Influencer Jordan Edwards: Love the Process

Jordan Edwards grew up as an athlete but stumbled on her fitness journey by accident—literally. An injury left her focused on fitness in a way it never was before. She soon discovered a passion for exercise, seeing results and sharing what she learned with the world. Now a college student and member of the 24 Hour Fitness’ influencer network, FitSquad24, she is able to continue sharing what she’s learned with the world. We asked her our burning questions about her start and how she sticks with her regimen.

24Life: How did you being your fitness journey and transition into a social media influencer?

Jordan Edwards (JE): I’ve been an athlete my entire life. But I really got started on my fitness journey in college. I went to University of South Florida from 2010 to 2014, and when I got there, I was on the cheerleading team and I walked on to the track team as well. It was just so much practicing from one thing to the other, two-a-days, and all that good stuff. My knees started getting really sore, but I had to impress the track coaches, impress the cheerleading coach, and I overdid it. I tore my ACL high jumping at our track meet where I was trying to get a scholarship.

After that, I had to have surgery right away. I had my whole ACL redone. That took me out for about a year, just recovering. And being that that is a lot of rehab, it’s a lot of getting stronger, and that’s what really introduced me to lifting and building muscle. My knee was pretty much done, so I was focusing on upper body for a while until it got strong enough to be able to do everything again.

I was posting my ab workouts and I got so much attention on social media. I felt like [I was] one of the first people back in 2010 or ’11 that was doing that. Now everyone’s doing it. But I had a crazy six-pack, and people were just like, “Oh my God. How do you get like this?” I really enjoyed it.

24Life: What’s your fitness philosophy?

JE: This is really big for me, actually. I have thousands of clients online, and the biggest thing that I see every single time is that somebody expected something to happen overnight. They think, just starting this, that “it’s been four days, and I haven’t lost 40 pounds, what’s going on?”

You have to understand that it takes so much time. If it did take seven days, the entire world would be in the best shape of their lives. And that’s not the case. It’s really hard for my clients to realize that it doesn’t take four days, it doesn’t take seven days. Sometimes it doesn’t take seven months, it takes longer.

My biggest advice is to be patient. Not only that, to learn to love yourself right now, because if you don’t love who you are right now, you’re going to constantly be searching for these results. You’re always, always going to up your expectations and you’re never going to meet them, and then you’re going to let yourself down and give up.

If you can just learn to love the body that you’re in right now, and each week as you go, learn to love the process, the lifestyle, that’s when you start to see these results. If you’re only doing it for that physical change in a week, it could last you a month of being in shape, but you’re going to get sick of the process and the lifestyle. You’re never going to maintain it.

24Life: What do you do when you feel stuck or unmotivated?

JE: I actually take a full day or two off. If I’m not motivated anymore, I’ll let myself have those cravings. I’ll take just that one day feeling unmotivated and wanting ice cream. I do [eat ice cream] and I enjoy it. The next day, instead of getting down on myself, it motivates me even more. For instance, we had to travel to Texas … and the entire time we were there, I wanted to work out. But life gets in the way sometimes. So taking those days off, I got back home, and I’ve never felt so motivated in my life. For me, taking those days off is important for you to remember how much you love it.

Photos courtesy Jordan Edwards