted him to find his purpose and propelled him to his next level and he uses this adversity to impact thousands.

I was writing this about an hour before heading to meet a dozen or more of our MyZone Challenge Team outside in the frigid cold for a kick butt workout!  Although I was excited to get out on the field for something different I’m not going to lie I was not excited to be outside in the cold.  I am most definitely sure they weren’t jumping up and down about it either.

Then I came across this video. Timing couldn’t be more perfect for what I heard. “Sweat Equity”, that’s one of the things Inky talked about and a message that hits close to my heart. I’ve always been somewhat of a grinder…I’m not sure where it came from other than possibly it was built in the times of my life when I was told that I couldn’t achieve something, something that I really wanted. I believed that I could achieve anything if I was willing to do what it took, if I had the passion and the desire and took action. Sometimes I got faulted for grinding too much…. for having a hard time taking a break. There is no doubt life needs balance but there is also something to be said about that thing called “Sweat equity”. Sweat equity builds Spirit, it builds a certain type of mentality, it builds a certain type of individual and once you have it it’s really hard to turn it off. When life gets hard sweat equity kicks in. When my husband lost his job, sweat equity kicked in,  when my dad had his stroke sweat equity kicked in, when life gets overwhelming sweat equity kicks in.

I am surrounded daily by people with “Sweat equity”. You show up when you don’t feel like it, you build spirit, you have built a certain type of mentality and you have fallen in love with the process. I see YOU grinding and I see your “sweat equity”.  I see you making an impact through your own life on the lives around you.  Circumstances don’t  have to define our lives, we define our lives! I am grateful for “sweat equity” and for all of you who inspire me daily with your own.