I’ve always been a pretty active person. Throughout my middle school and high school careers, I participated in multiple sports, and, to be honest, I don’t remember what it feels like to run a half a mile and die from exhaustion. Usually, I can go out and run three miles with little to no difficulty; that was, however, until last spring.

In early March of last year, I was diagnosed with an auto immune deficiency called Guillain-Barré Syndrome. Basically, my immune system was attacking a virus, and once the virus was gone, it just kept going and ended up attacking my nervous system.

In some, it can cause full body paralysis and can be severe enough to make your lungs and heart stop working. Thankfully, for me, it only caused paralysis in my facial muscles and severe weakness throughout the rest of my body.

For the first time in my life, I couldn’t do anything. Walking across a room was a challenge and the thought of going out and running three miles was laughable.

However, my body slowly began to heal and I wanted to start working out again. I waited the appropriate amount of time (the doctor said four months of physical rest) and began my journey of getting back into shape.

The first day, I decided to go for a jog. I wasn’t expecting to go very far; just a mile. However, three minutes in, my muscles were burning and I could barely breathe. I had never been this out of shape in my life. It was a completely different experience to start from scratch.

My worst fear was pushing myself too hard (which if you ask anyone who knows me, I tend to do). So, I decided to do some research. I looked online for easy workouts for complete beginners. Sadly, I even had to modify those, but, I learned what my body could and couldn’t handle.

In my research I found many articles that talked about the importance of taking things slowly, which I honestly wasn’t used to. As stated previously, I was active all through middle school, but I took a break from sport my freshman and sophomore year of high school.

My junior year, I decided to join cross country two weeks before practice began. I was thrown into running at least five miles a day right from the start. My body became used to that kind of training and it was hard to do training that wasn’t intense at the beginning.

So, this past summer, when I began working out again, I had to go back to the basics. I had to go back and learn how to take things slowly in order for me to keep myself safe.

This got me thinking; in America’s society, everyone wants quick results. They don’t take the time to go slow and exercise or diet in a healthy manner. I find this disheartening and slightly worrying. If people want to see results, they need to do things in the healthy and right way.

With that being said, I decided to spread the word to people on how to exercise and diet in a safe and smart manner. I want to let people know that it’s important to do things the right way. It’s important for people to go back to the basics and learn how to get results. They may not be quick, but they will be lasting. Besides, slow and steady wins the race, right?