latinaandtriing

I’m a 30 something year old Latina, who in the immigrant vocabulary we call a first generation Latina-American. My parents immigrated to The States back in the 70s from Colombia and I was born, 9 years later my baby sister was born. Originally from New Jersey (yes I’m a Jersey girl so watch out) but consider myself as Latina and Colombian as it can be. I was raised in a typical Colombian household, my parents both trying to make a living in this country, while trying to provide us with the best education and going above and beyond their means to make sure we had everything. For them, since they came as adults, they realized that education was the most important thing to become someone in this country. I was a bit nerdy growing up, always being top of my class, and not really focusing in sports or other extracurricular activities. I did dance and later on played tennis but attending a private catholic school sports were not the center of everything. Some of the guys and girls would play sports but definitely not me. My tennis was not competitive by any means. On top of that, I wasn’t the skinny Latina type. As a good Latina, I got curves in the right places and a really balanced diet at home (insert sarcasm here) really helped me with my figure. Yes, plantains, rice and potatoes could be found in a dinner plate with a piece of meat or chicken, that’s balanced for Colombians… :) I then went off to college, well didn’t really go off… Stayed in the same town living at home while attending Rutgers University. By then I was just focused in school and not in my figure, dropped dancing and tennis and didn’t really care about sports. I was probably at my heaviest, at a whopping size 16. Not until grad school that I moved to Miami for my doctorate (yes I’m a Doctor… A psychologist that is) that I started losing weight to a size 6, I blame it on the stress of being on my own and having a full time job and attending school full time. Again not the healthiest but I had lost weight. I met my now hubby for the second time (that’s a story for another page/blog) and we moved to Texas in 2006. Fast forward 4 years and we had started riding our bikes and running a little. We were getting tired of just being couch potatoes, looked healthy but when we started running and being active realized we were so out of shape. We did a couple of long bike rides (40 milers) a couple of 5k runs, and then we signed up for the MS150 in 2011. Did it again in 2012 this time completing both days but by then we has found a new hobby…. TRIATHLON. We completed our first triathlon in 2012 and got really hooked to it. This then will be my view of being a healthy Latina, a professional, a wife and trying to balance a career, staying healthy and being happy with whom I am and whom I’ve become now that I have found that being in shape, healthy and actually accomplishing the impossible is AWESOME!! Hope you enjoy my journeys.