Reflections from the Fitness Diva

Well folks, as we round the corner towards the tail end of another Holiday Season, I find myself looking back with great satisfaction and forward with overwhelming anticipation. How about you?

You see, I celebrate Christmas day. I celebrate due to my strong Spiritual heritage and a profound personal belief that this Holiday is Holy.

However, my experience of this holiday is gloriously unique in that not only am I celebrating Christmas, but also my 50th Birthday! Yep, fifty years ago today, I made myself known. Much to my siblings' dismay.

Why? Well, I've always been a bit of a ham and apparently my birth was as much of an 'Over the Top" opening act as I ever could have dreamed. I was overdue to the tune of three weeks and counting when I made my dramatic entrance. The story goes like this:

My mother was preparing a Christmas goose dinner for my unsuspecting family, when her water broke on the kitchen floor! An ordeal, I might add ... that my significantly older brother and sister never chose nor allowed me to ever forget.

One would think THAT, in and of itself, to be annoyingly attention getting enough of an entrance but no, clearly not nearly enough for me.

My birth took place in Yuba City, California. YEP, I can honestly say I am genuinely a California girl! However, this particular California hospital had yet to have a little tike born smack dab on Christmas day. Until that is, I CAME ALONG! No kidding. Yes, another curtain call thank you very much. Because of
this, the nurses began to call me and I quote: "their little piece of Christmas
Candy." It stuck and my parents officially placed the name 'Candace' on my birth certificate, (THANK GOODNESS I might add) and added no middle name, as to mess with the nurse's creed. I mean no offense to the "Candies" out there. 

I am still endearingly called Candy to this day by EVERYONE who knew me growing up, all of my relatives and a select few of my closest friends. From them I find it endearing. But let's be honest shall we? Cute for a little girl ... absolutely. Warming to the heart form my closest loved ones, you betcha.

But as I turn a wise and mature 50 years of age this day, Candy sounds a bit out of place don't you think? For my husband and I (who would have it NO OTHER WAY), Candace it is.

So, as I sit in my office at the end of a LONG Christmas day and Birthday
Celebration, I can't help but reflect.

Fifty huh, how do I feel about that? I can't help but look back with gratitude at  how I've become the joyful, passionate, confident, extremely fit (had to add that), blessed, exceedingly proud mother and oh so happily married, mature, fifty year old woman that sits writing to you today. I'm able to look
back with those words my friends, because a long time ago (through much study, refection and prayer), I CHOSE to renew my mind. In doing so, I made the conscious choice to live my life by forgiving, learning from my mistakes, ASKING for forgiveness myself and then moving on. Moving on that is, towards the goal to win the prize that God has set before me.

As I prepare to take a few days' hiatus and travel up to NY tomorrow to visit family and friends I suggest for all of us, THIS one thing above all else: That we forgive. For when we do, we open the door to greater opportunity, love, joy, peace and an unimaginable ABUNDANTLY BLESSED LIFE for the future.

The best definition I've ever heard for forgiveness goes like this:

"forgiveness is letting go of the hope, that the past could have been any different!"

My friends, if we can do this, we free OURSELVES from bitterness and lost dreams, I'm in!

So, as we prepare to celebrate the ringing in of yet another New Year, may I suggest  some practical applications for living our most magnificent years yet to come, no matter what our age?

1) Our time can never be better spent, than when we spend it with our family and closest friends. 

2) Take good care to exercise your body, it's the only one we're gonna get on this earth.

3)  Eat well, that you may have the energy necessary to fulfill your callings.

4) Focus on forgiveness. Both toward others and also toward ourselves.

5) Take time to LOOK UP, consider the universe and the ONE who created it
all.

6) Train your brain. Do so, that you may succeed in each and every endeavor; this from the keyboard of a PRO ATHLETE AND A FITNESS PROFESSIONAL no less. "Train the brain and the body will follow"!

In 2012, as it has been in every year past—we will more readily win our battles through the "Mind of the Matter!"

For example, want to lose weight in 2012? Figure out why you're in the position you're in, while you're getting after it. If you don't deal with this first, the chances of success (like most who lose weight in this country), will be short lived if ever realized at all.

Want to get in shape? Same holds true. Figure out what keeps you you from it now and how you can set an action plan in place to make that different in the fast approaching New Year!

I'm sure you get my drift.

Every Marathon I've ever run, every award I've every won, every goal I've ever achieved has been accomplished through looking first to the "Mind of the Matter."

I'm excited and humbled to be connecting with you all through this medium.

I am exuberantly looking forward to what we'll accomplish together in 2012.

I'll be back in a few days, so until New Year's Eve, when I'll be back with you here and on the air,

POWER ON....

Coach Candace 

CEO and Founder - Fit Is It, Inc.

www.FitIsItCardio.com

www.CandaceGrasso.BlogSpot.com