Happy New Year!

So, its the new year. Time for everyone to make weight loss goals that will inevitably fall to the wayside a few weeks into the year. However, this year shall be different, for me anyway. (hopefully. ha ha) I know that I haven't been very good about diet and exercise recently, but it's high time for that to change. So my new years resolution is not to loose a specific weight or do anything in particular. My new years resolution, for heath and fitness purposes anyway, is to do healthy things for my body. I.e. skip the doughnut holes, even if they look good an your getting hungry because its almost lunch time, do regular exercise, drink water instead of high calorie things, ect. At the present, I sit at around 183ish. That will be my starting point for 2012. Good luck to everyone starting new things in the new year. I wish everyone a happy and fruitful year!

Thanskgiving...

So, its been a while since I last posted anything, so I though I'd throw an update up. So, during the week I had off for Thanksgiving I did some major diet damage. I ended up gaining about 5 pounds. (oops! lol) Luckily about 3 pounds came right back off again, but it will serve as a warning and a lesson on what not to do for Christmas break. Ha ha. Anyway, after Thanksgiving, I have been trying to get myself back on track with eating right and exercising regularly. Recently, I have been really into doing Pilates videos that I find on Youtube. I like to do about a 30 minute workout as many days a week as I have time for. It hasn't been as often as I would have liked it to be, but I'm getting back into the swing of things and finding more and more time as I go along. Which leads me to my next topic. My goal for the month of December is to get down to 175. I went back and forth between whether I wanted to make my goal 5 pounds or 10 pounds in a month, and in the end, I decided on 175, which is between 7 and 8 pounds, so right in the middle. I plan on watching what I eat a little closer and just keep exercising regularly. I have been slipping up in the diet area, as demonstrated by the Thanksgiving weight gain. But, it's not the end of the world, and I know that I can do it. So, my suggestion if you are struggling, is to make a goal for yourself. When you are tempted to eat something that you know is bad, think about if its going to get you toward your goal. If its not, then try not to eat it. Also ask yourself if you can live without it. If the answer is no, then eat it. An indulgence, in moderation, isn't going to kill your goal. I think that that is something important to keep in mind. I'm pretty sure I've stressed this before, but if not, I'm going to do it again. My rule is everything in moderation. Don't get obsessive over eating perfectly or getting in 3 hours of exercise everyday. Your body needs time to recover and repair itself as well as rest. You also need proper nutrition and sanity. So, my goal is 175. What's yours?

Becoming a Babe

Cake and Pie and Brownies, Oh My!

So, I haven't made a blog post in an incredibly long time, and I have no other excuse for that besides laziness, and then school started with busyness. Anyway, getting along with the post. So, September is always a month that is difficulty for me food-wise. This is mainly because I am not super busy yet so I have lots of time to just veg out and eat. The other reason is that there are two birthdays in my family, which means extra birthday cake lying around, begging me to eat it. (Ok, maybe the cake isn't actually begging me, but it just sits there and looks super delicious) As it turns out, I possess no self-control. ha ha. So that is my thing this upcoming week. I have been giving in to my temptations, but I need to get back on track and do it in moderation. Like I have mentioned before, I'm all about eating things that are sweet and delicious, just in moderation. It's ok to have on slice of cake, but not a slice of cake, a brownie or 3, a glass of chocolate milk, and a slice of pie. lol Everyone knows that, sometimes it just becomes troublesome when they all look quite delectable. If control and moderation is something that you really struggle with, I would suggest keeping a food log to see how much you are really eating each day. It might now seem like that much at the time, but when you look at it at the end of the day, chance are what you ate will add up.

Despite my lack of self-control, I haven't really gained any weight this last month. I would attribute this to the fact that I have been fairly diligent with my exercise. One thing that I have discovered is YouTube and their extensive network of workout videos. I found one that I particularly like which is a 10-minute Cardio Kick Boxing workout. I like this one because the moves are easy enough to do, I can do it right in my bedroom, its only 10 minutes long, and it doesn't require any equipment. (If anyone wants to know which one it is, just let me know and I'll give you the link, but I don't really feel like going to find it if nobody wants it.) Along with that I found a 10 minute beginner yoga video that I really enjoy doing. I do both of these videos basically every night. Its not a whole lot, but its something at least and I feel like I've completely been a slacker all day. Anyway, that's all I have for today. If anyone is wondering, I'm still currently sitting about 180 and I think I'm going to make up a goal pretty soon to keep myself motivated. So I'm going to wrap it up now. I hopefully will be posting some more in the near future, but I get busy, so there are no guarantees. lol Anyway, good luck with your weight loss goals!

Becoming a Babe

No Sweets Week

So, today is day 2 of my no sweets week. My no sweets week is pretty self-explanatory, but in case you were wondering, it's just a week where I try to eat no sweets. I'm doing this because sweets are by far my biggest weakness when it comes to food. I absolutely love sweets, but they aren't healthy. Sweets are ok in moderation, but I was not eating them in moderation, I was eating as much as I pleased. So, I decided that I was going to do a week without sweets. I did well yesterday. A whole lot better than I thought I was going to be able to do, actually. We actually just bought cookies on Sunday, and my friend was over and had a cookie and I wasn't even that tempted. I was kind of proud of myself. However, I went to Culver's with my mom today and ended up forgetting about my no sweets week. I had ice cream. But, instead of calling off the whole thing and starting over next week, I think I'm just going to tack on an extra day next Monday. I'm doing this because if I can go for a whole week without eating sweets, I know I can resist later when temptation is there. So, to apply this to you, take whatever bad food that you can't resist and vow to not eat it for a week. If your thing is sweets like mine is, do a no sweets week. If you are a potato chips person or a regular soda person, swear those things off for a week. Or if its an eating habit that isn't good, such as snacking between meals or eating really late at night, try going without those habits for a week. Chances are you are stronger than you think and you will be surprised at how easy it is to not eat the bad stuff. One thing that has helped me was blabbing about it. I told my mom and she knows that I'm trying to loose weight and she is too. So she is supporting me in my no sweets week. I also talked to my friend about it (while she was eating a cookie. lol) because she was wondering why I wasn't eating a cookie too. Anyway, this is helpful because it makes you accountable. For me, when other people know what I'm trying to do and I go against my vow and do it anyway, I kind of feel like I'm letting people down in a way. Another tip that I have is to replace that thing that you aren't going to eat with something else healthy. At night, when I would normally turn to something sweet and delicious, but bad for me, I decide instead to turn to a piece fresh fruit or a vegetable. This satisfies my craving for something sweet, but it's still good for me, so I don't feel bad. I also find that chewing gum helps. Whenever I want something just because I wan't to eat something and I'm not actually hungry, I chew a piece of sugar-free gum, and that tends to help eliminate the craving.

Now for a more general update. I haven't really been loosing weight lately, but I haven't been gaining it either. So I suppose that is neither here nor there. But I would like to continue loosing weight so I could reach my goal. I have been feeling incredibly motivated lately, and I'm not sure why. I think the thought of a new school year coming up is exciting. I would love to go back and have people say, "Wow! You look amazing!". Is that conceited? lol. But it would be nice. I have decided that I need to up the ante when it comes to my exercise routine. I have found a route for a significantly longer walk that I really like. I did the same sort of thing with a friends, but instead of just stealing hers, I thought I would shake it up a bit. My new route has some kinks in it yet, but I'm sure I'll work them out. One thing about it is that it takes me just over an hour to do the whole thing, and I don't have an hour of sunlight everyday in order to walk in, but whenever I have the time and motivation, I think I'm going to do my new route. So that's all I have for you lovely ladies today, but hopefully I will start to blog a bit more regularly in the near future.

Becoming a Babe

So I have been a terrible blogger, and I'm sorry. But I'm going to start this blog back up again, partly because I'm hoping it will inspire me and anyone else who reads it, and partly because I don't like it when people start something, then leave alone forever. So as a recap, I haven't been doing that great, but I haven't been doing terribly either. I've kind of been trying to get back on track with everything. My diet is starting to get back to normal, and I have been getting back into exercising daily. I did an ab workout the other night, and let me tell you my abs still hurt a little bit, but its so worth it. Doing abs is one of my favorite things to do. Today I'm going to stress the importance of choosing exercises that you enjoy. Exercise is something that some people dread, and I was totally right there with all those people about a year ago. But then I joined the track team. And I was a thrower, so I wasn't hardcore running everyday or anything, but I still had to work. This was great for me because during the season, whenever I felt like being lazy and eating junk food, I had to go to practice and work out for a few hours. I had no choice in the matter. And you know what? It worked. I started to loose weight. Another great thing that came from this was friends. Not that I didn't have friends before, but I made some new ones. The people on my track team weren't necessarily the people I saw throughout the day in school, so it was fun to go to track and talk to new people. They were also great at motivating. I sometimes felt that I couldn't do what we were told to do, but they helped me through. For example, (and this is a little embarrassing) one day we were told to run a mile for conditioning, and I was really slow, and most of my team started before me, so they were all done a lap ahead of me. When I had another lap to do and I was dying because I was kind of out of shape, part of my team ran my last lap with me even though they didn't have to and motivated me along the way. This sounds cheesy as I'm writing it, but it was touching to me and it really helped me power though that last lap. Ok, cheesy story time over. Anyway, this weight loss totally motivated me into the summer. I wanted to get outside and do some sort of exercise. One thing that I personally loved to do was take walks. I have a route picked out that is a circle that is just over a mile by my house. I walk it almost everyday. Days that I don't want to walk, I take a bike ride. I don't have a set path or anything for this, but I kind of just go around my city and neighboring cities and explore places I have never been. I make sure I'm out there for a least 25 minutes, but typically they take longer than that because I'm having fun. Swimming is great exercise if you're moving around and splashing. It's good for you and it's really fun, so its a win win if you ask me. I also love to do yoga. It's super relaxing and feels so good to stretch out your muscles. And I have never found any shame in putting on some upbeat dance music and going nuts in my room dancing and jumping. Its fun, and its great cardio as long as you keep moving for at least 10 minutes at a time. Along with these cardio activities, I don't disregard strength training. Like I said before, I love doing abs. I don't know why, but they feel good to me and they are super easy to do at home. For arms, I do push-ups (or in my case mock push-ups, because -shhh- I can't do a real push-up ha ha) and like the one where you like bend your elbows while you're supporting yourself on a chair. I don't know what they are called, but if you really want to know what they are, I'll look it up for you, just leave a comment.  When I don't want to do either of those things, I grab a 2-liter bottle of soda, or (this is another totally embarrassing thing, but I do it sometimes) a mostly full jug of laundry detergent and use it do do arm curls or behind the head lifts that work the triceps.  I don't own a set of dumbbells, and I'm too cheap to go buy one, so I make do with whatever I have to. For legs, I like to do squats and lunges. I probably do more, but that is all I can think of off the top of my head. If I'm completely out of ideas, I grab an old (or new, whatever works) Seventeen magazine and go to the exercise portion and do that exercise. These are things I like to do. Which is totally a key. If you don't like to do it, you aren't going to. It's really that simple. So experiment, find something that you love doing. Whether its taking your dog for a walk (or by yourself if you don't have a dog, and don't be ashamed or embarrassed, I don't have a dog and I walk all the time), joining a sports team, or doing something completely different, just do something that you enjoy. And you don't have to spend any money. I used a bottle of laundry detergent (ha ha, I'm a little weird) as a weight. So use your creativity and find something that you love. Good luck!

Becoming a Babe

My Goal

So, I've never exactly discussed my goal on here yet. So my goal for this summer is to finally slim down the amount I want to. I would like to walk into school and have people's jaw drop. I don't think that is going to happen because my weight loss has been quite gradual, but over the summer, I have an extended time between people seeing me, so maybe we can surprise a few people. My ultimate goal is 170ish. I currently sit at around 188, so I have about 18 pounds to go before I make my goal. I think that I could make my goal by the end of summer, and I'm going to try my best to get as close as I can. Recently, I haven't been doing so well with the diet part. I'm used to having fresh fruit to fall back on when I'm craving something sweet, but my family has been so busy lately that we haven't been able to get to the store to get any fruit, so I've been stuck eating actual sweets. Today I have done better though. I didn't pig out today like I have been doing recently, so that's good. I feel like I've turned a corner and I would like to keep myself on the good track. So my challenge for this week is to practice good self-control and not pig out as well as do at least one thing active as many days as I can. And like last time, if anyone reads this they can feel free to participate in my challenge for this week. If you do, leave me a comment and let me know how it's going for you.

Becoming a Babe

Be beautiful

I'm kind of a terrible blogger, but that's ok. Anyway, I've been just kind of pigging out lately. I've got to get back on track and keep myself motivated to exercise. I haven't been really gaining weight, so that's a good thing, but I feel myself reverting back to my old ways, which obviously didn't work out so well. I'm never going to be stick thin and I absolutely never want to be, but I do want to be at a healthy weight. I want to come back from summer a healthier person than what I was entering it. So I am just going to have to push forward and find away to avoid temptation and eating because I'm bored. I will eat when I'm hungry, because that is the healthy thing to do, but I am going to try to avoid eating just for the heck of it. Now, that's not to say I'm going to deprive myself. But I'm going to eat healthy and exercise a healthy amount in order treat my body the way it needs to be treated. We all have to remember that we are beautiful just the way we are, but we are striving for health and a good lifestyle, not weight loss. Be beautiful ladies.

Becoming a babe

So, it's been a few days so I suppose I should put up a post. So I've long since decided that one of my worst offenses is pigging out at night. I almost never eat between breakfast and lunch, but then between lunch and dinner and after dinner when I'm just sitting around having down time, I tend to eat mindlessly or just eat whatever I want. It leads to stomachaches and gaining weight, which is obviously not what I want. So my current goal is to find something that encourages me not to snack mindlessly during these times of the day, because its really killing my diet. I'm thinking that perhaps my mind is not occupied and I need to do more than just lay in front of the tv. Perhaps I'll start reading a book, or playing on the Wii fit. I don't really know yet. But I need something other than just sitting around eating food and staring mindlessly at the television. So if anyone has any suggestions for activities they would be much appreciated. I think actually, that I will make that my challenge for this week. So here it is, I challenge myself, and anyone else so wants to participate with me, to not eat when they are bored. Instead find a new activity or something that will occupy your mind better than television and eating.

Becoming a Babe

Welcome

Congratulations, you have made it to my blog. This is the first post I will do for my blog, and I have never blogged before, so here goes nothing. I thought for my first post, I would just give everyone a little information on what this blog is and what is going on. I have wanted to do a blog like this for a while, and I am finally just doing it. So the intention of this blog is to be a place for people for motivation as well as to bounce tips off of me and anyone else who happens to read my blog. I am no professional, these are all my opinions, and I have not had any professional training, so don't think that's what this is. But I'm here to share my journey as well as help all of you along with yours. So if anyone is actually interested in this, please leave a comment. I would love to continue doing this. So if you want to get healthy and fit, or loose weight, or something along those lines, keep your eyes peeled for further posts.