Lent Plan

The Season of Lent starts today!!! For those not familiar with Lent it is a season of Penitence (regret for one's wrong doing and sins). Lent starts with ASH Wednesday and ends with Easter (40 days and Nights). Traditionally engage in self denial of a luxury item as penance for your sins and wrong doing. What were my wrong doings this year: over indulgence in food and making excuses not to work out. So I am giving up processed foods and excuses. That is right I will be working out everyday but Sundays and eating clean for 40 days. As always I will keep you updated.

Worth IT!!!

If your tired of starting over, STOP giving up!!!!

Saw this quote on pintrest and thought immediately of all my failed attempts...it is time I start motivating myself instead of looking at others as a source of motivation. All to often I look at someone else's weightless results for motivation. It is time my own weight loss results and progress serve as my motivation to continue so I may stop starting over !!!

Toning routine!!!

After much debate on what workout I would implement to kick start my toning up mission I finally settled on one. I found it on toneitup.com and it is called the "Sand Castle" work out. It claims in the description you can build your sand castle and tone your whole body which is exactly what I need (to tone the whole body). This work out consist of 5 different exercises and I plan on doing 12 reps of each then repeat the circuit 2 more times. if you go to their website toneitup.com and type in Sandcastle workout you can see all the moves I will be doing. I decided to pick this one to start with because all I need is a set of hand weights. I figured because it was so un complicated it would be easier to stick with this work out. I will keep you updated as always.

Focus More on Toning...

How many times have you been eating right and getting all your cardio in and to your delight the number on the scale keeps going down, only to look in the mirror and see that your body is still no where to being bikini ready?!?! This has always been a big problem for me partially because I have a huge amount of fat on top of my muscles and I don't place the same emphasis on strength training as I do cardio. Everyone from Kinesiology majors to trainers in the gym have always stressed the importance of strength training for weight loss. I being very head strong and "knowing my body" knew that I could lose weight eating fewer calories and getting my cardio in. I actually was right I did lose weight but my body underneath my clothes was smaller just still lumpy and jiggly and pudgy. So this year Iam still going to get an adequate amount of cardio in just focus more on stregnth training. Strength training has a host of benefits including speeding up your metabolism so you burn calories when your not working out, improved posture and flexibility, and of course the more you work out the better you are able to handle stress and it improves your mood. The benefits you can see of course is a leaner, firmer, and more toned body which for me is greatly needed. I still want to achieve weight loss so I must combine the two, cardio and strength, because you can not spot reduce when it comes to weight loss. In the past I have never been very good at knowing what to do when it comes to resistance training so this time I have been buying fitness magazines and even surfing the internet for ideas. I came across an awesome website called toneitup.com (I know that is exactly what I wanted) and I found a lot of routines that I can implement into my weight loss/ toning routine. The picture above is from the founder of the website look at how she toned up!!!So I plan on putting an exact plan together and work on my goal of going to the gym four times a week. As soon as I get the exact plan together I will post it and keep you updated.

New Year...Same Me...Just Different!!!

Soooo....I have been away from the blog for a very long time now, but I have actually been thinking about just what to say and in what direction I want to take this blog this year. I think the best direction is just to cater to me but of course this year I think the blog needs some ground rules like post once a week, do more weight updates but also post more pieces about health and fitness. These things will not only help me achieve my personal goals but also help other people that visit my blog. With all that said I guess I should practice what I preach and keep everyone updated on my weight. I am now 175 I am down 12 pounds from my all time high of 187. I finally dug myself out of that hole I let myself fall into but I will be honest it was hard. I just started doing things soley for me like buying myself clothes, wearing makeup more, hanging out with my friends and just being grateful for all the great things that this past year brought me instead of focusing on the negative things that happened. (Of course I started going back to the gym only because I wanted to go and I started watching portions of what I was eating) So now that I have made it this far I only want to go farther I want to set 2012 goals for myself and I have all of 2012 to get it right I figure. With that said here they are:
1.) Since I am so bad about never accomplishing my goals the first one is a no brainer "Accomplish at least 3 of your Goals this year"
2.) Move away from home (Jackson, MS)
3.) Stop being wasteful with my paychecks and start saving money every paycheck
4.) Have a goal and plan in place to go to graduate school
5.) Go back to New York City
6.) Eat cleaner and never go a day without eating fresh fruits and vegetables
7.) Limit eating out to once a week
8.) Work out 4 times a week
9.) Find and implement a strenghth and toning routine into your workout
10.) Finally reach the 150s
11.) Go to church on my weekends off
So those are my goals and I think they can all 100% be accomplished and this will be the year that I will try my hardest to accomplish them all. What are your goals I would love to know?!?!

Update!!!

I've been away for awhile and unfortunately my mind has not been on my diet at all. Recently I have had some major life changes occur such as the ending of my engagement and four and a half year relationship and I moved back in with my family. I have heard how these things can cause a person a lot of stress and depending on how they deal with stress they can lose or gain weight. I definitely eat my stress away and I gained weight I got up to my heaviest this year at 187 (YIKES). I have managed to shed a little of that weight and now I am down to 182. I have no plan in place because as of now I have no will power to go work out or eat right. As always I will keep you posted and let you know which way the scale is leaning!!!