#NYTough Plus P&G Giveaway!

As soon as my son gets on the bus this morning for school, I am off to the city for the Fitness Magazine Meet & Tweet.

I am super excited to attend once again this year but the stress of driving through midtown rush hour traffic in the rain and somehow making it home in time for my son is certainly on my mind.

City driving is not for everyone. It tests your patience in a way that only an active toddler who hasn’t napped because they have an ear infection can rival.

So get the timing of this —

Proctor & Gamble is currently running a promotion called #NYTough!

I am really picky when it comes to the brands and topics I talk to you about but when I was approached to talk about what makes me #NYTough AND provide you with a giveaway, I was eager to get this post going!

I knew exactly what I wanted to say as soon as I heard the subject to the point where this post wrote itself in my head within a matter of minutes.

As a lifelong New Yorker, of course I am tough. You just have to be.

I can drive around Manhattan weaving in and out of traffic simultaneously creating my own lane, hail a cab in the rain and get to it before you can and walk the streets of Times Square at midnight after getting a manicure (open 24 hours!) and shopping the many levels of Forever 21 (open till 2:00 am!).

I have no issue admitting though that part of this toughness comes the sheltered New-York-is-the-best-and-only-place-to-live mentality.

New Yorkers are like that. We tend to think that life outside of this area doesn’t exist and even if you try to say that it does, it just isn’t as good.

At least that was my mindset as a kid.

I was so sheltered in my thinking, so out of touch with the rest of the country that even when visiting other regions, they weren’t the same which translated into “aren’t as good” and I couldn’t wait to get home.

Home to New York.

Where life moves really fast, the roads are tricky to travel and if someone you don’t know says hello to you, you assume something is wrong with them because it cannot possibly be that they are just being friendly.

It’s the truth. Rarely does someone just say hello, even if you do know the person. Sometimes, you pretend that you don’t.

Do you know I couldn’t even leave New York for college? I thought I could do it but changed my mind three days before I was supposed to leave for the University of Delaware.

I remember thinking,

“Okay, there is a Friendly’s down the street from my dorm but this place is too different for me. It isn’t New York. My roommate is from some place I have never heard of, she doesn’t know what rainbow cookies or black & whites are and I don’t know what to do with that.”

By the way, did I mention Crumbs Bake Shop reopened this week?!

I realize that my thought-process from when I was 18 sounds insane but I was a kid and didn’t know any better.

I don’t regret my decision to stay in New York for college at all because I don’t think I was ready or mature enough to leave but I do wish I wasn’t so sheltered in my thinking for so many years of my life.

As I got older, I came out of my sheltered thinking and learned to appreciate Chicago-style pizza, the beauty of San Diego and the warm weather that happens year round in Florida.

I realized that people in other states are just as cool as New Yorkers, if not cooler, because they often lack that edge and unapproachable nature which so many seem to walk around with here.

I have grown up to realize that as much of a New Yorker as I am (like really, one word out of my mouth and you know where I am from), I am no different from my running friends down south, out west or up north.

We all look forward to our post run meals, enjoy shopping at Trader Joe’s, have issues resisting the Whole Foods Food Bar, live in our compression socks, and without even having this discussion, I am pretty sure we all smell after a run if we don’t use deodorant.

I swear by Secret Clinical. Really, I do.

Not because P&G is offering us this giveaway but because I find it works the best for me.

I only knew it worked the best when I attempted a different brand because it was on sale only to realize I smelled a few hours after applying it under my arms.

Never again will I switch my deodorant from Secret Clinical and never again will I live a sheltered New York life because there is so much more out there than a rainbow cookie or big black & white from a New York bagel store.

But those cookies are really good and you just can’t get them anywhere else and if you think that you can I assure you they aren’t the same so if come to visit I will be really nice and take you to try one.

Giveaway Time!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

//widget.rafflecopter.com/load.jsBe sure to follow me on Instagram and Twitter today so you can keep up with the Meet & Tweet action (#FitblogNYC)!

This post is linked up per the usual Thursday Thinking Out Loud. Be sure to check out what everyone else is thinking about today!

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I received free product from Proctor & Gamble but no further compensation was given to write this post. All sheltered New Yorker thoughts and opinions expressed in this post are my own.

What makes you #NYTough?

Did you go away for college or stay close to home?

Favorite kind of cookie?