Strong Women Inspiration Pictures

badgercurls

On a weight-loss and fitness site I belong to, many women have "inspiration pictures" of celebrities and models in their profiles. They make me a little sick. I don't want to look like Victoria Beckham or Kate Bosworth. I want to look like a stronger, fitter me. So I decided to start collecting pictures of strong, fit, *real* women to serve as role models, and I figured I'd post them here for you all to see, too. Please feel free to add your own inspiration pictures, too.

Krista of Stumptuous.com (rocks!):





Cassandra Forsythe, one of the authors of The New Rules of Lifting for Women (cassandraforsythe.com)

badgercurls

Another pic of Cassandra Forsythe:


And my awesome cousin, a college cross country runner who made it to Division III Nationals this year! She only went out for x-c to stay in shape for her main winter sport, but ended up excelling and loving it, so she's doing indoor track in the winter instead! (Excuse the edited photo to protect her privacy!)

spiderman5000

The women in the horror movie "The Descent" are my motivation. They're rock climbing bad arses.

Badger, would you be willing to share the address for the fitness site you go to? I've been trying to find a cool fitness board to get me motivated.

badgercurls

Awesome picture, Spiderman! Under all that blood, she has a rockin' body!

In terms of message boards:
I've been using SparkPeople.com for a while, but I've kind of fallen out of love with it right now. They have a nutrition and fitness tracker that I use because it's easy to find most foods on it. They do also have programs they suggest, but I've found it's too few calories for the amount of activity they suggest. I can't do it - it makes me tired, jittery, anxious and *****y to eat so little. So I scrapped their suggested calorie numbers and put in higher ones from a book I'm reading on women's fitness. However, they do have some great "Spark Teams" for support. You can find them for many different things - by age group, interest, goals, health issues, etc. I've found that the ones that are focused on outward appearance (e.g., "look hot in a bikini!") are not as supportive as the ones that are more health or interest oriented.

I also just joined the fitness forum at jpfitness.com. I love it so far. There's a huge range of people who post there - from women who look like these pictures to women who are trying to lose 150 pounds - and there are a lot of personal trainers who check in and give advice, too.

One more thing to add to this ridiculously long post - you're welcome to come hang out in my fitness log thread here! There are a bunch of us who've been posting there.

spiderman5000

Thanks badger! I'm going to head to that message board right now. I'll probably sign up as "biffmeplease" if you want to chat. I'm also going to check out your log right now!

badgercurls

Cool! My name is the same on SparkPeople, and it's "rilos" on the JPFitness forum. (That's a combo of my two cats' names. )

Costenya

badgercurls wrote: »

Another pic of Cassandra Forsythe:


And my awesome cousin, a college cross country runner who made it to Division III Nationals this year! She only went out for x-c to stay in shape for her main winter sport, but ended up excelling and loving it, so she's doing indoor track in the winter instead! (Excuse the edited photo to protect her privacy!)

Your cousin looks amazing!

kcurls

I don't have inspirational pictures to share, but what a great idea! I think I'll start looking myself. Thanks for posting!

Here's a little non-visual inspiration though, that I'll share:

I was at the gym a couple weeks ago and I saw my trainer working with a kind of petite-looking woman. I always like to see what he does with other clients, so I stopped and watched kind of surreptitiously. I got an eyeful! First off, she grabbed the chin up bar and knocked out 20 pull ups. Then he got her on a balance ball and and she somehow did one-handed push up things, ON THE BALL. Then back to the pull ups, then back to the ball. Then bench pressing some insane amount.

At this point, I was standing nearby with my jaw hanging open! Close up, I could see that she was very buff.

Later on, I heard she was a firefighter. I want a picture of HER!

badgercurls

Awesome story, kcurls! My SO has a cousin like that - she's about 5 feet tall and a personal trainer. If you see her in a long sleeved shirt and jeans, she looks tiny, but when you see her in action - whoa!

Thanks for the compliment on my cousin, Costenya! She's an awesome kid. She is so dedicated to everything she does, and she's just as sweet and smart as she is strong. She has a *very* bright future ahead of her.

msjanani

badgercurls wrote: »

And my awesome cousin, a college cross country runner who made it to Division III Nationals this year!

My school's girls team won the Div III XC nationals this year! Whee! I know a lot of the girls and they are super cool and nice! Just thought I'd add...:laughing7: