My Journey
For a long time, fitness felt like something other people understood.
When I thought about fitness, I thought about gyms, weights, workout programs, and organized sports. I wasn’t involved in sports growing up, and I never really learned how to use a gym. Because of that, the whole fitness environment felt intimidating to me.
What I did know was that I enjoyed being outside.
I enjoyed walking. I enjoyed riding my bike. I enjoyed being in nature. I enjoyed exploring. I just didn’t think of those things as fitness.
Discovering the Outdoors
One day, I participated in a Metro Parks challenge where the goal was to visit each of the local parks and hike at least part of a trail. You got to decide how far you wanted to go. There wasn’t pressure to compete or perform. You simply showed up and walked.
Somewhere along the way, I realized I wasn’t just completing a challenge. I had found something I genuinely loved.
I loved being outdoors.
I loved walking.
I loved exploring new trails.
For the first time, movement didn’t feel like something I had to force myself to do.
As I continued walking, something else happened. I began to see fitness differently. Instead of trying to make myself fit into a gym environment, I started learning how fitness could support my walking and hiking goals.
Walking was the doorway
Then, after my mother passed away, my brother and I began building a closer relationship. One of the things we started doing together was working out in the gym.
At first, I was uncomfortable. I still didn’t really understand how to use weights, and like many women, I worried that lifting weights would somehow make me look masculine.
One day my brother said something that completely changed how I thought about it.
He said, “It takes work for a guy to look like a guy.”
Something about that statement clicked for me. It helped me realize that strength, muscle, and physical transformation don’t happen by accident. They are the result of consistent effort over time. That simple conversation helped me let go of a fear that had been holding me back. Instead of seeing weights as something to avoid, I began seeing them as tools that could help me build strength, support my walking and hiking goals, and take better care of my body.
Fitness stopped being the destination and became a tool.
Walking was the doorway.
Small Steps to Big Adventures
What started with short walks and local park trails eventually led me to backpacking the Appalachian Trail and walking the Honolulu marathon.
Looking back, none of that happened because I suddenly became motivated one day. It happened because I kept taking small steps consistently over time.
That is the foundation of Walking Wellness.
Sharing the Journey
Today, I enjoy both outdoor movement and gym-based fitness, and I understand that everyone begins from a different place.
Some people feel comfortable in a gym. Some people feel comfortable outdoors. Some people are just trying to take their first walk around the block.
My goal is not to push people into a specific type of exercise.
My goal is to help them find a starting point that works for them and build from there.
You don’t have to start where someone else is.
You don’t have to have everything figured out.
You don’t have to be perfect.
You simply have to begin where you are.
