Ross Lauren - Strong is the new beautiful: embrace your natural beauty, eat clean, and harness your power

To those who dont think

they are beautiful enough.

You are beautiful no

matter what size you are.

When you commit to getting strong, you agree to go on an incredible journey that will transform you.

CONTENTS

One of the most beautiful places Ive ever skied is Cortina, Italy. When youre at the top of the mountain where the World Cup is held, all you can see in every direction are peaks and sky, the steep edges of the Dolomites ringing the summit view as if the valleys below dont even exist. Up there, you are closer to the stratosphere than you are to the earth, but there the earth is too, below you and all around you, pushing up rock and jagged snowy hills that seem so unconquerableunconquerable to everyone but you, standing there on the top of the mountain with the world laid out before you.

That is where I stoodand how I feltthe morning after I tied the all-time record for the most World Cup wins ever by a female skier. It was daybreak, and the sky had blanched to a powdery blue, with just a few sun-rimmed clouds washing through the peaks and coloring the snow below a shimmery gold. I still had to race that day and I was on the hill so early to inspect the course, but I wasnt concerned about the competition ahead. Instead, all I could think about was what I had just accomplishedtying a world record, something I had never thought possibleand all I had endured to stand at that place at that point in time. I was immensely relieved and proud, but most of all, I felt strong, physically and mentally, like I could do anything with my body and mind that I put my heart to.

I hadnt always felt this way, thoughso strong, so unstoppable, so on top of the world in more ways than one. Over the course of my career, there had been days, weeks, even months when I felt low, unsure of myself, worried about whether I would ski again, and even worried whether I was too muscular and big to fit into some American ideal of an athlete. I never doubted my ability per se, but getting strong and fit and feeling as good about my body as possible required a journey of sorts. But standing on my skis in Cortina on January 19, 2015the same day I would go on to not just tie but break the all-time record for most World Cup wins everI knew it was a journey that had changed my life and body indelibly, for the better.

I wanted to write this book to share with you my journey and give you the inspiration, tips, and tools you need to change your life and body, too. No matter who you are, what you do for your living, or what your body looks like now, you can get stronger, leaner, healthier, and happier, just as I have. Im not a coach, trainer, or nutritionist, but I am an Olympic athlete whos tried nearly every exercise and diet there is, and I know what works and what doesnt.

What Ive learned, too, is that theres more than one way of exercising and eating that can make you feel good about yourself and your bodyand having more than one option is a fabulous thing. While plenty of diet and fitness experts will recommend only one way to eat or work out to lose weight or get healthy, I find restrictions to be extremely limiting. We all have different bodies, genetics, preferences, and lifestyles, and I believe that if you want to look and feel your best, you need options that will empower you, not rules that will make exercising and healthy eating that much more difficult.

Since I was young, my life has been about my body, as Ive spent nearly all of the past three decades managing my energy, working on my strength, eating and exercising for optimal performance, and preventing and rehabbing the injuries that are as much a part of skiing as the cold and the snow. Im constantly assessing how I feel, how my muscles look and respond, what exactly is going on in my body, and whether Im eating the best foods and doing the most effective workouts I can to get to the top step of the Olympic podium.

What Ive learned along the way is that no matter what kind of body type you have, making it your goal to get strong rather than to lose a bunch of weight, reach a certain number on the scale, or simply get skinny is a healthier, more sustainable, and ultimately more effective way to change your bodyand change it for good. When you make your goal to get strong, youre setting an intention to help your body become fitter and healthier, not just smaller or thinner. You agree to try new ways of eating and exercising that you can sustain for lifenot just for a few weeks or monthsas you find those foods and workouts that you actually enjoy, not just the ones you eat or suffer through because you want to lose weight. When you work to get strong, you also agree to get mentally fit, building up your confidence in and out of the gym as you feel better about yourself. You stop doing the workouts you dont like, you stop eating too little or those foods that dont taste good, and you stop the body shaming, as you focus on feeling good about what you eat, how you exercise, and how you look and feel. Because getting strong doesnt mean just getting lean, but trying to find personal purpose and empowerment, too. Because when youre strong, you too can do anything you set your mind, body, and heart to. Trust me... I know.

My journey to get strong started when I was a teenager, although my quest to be an athlete began when I was much younger. The oldest of five, I was born in Burnsville, Minnesota, a suburb outside the Twin Cities. By no stretch of the imagination could Burnsville be considered a ski town. We had just one hill, Buck Hill, with a 310-foot vertical dropshorter than most waterslides.

But Buck Hill was only five minutes from my familys home, and my father, Alan, a former ski racer and junior national ski champion, was a ski coach there. When I was just a baby, he took me out in a backpack on the hill, and before I was three, I was learning to take my first turns on skis.

With my Grandpa Don at the Junior Olympics.

I always enjoyed skiing more than the other sports I tried as a kidsoccer, gymnastics, ice-skating, running, and the other activities that most children try in grade school. Nothing made me happier than being on a mountain, especially when I was racing down one as fast as I could. I wasnt particularly quick on skis when I was youngquite the opposite, in factbut I always looked forward to my time on the mountain. It was fun being outside in the snow, carving down the hill run after run, first with my father, then with my friends. When it got too cold to ski anymore, Id huddle inside the lodge with hot chocolate and doughnuts, and to me, the sport was much more special than any soccer game.

By the time I was seven, I knew that I wanted to race. I joined the Buck Hill team, which was led at the time by Erich Sailer, the first development coach ever to be inducted into the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Hall of Famehe was also my fathers coach when my dad was a racer. I wasnt fast, and I can remember Erich chiding my father that he had produced a turtle of a daughter on the hill.