You Are Beautiful, Just the Way You Are

Something that has always bothered me is how much we focus on weight as a social standard in our society. This is especially true for women. To be considered "beautiful", "successful", or "desirable", we must look a certain way or be a certain weight.

This morning I read a story about a blogger bashing an NBA cheerleader regarding her weight. The worst part of this story is the passing of judgment that is the norm in today's world. The other bad thing is that this judgment is thinly veiled in backhanded compliments, which is really just cattiness, not compliments. It's not just the blogger or the story that bothers me. It's the deeply entrenched values that seem to rule us, run our lives, and govern our society.

Judgment is a tool to drag others down and inflate our self above our brothers and sisters in this walk we call life. It is meant to manipulate, to injure, and to pad our own self-esteem. It brings down another's spirit, even going as far as to negatively change their view of themselves. Additionally, it gives the one passing judgment a falsely righteous sense of self, and falsely empowers one to believe they are "better" than another.

Dangerous doesn't even begin to describe this practice of judging our peers. It holds great power over our lives and our self-worth. By passing these quick judgments, we also avoid going beyond the surface and creating meaningful relationships. We rob ourselves of the opportunity to improve our lives, we sow unhappiness, and we reap discontent.

Cattiness is part and parcel of judgment. It is the "zinger", or the stab at someone that delivers whatever judgment we have made. Oftentimes, it's cloaked in a "compliment" (that really is NOT a compliment), or delivered in a way to make us feel like we're not directly insulting a person. It's underhanded and devious.

There are a multitude of body shapes and sizes, as well as a multitude of reasons why a person may have those body shapes and sizes. It has been studied in depth and proven that genetics do play a role in this, although it's not completely known exactly what role. Medical conditions play a huge role in affecting body shape and size, and actually make it more difficult to change that. I personally have friends and family that struggle with diabetes, chronic pain, thyroid disorders and depression. All of these and many more have a significant impact on weight. Why would I take it upon myself to make a surface judgment about someone? I don't know that person or what is going on in their life, so it's not my place to judge. It IS my place to offer a smile and a bit of encouragement.

The effects of judgment, cattiness and negativity are astounding. No, I haven't conducted any scientific studies or done in depth research. But what I have done is observe these effects in my own life and the lives of others. The hurt and rejection have a cascading effect, going from the lowering of self-worth all the way down to depression and suicidal thoughts. (No, I personally am neither depressed nor contemplating suicide. Just a disclaimer.) That kind of power should never be used against another person. But it is, every day.

I don't know about you, but I know that I want to change this. I'll even go so far as to say that we have a responsibility to change this. But how? We change the conversation! To remedy this culture, a culture of judgment, cattiness, and focus on weight as a social standard, we MUST change how we speak and how we behave.

We need to begin to treat each other with compassion. It should not matter a person's body shape or size. We ought to show love and kindness to our brothers and sisters in life, in all things. We should be offering encouragement, and showing that no matter what, YOU MATTER.

To change the conversation regarding body shape and size, we need to start talking about being healthy, not getting "skinny". Being healthy, in body and mind, is of much greater importance than being "skinny". I know from my own experience that when you are healthy, you are happy; and when you are happy, your world no longer revolves around your shape or size. "Skinny" is a very relative term, and I've always believed that beauty lies in the eye of the beholder. When you are healthy and happy, you love yourself more and you lose those negative thoughts about yourself.

We need to change our SELVES! We need to release ourselves from the power of judgment. From now on, the judgment of others no longer carries any weight in our minds. From now on, we will offer only compassion, love and encouragement to our peers. We are changed!

Let me close by saying to all of you out there, whoever you may be, YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL, AMAZING AND PERFECT, just the way you are.

Sickly

Over the last few weeks, our house has had our share (plus some) of the sicklies! I was having some gastritis issues first, then we got hit with a stomach virus! :-( The little man got that first, then passed it to me. I feel like I have been run over by a freight train.

This would be why I have been absent the past little bit. I hope to be getting back to normal by sometime this week and therefore back to exercising! But hey, stomach issues are a good way to lose weight quickly :-P Not exactly the healthy way though....oh well!

I will post more once I'm back up and running (literally and figuratively, haha). Hope everyone else out in bloggy world is doing well :-)

Parties, Cake and Speed Work

Today has been a great day. I got to spend the day with family and great friends.

The hubby got to stay home today for a change, so we enjoyed some family time. Little man decided he did NOT want to sleep in today, so we were up and at 'em pretty early. ;-) That gave us lots of time to watch cartoons play and have fun. Then little man and daddy went and had some guy time, and I went with my mother-in-law to a baby shower.

We had a great time hanging out with family and friends, and celebrating a good friend and her new baby boy! He is so precious, and his big sister was so excited to help open presents. We are just so excited that their sweet family has grown again. And of course, the party included lots of goodies, and cake :-) BTW- it was the cutest cake ever and it would have been evil to not have some.....and it was SO worth it!

Since I didn't eat so healthy today (possible understatement of the year), I decided I needed to make up for it with some serious exercise. When I got home, little man and daddy were still out doing "man things" (their words, not mine, lol!) so I headed out for a run.

I recently saw on (I think) the Runner's World website about a "100 Step Fartlek" that is supposed to help decrease your mile time. Since I can always use some help in that area, I decided to try it. Also, to be quite honest, I have been getting a bit bored/frustrated with just a normal run. Here's how it works (disclaimer: please know that I did not think this up on my own, I got it from somewhere on the web, and I think it was Runner's World....or Pinterest....haha):

10 minute warm-up
10 steps hard running (counting each time the right foot hits the ground, or the left foot, just use only one to make sure you get the full number of steps and not half)
10 steps easy running
20 steps hard running
20 steps easy running
and repeat, increasing each time by 10 until you reach 100
5 minute cool down
The instructions also included that one you master this, you can then continue after the 100 and start over backwards. So you would start with 100 steps hard running, 100 steps easy running, 90 steps...all the way back down to 10 before the cool down.

I thought I might try to do the increasing and then the decreasing steps too, but I got to 100 and knew that was it for me! Lol!! I am still proud that I made it all the way to 100! Here's what my Garmin said after the run:

 

 

I know that my overall pace wasn't all that great (10:44 min/mi), but look at that max pace!! 6:18!!! That's the best I've ever had. Previously, my best had been roughly 8:30 or something like that. Wow! That made this run one of the most fun in a long time. I think I'll have to do runs like this more often.

After my run, I did 3 circuits of my strength training routine, and a short yoga sequence (14 minutes). Whew! Momma was one tired girl.

I'm not even going to tell you what I ate today....it was just not great, and we'll leave it at that :-P But hey, hubby made dinner, so I'm not complaining one bit about that!! ;-)

How do you deal with going off target on eating? Do you make up for it with exercise or do you let it slide? Also, what's your favorite run routine?

House Cleaning and Sports Playing

Whew! What a day....

This was me today. It was time for house cleaning!! After running some errands first thing this morning, me and little man (but mostly me) spent the day cleaning the house. Picking up, scrubbing, vacuuming, mopping, dusting, putting up clothes, straightening up and all that good stuff.

According to one of my favorite calorie-burn calculators, I most likely burned upwards of 400-500 calories today! Which is a good thing, because I have no energy left to exercise :-)

We took a break from cleaning to go outside and play football and basketball with our friends in the cul-de-sac.

My little man is on the left, with his friend and his friend's dad.

Of course, I helped to chase the ball around when it got away from him, so got some more activity in with that.

How about food?
Breakfast: Fiber One Nutty Clusters & Almonds cereal
No morning snack since we got up late and therefore ate breakfast late :-)
Lunch: Subway 6" bacon, egg and cheese flat bread sandwich., Dr. Pepper
Afternoon snack: hummus and pretzel crisps
Dinner: rotisserie chicken and potato casserole (yum! My favorite!!)

How did your Saturday go?

New Reading Material & A Walk/Run

Hallelujah!!! It's Friday :-)

The thing I'm most excited about today is my new reading material...

YYEEEESSSSS!!! I love getting new issues of Runner's World! It's my favorite magazine. If you couldn't already tell. Hehehe....

It inspired me so much, I decided I needed to go for a run today. And I haven't even opened the magazine yet! Lol!!

I hit the road with a new mommy friend who is trying to get back into jogging. We had a great time getting some exercise, girl time, and chatting! We did a walk/run for 2 miles, then she headed home and I did another mile of running.

Average speed for all 3 miles together was 12:54. Which is not bad for 2 miles that included lots of walking, and considering the heat that we had today (what happened to the nice fall weather we've had the last week or two?!?!).

Mile 1: 13:28 - maybe about half to three-quarters of this mile was running.

Mile 2: 15:08 - I think only about a quarter to half of the time running in this mile.

Mile 3: 10:04 - I only took a very short walk break during this mile, so almost all running.

It felt so great to get some outside activity, even if it wasn't much. At least I still burned close to 300 calories!

So how does that balance with my eating today? Well....
Breakfast: Cinnamon Life cereal, Coca-Cola (don't judge me :-)...needed caffeine)
Morning snack: cheese cubes (forgot to pack my grapes today...)
Lunch: about 3/4 of a Chick-fil-a sandwich (with extra pickles!), about 3/4 of an order of fries, and a sweet tea
Afternoon snack: small piece of cookie cake (a friends birthday celebration at work today, and it was totally worth it-so good!)
Dinner: Taco salad - a few chips, ground beef with taco seasoning, and cheese

I'm not sure yet what I plan to do this weekend. I should probably work up a training plan sometime soon so I have something to follow. I've been thinking about doing that for a while but I just haven't done it yet. I think it would be good so that I have a goal and something concrete to do instead of just going to do some exercise each day. In fact, I think I'll work on that tomorrow :-)

What are you planning to do this weekend? If you're celebrating the Labor Day holiday, are you planning on having a splurge day or having a healthy celebration? I'm hoping to do a little of both!

My Little Helper

I had a little helper today to workout with. Little man decided it would be fun to workout with mommy! It was so funny :-)

Not sure why he's doing a headstand, because I definitely wasn't doing any of those!

When I was doing jumping jacks, he was standing beside me jumping up and down just as fast as he could go. And when I was doing push ups he came over and stood on my hands! Silly boy!!

My workout consisted of 30 minutes on the elliptical:

Then 3 sets of my strength circuit. I'm fixing to do a 35 minute set of yoga to relax the day away.

For food today, I was pretty good. Except for all the caffeine....
Breakfast: Cinnamon Life cereal, cup of cappuccino
Morning snack: cheese cubes, cup of cappuccino (I forgot to eat my snack on time so didn't have my full snack so that I wouldn't be too full for lunch)
Lunch: hamburger, cheese, pickles, bun (leftover from our yummy dinner last night)
Afternoon snack: skipped.....I brought Greek yogurt but when I went to get it, it was expired so I definitely threw that away
Dinner: small piece of lasagna, 2 pieces of bread....I mostly wanted the bread, lol!

I was so tired today that I couldn't make it without gallons of some caffeine. Luckily my little man made my workout easy to get through once I got home from work!

Now I'm off to do my yoga and put little man (who is now grumpy little man) to bed!

Is anyone else as excited for Friday as me? :-)

Happy Hump Day

Yay for being halfway to Friday!

I didn't have a whole lot of time for exercise today. Little man decided that he didn't want to take a nap today, so he was a pill this afternoon. But still the cutest little pill :-)

As little time as I had, I was able to squeeze in 20 minutes on the elliptical. I had planned to do 30, but sometimes life just happens, ya know?

I was going to do a set of yoga after dinner, but I think I'm going to settle for BED! Lol!! I'm sure I could use the exercise, especially considering the lunch I had, but I'm more tired so I'm choosing that. :-)

My food choices today were mostly good, except for lunch.
Breakfast: Cinnamon Life cereal
Morning Snack: grapes and cheese (obviously this is one of my fave snacks in the whole world...if you couldn't already tell)
Lunch: Calabash shrimp with cocktail sauce and french fries (Showmars!), oh and sweet tea ;-)
Dinner: hamburger, cheese, pickles and bun

I'll admit that I had a super craving for some shrimp, so I may not have eaten the healthiest lunch. Shrimp is very healthy, but the fact that it was fried probably negated the health-factor a bit haha! I did have a side of fries, but I only ate about a quarter of what they gave me. And I had actually ended up eating lunch pretty late in the afternoon, so it lasted me till dinner and I didn't have to eat an afternoon snack.

I'm working on a post for later this week about healthy snacks, so make sure to pass on any ideas you think should be included!

What are your fitness plans for the remainder of the week?

Crazy Day

Today has been a crazy kind of day for me. For some reason, I kept thinking all day that it was Wednesday......but it's only Tuesday. :-/

The day was a great day on the health and fitness front though :-) And I successfully stayed off Pinterest, lol! Well, I didn't Pin anything....so that still counts! (I just needed a little motivation to kick my butt in gear when I got home)

I did 20 minutes on the elliptical:

(Side note: not totally sure why the picture always turns out super dark)

Then after cardio, I did 3 sets of my current strength training circuit. It's a whole body workout that I partially got from a pre-made routine and partially made up on my own. It's currently hand written, so I'll try to get it into some sort of table format to be able to post.

Tonight was bath night for the little man so I got him all cleaned up and ready for bed, then did a short yoga sequence. I use an app on my iPad that has music and vocal instructions that makes it really nice. The routine I used today was about 14 minutes long.

I think I did pretty good eating healthy today too.
Breakfast: Cinnamon Life cereal
Morning snack: grapes and cheese
Lunch: leftover smoked pork and quinoa, and edamame
Afternoon snack: black cherry Greek yogurt with 2 packets of Splenda and a handful of Cheerios. Oh, and um...2 Hershey Kisses. :-) A girl's gotta have a chocolate fix okay?! Don't judge me..... :-)
Dinner: Lasagna (leftover from dinner Saturday!)

My hip flexor is doing better, it doesn't hurt hardly at all now except when I'm doing something that puts a strain on it. For example, in my strength circuit I'm supposed to do side lunges but those hurt the muscle so I go easy on those....gotta make sure I heal and don't injure myself worse than I already have!

How are your workouts going this week? Any new or exciting exercises you've tried?

Motivation Monday

I love Monday's.......(or not)!

But regardless of how I feel about Monday's in general, I do love one thing about Monday. It's a chance to start over and get motivated for a whole new week!

I frequently turn to Pinterest for fitness motivation and healthy ideas. I may or may not have gone Pinterest-crazy today trying to find as much motivation as I could for this week. (Hi my name is Erin and I'm a Pinterest-holic.....)

:-)

Feel free to pop over to my Erin's Fit Life board and follow me!!

I don't know about anyone else, but I was not feeling the whole working out thing today. In fact, I seriously considered skipping. I had all the standard arguments in my head....

• I ate really mostly healthy today so I could stand to skip and just be lazy.....
• I'll work out extra hard tomorrow.....
• I am SO tired.....
• It's only Monday so I'll have plenty of time to make up for it later in the week.....

.....and so on. After my Pinterest-perusing, I decided to get over it and just DO IT! So I went upstairs and got on the elliptical for 20 minutes (because by the time I got done arguing with myself, that's all the time I had....).

Since I wasted my time down to only 20 minutes, I pushed myself extra hard and burned 330 calories (or so)! I'm also going to do some yoga in a bit after little man goes to bed to loosen up and get some low key stretching.

Back to an earlier point (that I made while arguing with myself, :-) ), I did eat pretty well today.
Breakfast: Fiber One Nutty Clusters & Almonds - which is one of my favorite cereals right now.
Midmorning snack: Grapes and cheese.
Lunch: A Healthy Choice frozen meal and some Edamame - super yum!
Afternoon snack: 2 cookies (oops....).
Dinner: Pork that the hubby smoked yesterday for us, and Quinoa. It was my first time having Quinoa, so I was a little nervous. But it was really good! I'll be taking the leftovers for lunch tomorrow!

I think that my week has gotten off to a good start and I'm glad I gave in and exercised :-)

How has your week started? How do you find motivation to get going on another healthy week?

A Day of Rest

Is it really the end of the weekend again?!?!?! Every week I wonder how this day arrives so fast. Oh well, such is life...

Today has been a very low key day. I haven't done any planned exercise (so far), but I did go outside and walk around with the little man while he played and ran around like the wild thing he is :-). My hip flexor muscle was SO TIGHT after my run yesterday, so I soaked it last night in epsom salts and then used the heating pad. I also ended up taking some anti-inflammatories to help lessen the pain enough to get to sleep. Fortunately I woke up this morning and it feels decent. Still tight and hurting a little, but decent enough to be able to hang out around the house and get some stuff done.

I probably should get out and exercise in a bit since we'll be having birthday cake with the fam tonight.....maybe I'll do those 2 miles that I skipped yesterday.

 



I'm looking forward to a healthy week of eating well and exercising my butt off (Literally? Maybe.....hehehe). Leave me a comment here or on Facebook, and tell me what you plan on doing this week to be healthy!

4 miler

My goal for today's run was to go 6 miles. Turns out, I was shooting a bit too high :-). To explain, let me go back a little while.

About a month or two ago, I pulled my hip flexor muscle. I have had a lot of trouble recuperating it. I went almost 2 weeks with no running and then as soon as I ran again, it hurt again. I researched some ways to help and found lots of suggestions. I first bought some KT Tape, which worked pretty well for the short-term. This is what all the Olympic athletes were wearing, so I felt all professional. Plus it was bright pink and pretty :-P. I have also been using a heating pad on it that helps to loosen it up. I also started doing yoga to help stretch it out, which seems to have helped the most.

Once I felt like I was good and recovered, I started running again. I seemed to be able to do about 3 miles and then it felt like I was hitting a brick wall because the muscle would just tighten up so bad I could hardly move my leg forward!

So I've been taking it light, only running about once or twice a week since then. Before being sidelined, I had gotten up to 5.5 miles at a time. Since the injury, the most I've done at one time was 3.2 miles, and right around 2.75-3.0 miles is when my muscle starts getting really tight.

Considering the injury and the fact that since getting hurt I have gone no farther than 3.2 miles at once, I should have known that 6 miles was too much to shoot for.

Back to the present, once I got out and starting running today, I began to realize that 6 was going to be too much. I decided to just go and see how much farther than 3.2 miles I could get. At about 3.5 miles I knew I couldn't get much farther before I couldn't move my leg at all. So I headed back to the house, and made it home right at 4.0 miles.

Here's the stats from the run:

I feel like that is pretty good considering I had to stop a couple of times to stretch out my hip flexor, plus my warm up and cool down.

I'll probably get in some yoga time later to stretch out and help recuperate my muscles.

How are your weekend plans going? Are you dealing with any injuries?

Snack Day

Hi and Happy Friday! I don't know about you, but I am GLAD it is finally the weekend.

Today was a rough day in the fitness department. I did start out the day in a great way by doing some yoga first thing this morning. However, it was a Snack Day at work and folks brought in everything from donuts to chips to pizza! It was yummy.....and super duper bad for me!! I felt terrible after eating snacks all day and pizza for lunch. Luckily, I also was able to go for a walk on my lunch break with a friend so that helped me feel less like a cow :-)

Once I got home and got little man settled down, I did 30 minutes on the elliptical and then did a strength training circuit 3 times. I think I made up for some of the bad eating I did, but definitely not all of it.

I have learned my lesson though: next time indulge in just a little and maybe contribute something healthy like crackers and hummus so that there is something better for me, and others, to snack on. And only 1 piece of pizza....

Tomorrow should be a big day for me. I plan on trying to go for a mileage record run.....I'm shooting for 6 miles! The longest I have run before is 5.5 miles as one time so I know it'll be hard!! I recently got a Garmin running watch that has significantly helped to keep track of how I'm running, while I'm running. It is much more accurate than the run tracker app I was using on my phone. I'll post after my run so we can see how I did!!

What are your fitness plans for the weekend?

Hi Friends!!!!

I have been taking a break from blogging lately, but I'm back :-)

My computer was actually broken and I was procrastinating getting a new one. My new laptop arrived yesterday so here I am!!

Hope you guys have been well and healthy; I'm excited to be back to share my fitness journey with you.

My most recent posts stated that my main goal was to lose 30 lbs. So far this year I have lost 15!!

I'll post more details soon, just wanted to do a brief check in today and a quick update....so more to come really soon, I promise! :-)

Have a great night everyone!

2012 FitGoals - Weeks 1 & 2 Recap

We are wrapping up the second week of 2012, and the second week of my 2012 FitGoals. As promised in my last post, I wanted to give a brief recap of what I have done so far.

(source)

Eating:
Breakfast - I have replaced all breakfasts with a protein shake. So far, I have tried SlimFast and Special K shakes. I'll be doing a comparison of these later this week. I think that one morning last weekend I did break down and have some cereal, but overall I didn't do bad at all, and I was less hungry than I expected.

Lunch - Most lunches so far have either been Lean Cuisine, Healthy Choice or leftovers. If whatever my chosen lunch may be is on the lower calorie side, I will add on one of those Lean Cuisine snack things. (My fave so far is the Broccoli-n-Cheese dip with pita bread. SO GOOD!)

Dinner - I have cooked the majority of nights so far, which by the way I am super proud of myself for doing :-P (I have never claimed to be a good cook....or even a cook at all...). I have tried to have a healthy protein with a (fairly) healthy carb, and added on a veggie.

Snacks - Snacks have consists of protein bars, cheese with sliced turkey, Greek yogurt, or a Lean Cuisine snack I talked about above just by itself.

Exercising:

My goal was to exercise 1 time in week 1, and 2 times in week 2. I did accomplish that.

On 1/2/12 I did my first run of the year. I ran 2.1 miles in 25:26 which equates to a 12:10 minute mile. I of course did some walking as well, but I definitely ran for at least 3/4 of it.

On 1/12/12 I did an elliptical workout. I used it for 30 minutes, burning 425 calories, 74.3 carbs and a distance of 1812.

On 1/15/12 I actually ended up doing 2 (!!) workouts! I went for a run earlier in the day, and then after realizing how badly I had eaten, I did an elliptical workout too. My run was 2.3 miles in 27:37 which is a 12:06 minute mile (improvement!). According to my favorite calorie burn calculator, I burned 250 calories doing this. :-) My elliptical workout was for 30 minutes, I burned 357 calories, 62.3 carbs with a distance of 1710. That's a total of 607 calories burned!! Yay!

Today was not a typical day, so I don't expect to burn that many calories on a normal day, and I definitely don't expect to get 2 workouts in on a normal day. However, it just so happened that I was able to do it today, so I took advantage of the opportunity.
That's how my first 2 weeks of FitGoals have gone. How have yours been? Have you achieved any big goals yet?

Fitness in the New Year

Happy (late) New Year, friends!

This time of year is the most popular time to make new fitness goals and start living a fit life. I, like many others, have done the same. I am trying to start slow so that I don't get burned out by February, so I haven't made lots of lofty goals. I set goals for myself that I feel I can live with and actually accomplish. I will share them with you, and then see how I'm doing on them. My driving purpose behind the goals is to lose this baby weight once and for all, and to finally live a truly healthy and fit life.

2012 FitLife Goals:

-Lose 30 lbs. This will be accomplished by meeting the below goals.

-Eat right. I am replacing breakfast, which has always been a hard meal for me, with a protein shake. I am eating healthy for lunch, and eating out less. I am snacking less. I am attempting to make a healthy dinner, and if that fails, then I just eat less of whatever I make.

-Begin working out again, with serious intentions this time. I will begin with working out 1 day per week, and add another day each week. That means that week 1, I work out 1 day. Week 2, I work out 2 days. I will build up to 5 days per week.

-Once exercise is a real part of my life, add weight lifting. This will increase the effectiveness of my workouts and I will build muscle and burn more calories to maintain the weight loss I achieve.

-Journaling. I got a great planner from my job for the new year, so I plan on using it to keep track of my calorie intake and exercise each day.

I will post more detail on each goal in the coming days. This is just a brief overview, so stay tuned for more :-)

So how am I doing on these goals? So far, so good.

I exercised 1 day in week 1. I have exercised 2 days in week 2. Next up is week 3!

I have been attempting to eat healthy. I have drank a protein shake every morning for breakfast. The first week was a little challenging, but I have gotten used to it and actually enjoy them now. I have eaten out for lunch less, and when I did I made sure to get something decently healthy. I have made really good stuff for dinner, and a lot of days took the leftovers for lunch the next day, which also saves money! :-)

I have lost........2 pounds! Hey, it's not a lot, but it's a start! I'm pretty proud, if I do say so myself. :-D

What are your 2012 FitLife goals? Have you made any progress on them yet?

Monday Morning Motivation

My motivation for this week: Diabetes.

(source)

November is Diabetes Awareness Month. I know that after having Gestational Diabetes, plus a family history of the disease, I am at a higher risk of ending up with it. A healthy lifestyle is a major factor in preventing Diabetes. Getting my exercise and eating right will not only keep me in shape and feeling good, it will also help avoid Diabetes.

Living a healthy lifestyle will help to prevent a host of diseases and conditions, like Diabetes, Heart Disease, cancers and more.

This is what will help keep me on track this week. What will your motivation be?

New Shoes!

Hi friends!
I have been a little bit of a slacker this past week in the exercise area. I was at the beach the last week in October, and I did SO GOOD exercising on vacay. However, while I was there I figured out that my shoes were REALLY.WORN.OUT. So, I had to take a break until I could get some new running shoes. I got shin splints and my ankle hurt, so I had to recover from that as well. I feel better now, and my new shoes are awesome, so I'm pretty pumped to get back at it.

I went to Charlotte Running Company over in the Ballantyne area of Charlotte. I had heard great things about them, and I knew that they offered gait analysis to find the best possible shoe for me. It was a little hard to find (for me anyway, lol), but I called and they so graciously advised me of where to find them, and even offered to come out in the parking lot to help...haha! (I'm only a little bad with directions...) Once I finally made it into the store I was good.

I had been using Nike Lunar Glides that I was really happy with, but I had also been told about some more serious running shoes made by Mizuno and Brooks. I did the gait analysis and found that I had a pretty big overpronation on the left side, and a little bit on the right. So I needed some stabilizing shoes. I ended up with a pair of Mizuno Wave Inspire in a size 7 that felt GREATGREATGREAT on my feet. It felt like it completely contoured to my foot and was super lightweight. And they're pretty :-P Which everybody knows is REALLY important.....Lol!

I haven't done a good run in them yet, so I'll have to let you know later how that goes.

What kind of shoes do you run in?

**Just thought I'd clarify that I was not asked or paid for this post**

Monday Morning Motivation

Happy Monday!! (maybe?)

I don't know about you, but I need some motivation for this Monday!

My motivation for this week will be thinking forward to the holidays.

(source)

The holidays are just around the corner (where did the time go????) and just thinking of all that food that'll be in front of me makes me feel bloated. So, my motivation this week is to make sure that I'm living a fit and healthy lifestyle so that I don't want to do too much damage to all of my hard work. If I'm in the habit and loving being healthy, then I won't want as much of that calorie and fat filled food that isn't good for me and I don't need anyway....and what I do end up eating won't be too bad since I've been healthy, and plan on going back to healthy right after.

I love the holidays, and I want to enjoy them, not sit around in a food coma! This makes me want to prepare and make sure I'm ready to take on the temptation. And setting yourself up for success is always easier than trying to come back from the abyss later!

How does this Monday Morning Motivation make you motivated? It makes me want to eat really healthy today!

Have a fantastic Monday, and stay fit!!!

Booo-bie Check

In the spirit of living a healthy life....don't forget:

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I hope that my friend doesn't mind that I stole her post idea, but in the interest of women everywhere I don't think she'll mind.

Stay fit!

The "F" Word

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There is one word that I hate more than anything....that dreaded "F" word:

FAT.

No other word has the power to make someone feel just awful about themselves that this does. It brings out powerful feelings that can completely destroy self-esteem. It can ruin a day. It can be said by anyone, about yourself or about others. It is most hurtful coming from someone you love. When it gets said over and over, eventually it becomes a part of who you are and changes how you feel about yourself forever.

How can this be changed?

You must tell yourself otherwise! You must say I AM BEAUTIFUL! When that word creeps in, you must say NO! The way I deal with this word is to tell myself, "Okay, so maybe I am not happy with myself as I am, so let me CHANGE that!"

Here is how to deal with this word:
F: Feelings
A: Attitude
T: Take Action

Feelings
Regardless of what you might think, you can change your feelings. It is not easy, by any means. But you must change how you feel about yourself, and how you see yourself, in order to make a difference. If you think negatively about yourself, it will show. You must think positively about yourself to change how you feel. You need to tell yourself that you are amazing and that you deserve to feel good about yourself, no matter what. If others are breaking you down, you must block out that message and reinforce a positive message about yourself. Any changes you make must be for YOU, and not for anyone else. If not, the changes won't last and will end up doing more harm than good. So, FEEL GREAT!

Attitude
Changing your feelings will be a big step in changing your attitude. Having a positive and can-do attitude will go a long way. My attitude has to be: I CAN do something to change this, and I WILL! I set myself up for success. I get mentally prepared all day for going home and being psyched about working out. I get my attitude right so that I can be motivated and do what I need to do. I don't allow myself to make excuses or let anything get in the way of what I know I need to do. I'm doing it for myself, so I don't let myself mess that up.

Take Action
Once you feel better and have the right attitude, DO IT! Get out there and make those positive changes in your life. For me, that's to get out and run. For you, that may be different. I want to lose weight and be healthy, so I'm going to be exercising and striving to eat right. What action are you going to take?

In order to create a better life for ourselves, we have to take a negative, the "F" word -- FAT, and make it a positive force in our lives, by changing our Feelings and Attitudes, and Taking Action.

How do you create that change in your life?

Until next time, Stay Fit!