"When you have to put gas in your car, you have to put gas in your car to run," Dee Hill explains. "I don’t make any excuses. It’s not an option whatsoever."
Hill hits the gym five times a week and at least twice a day to get her workout in, beginning in the wee hours of the morning.
"I try to get the gym by four to do my fasted cardio. If time allows, I’ll do my weight training," she said.
And she doesn't take breaks on the weekends.
"On the weekends, I’ll get up at five to do my fasted cardio, then come in the afternoons to do my post cardio, and if I have not worked out in the mornings, I have to do my workout and post cardio in the evenings," Hill said.
She does all of this with a full-time job, including traveling three times a week. But it wasn’t always this way for the fitness enthusiast.
"I really didn’t have time to work out until I had a conversation with my brother, and he said you just need to make time, and I do know in this journey consistency is key, but I really wasn’t consistent with the workout," Hill said.
Hill's journey began in 2008, and she’s been battling ever since, with her heaviest weight starting at 191 pounds.
Then, a friend and Zumba instructor Janice Shepherd planted a seed in her mind to start body building.
Later in 2017, Hill partnered with an online trainer and entered her first competition, and then another and another, where now she’s been a part of four.
She says it’s just her beginning, and she has some solid advice for those ready to walk into 2019 with a renewed attitude toward better fitness.
"If you don’t have any health issues going on, don’t make any excuses why you can’t," explained Hill. "To go into a gym to see an elderly person on a walker working out, that is awesome, and they don’t make excuses. So if you don’t have anything on you, don’t make excuses."
During her 8-year journey, Hill has lost more than 45 pounds, but when she is competing, the weight loss total rests round 60.
She is in training now, but has plans to compete again in the summer of 2019.