My Musings

I don’t often like to talk about myself because I don’t like to be the center of attention.

I’m an introvert and pretty shy at first. But once we get to know each other, you would never suspect it. Except that I don’t like large crowds or events where I don’t know people and tend to duck out as early as is socially acceptable lol.

My name is Atim Effiong, and I’m the face behind EffiFit. I’m your FitLife Architect and help you create and plan a fitness life that works best for YOU! Health and fitness isn’t a one size fits all approach, but we already know that. We all have different needs and desires. Maybe it’s to lose some weight, gain muscle, or even have more energy during the day. Those goals all have different needs.

Then we tack on your life.

Do you work full-time? Do you take care of our future generations (kiddos)? Do you travel a lot? I see a lot of programs where there’s an assumption that we live in a vacuum so it should work assuming you have nothing else to do or any other priorities in life. I’ve gotten pretty fed up with that approach. The all or nothing. The good person vs bad person based on how much you weigh, if you worked out, or if you had a plate full of raw veggies. See the fitness industry thrives on self-doubt, shame, guilt, and negative self talk.

Just look at some of the titles of popular magazines or even workout names (gah). The fitness industry says if we can continue to convince people to hate themselves and their bodies, they’ll keep coming back until they achieve the perfect body that we’ve defined for them. Except there is no perfect body and guilt and shame is the fastest way to quit working on yourself. I could go on and on. You’ll hear more of my rants.

So having been active my whole life (thanks to my oldest sister Nsa that made fitness fun and slightly painful from a young age) from sports to the gym to fitness classes to Crossfit, I’ve seen a lot of trends.

I grew a love for it. Studying exercise science and nutrition opened my eyes to a lot more too. While I learned a lot from my degree, I also learned a lot about shaming and guilting people. It was very calorie counting focused and an emphasis on how much you’d have to run if you ate 10 skittles. I used to thrive on that. Thinking this is the way that I’ll be able to be fit and skinny and still eat what I want. If the unicorn frap from Starbucks was all over your feed about how many calories it is and such and such, only a few years ago, I’d been on that wagon too yelling from my ivory tower guilt and shame. Only to go try it myself in private and determine how much I had to run to burn that off.

I should note, I did learn a lot of really cool and great information from my degree like creating exercise programs, helping people get stronger, faster, and eat better.

I also learned behavior change theory and how to apply that to help people get success. Hint: just throwing tons of information in your face and telling you what to do doesn’t get results long term. And I learned that you simply can’t out exercise eating habits that don’t support your goals. It wasn’t all bad.

While in college and in grad school I was all about exercise more and eat less. I trained for a half marathon because I thought I would lose a bunch of weight. Mind you, I’ve not had a weight problem and feel fortunate for that, but I’ve had some serious body image issues, body dysmorphia (where you think your body looks way different than it actually does) and maybe not to the levels of orthorexia but seriously obsessed with only eating healthy food and getting really down on myself when I indulged. I’ve done so many restrictive diets. Binged on the weekends. Told myself I was horrible and started back on Monday.

When I started Crossfit, I did paleo and other strict diets where I would eliminate whole food groups because then my stomach would actually be flat. It was always about look for me and never really health. But I would claim it was. I would skip dinner with friends and events to go to the gym (not always a bad thing, but the level at which I was doing it was kinda ridiculous looking back now). Yes I prioritize my health and fitness still but there was no room for anything else in my life at that time.

Enough was a enough. I knew that I couldn’t live this way.

I’d have no friends and I wasn’t all that happy. I was too concerned about how I looked, worried about comments coworkers would give me if I ate a piece of cake or had a cookie. I did a lot of eating of foods that I love by myself or with Ryan who never judged me for it. Being someone else’s example of health and fitness (in that case my coworkers) was very high stress and pressure filled. So I had to let it go. I didn’t know how I was going to do it and let go of the restrictions I’d placed on myself but I had to.

As a lover of learning, I came across Precision Nutrition. They teach habit-based nutrition. At the time, I didn’t think I was going to start EffiFit but I was doing health coaching at work and thought it would be beneficial to have their certification. I loved what they had to say. A lot of it was opposite of what I was doing. They encouraged habits and small changes over time. Not change your whole life on Monday like I was used to. They said it was okay to not be perfect. Not sure I had heard that before. I completed the cert and applied it to my own life. Finally, I started being okay with having a cookie or not having vegetables at each meal. I started enjoying life. And feeling the difference in my energy and productivity when I was eating better and not over- exercising.

And I thought, if I can do this and apply it to my busy schedule.

I want to help other busy professional women get off the restrictive diet and exercise plan, get fit and healthy but still live their lives. And that became the mission of EffiFit which I started officially in January of 2016. I’m on a mission to get women to love their bodies and take care of them in a way that is positive and adaptable to their life. We women are amazing and we need to be telling ourselves that each day. And that starts with loving yourself and your body for what it does. It continues with giving you body what it needs to allow you to thrive and be successful in your everyday life and in your career.

There’s a lot to say about fitness and how it can improve confidence, the way you think about yourself, and your willingness to try new and maybe scary things. It helps you become a better person because your needs are met. I can’t even begin to tell you how much fitness has impacted my confidence and my path in life. It’s allowed me to take risks and to push myself a little bit further. To have the courage to leave a job that wasn’t fulfilling and to follow my dream even scared. I want that for you too. It’s incredible what a little confidence and positivity can do to your life path.

Life getting in the way of your fit goals?

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