Wraping up 2010

There are only a few hours left in 2010 so I decided to make the most of it and get in a little exercise by doing 30 minutes on the treadmill.  I am gearing up for a blogger exercise challenge posted by Syl, I recently started following her blog.  The challenge is 30 minutes of exercise for five days a week...piece of cake...I mean snap of a carrot! ;o)

Looking back at my successes and failures over the past year, over all it was pretty good.  I was consistently active for the majority of the year.  I started out with a bang losing 1-2 pounds a week until about April where I plateaued.  I had a lull until I joined Booty Camp in June and then saw some major improvements where I was at my smallest size in my adult life in July.  That was pretty awesome... I bought this dress at BEBE and was SOOO excited to get dressed up for my friends wedding.

It was in August that things started to crumble when I took on new projects at work and I started staying late and not eating well.  It was during that time that I realized what it meant when people said "life got in the way".  Since then I have probably gained back 10-20 pounds but I am getting back on the horse.

For 2011, I am committing to making my lifestyle stick and not revert back to the "old" me when life gets busy.  I will plan as much as possible to always make me a priority by making the time to exercise and eating properly on a regular basis.  Once you get into the groove it's actually easier and you feel so much better!

I wish you all a Happy New Year and hope all your fitness dreams come true in 2011!

My goal is to make this year the last year I have to lose weight, once it's gone it will be a matter of maintaining my weight!

Getting my game face on

With 2011 just days away I started thinking about what I want to achieve during the next year.  For the past few years I focused on transforming my body and losing weight. I tracked calories I had eaten and the calories I had earned for exercising. I also tracked the minutes I worked out and kept my measurements recorded. Looking back, I feel I became a little OCD about the calorie tracking so this year my main goal for 2011 is to keep focused on living a healthy lifestyle and find the balance between living healthy and living happy.

My Activity Action Plan:

Exercise 4-5 times a week. This can include running twice a week, Hoy Yoga at least once a week and I am looking into starting Kick Boxing with a friend of mine. I am also going to go back to Booty Camp once the warmer weather rolls around as I really enjoyed the outdoor aspect as well as the motivation I got from working out in a group because you never wanted to be the last or the slowest person during the drills.

My Nutrition Plan:

I have been reviewing the Flat Belly Diet book as this was a great source of information regarding nutrition and ensuring healthy fats are a part of every meal. I was also going through their recipes and my WW cookbook to find some new dishes to try. I ended up going back to some of my old favorites but at least I know what I need to be cooking again.

My Mental Game Plan:

If you have ever tried to change your lifestyle or lose weight then you know that this is a mental game as much if not more than a physical or food game. In my opinion, losing weight is 90% mental and 10% what you eat and how much you exercise. If you are not in the right head space than it doesn’t matter how many salads you eat or calories you burn you will not get to be where you really want to be. I know I use to self-sabotage myself and end up yo-yoing for months at a time. If I lost the weight and actually was skinny, they who was I? I wasn’t the fat one in the family and I didn’t have all the extra pounds to hide under.

My mental game plan is to continue following the lessons I learned when I read the Beck Diet Solution. The lessons in this book gave me the tools I needed to train my brain to think like a thin person, something I never thought I could do or would ever be! But I know I have success when I follow the lessons I learned working through this book.

I realized that for me, losing weight and having a balanced healthy life doesn’t come from one source but many. I have tried many different approaches in the past and the what works best for me is taking the bits and pieces of information that I could relate to or that really had an impact on me and apply them to my life as I choose to, I also realized that the things that work for me may not work for my friends or anyone else and everyone has to find their way through this game.  I also have learned that just because something worked for me in the past, doesn’t mean that it will work for me today or tomorrow.  Life is about moving forward but remembering the lessons you learned along the way, the weight loss game is no different.

What’s going to be my plan?

I was reading my friends blog http://needagoal.blogspot.com/ yesterday about how “hope is not a plan”. The first time I heard that was by one of my past managers, as a project manager hope can NEVER be your plan to get things done. Anyway, her blog outlined what her plans were for her upcoming races, all her methods of support, the groups she is going to train with and the activities she is going to do to prepare.

I have learned that you need to have a plan in order to accomplish the things you want to otherwise, they are just hopes and dreams…with a plan, you can do anything. Reading her blog reminded me how important it is to have a fitness plan in place otherwise time passes by and you look in the mirror and probably one of two things have happened…you stay the same or usually in my case week by week a little more weight is added on. If I am not on a plan or have some specific goals in mind I tend to have weight-loss amnesia and seem to forget the consequences for eating things that are less than healthy or at this time of year just overeating in general.

I have been flip flopping as to what I want to do get active again on a regular basis. A friend and I have been talking about signing up for kick-boxing in January but we haven’t confirmed anything yet. I feel like if I don’t sign up for something soon more time is going to keep passing by and my jeans are going to get tighter.

Kick-boxing is a potential option for at least once a week. I think this will be great for self confidence as well as some self defense training  I plan to keep Yoga going at least once a week. That leaves regular cardio to keep the heart rate up.