It took me a while to purchase a gym bag. Now I can't live without it! I love my bag and rarely go to the gym unaccompanied by it.
I got this Betsy Johnson steal at TJ Maxx!!
When you like your gym gear then you will be more motivated to go work out! If you look good then you feel good and you'll work harder to get to your goals! Build your workout wardrobe with some great essentials. Be careful not to go overboard as your shape may be changing over the months!
| I love this bag because it has so much room inside!! I can fit my sneakers, pants, socks, top, and bra in with room to spare. There is a side pocket on the inside that I use for headphones in between workouts and my keys or sunglasses while I am at the gym. There is a magnetic button on the top to close it and it is quite strong! It was not meant to be a gym bag so the top does not close all the way, just the magnet in the middle, which is kind of a bummer. The big shoulder straps are perfect! I can swing it around easily in a hurry. Even with the bulge of all my gear, I can easily carry this around. I love the silver chain detail with the black leather that is laced through the strap. This picture gives you a good idea of its size, I love a nice big gym bag! | Below is a close up of the front. I really love the heart shaped pocket on the front, it adds a special girly twist! The zipper is a bit difficult to get open and closed. The dip in the middle is the tricky part. Overall I love the front storage. It is actually very roomy -- I keep my make up remover face wipes, extra deodorant, and hand sanitizer in here! To the left is a close up of the back. I just wanted to add it to be through =)
This bag is the perfect size for me and it is a wonderful mix of edgy and girly! Even though I just use it while I am walking in and out of the gym, it still makes me happy to wear it! I am excited to pack my bag at night and excited to use it the next day. This bag cost me about $45 but there were cheaper options there. I knew that I was going to use this long term and I wanted something I couldn't live without. If you are planning on loosing weight, your bag is a good splurge item! | Have a great night!
Valerie
Warm weather is FINALLY here! Everyone knows that hot temperatures equals skinny clothes and skimpy bikinis! My drive to be fit and lost weight boosted when I realized I would need to go shorts and tank top shopping very soon.
This swim suit ready girl looks like she has abs for days!
| I have kicked my diet back into gear and have done Medifast for about 5 weeks. I did the very strict version but now I am slowly increasing calories to prepare for my New Orleans trip. Yahoooo!! After the Holidays, my weight crept up about 9 pounds (YIKES) from where I was in December. Not good. I needed to start getting my life together again. I could feel the difference in my body and it made me grumpy and unhappy. I have absolutely no idea why it took me so long to realize that I was slowly by surely creeping back up to my start weight. A few more months and I would have been back where I started TWO YEARS ago!!!
As Michelle from Full house would say, I thought "No way Jose!" | | As soon as I made my decision I was ready to go. However, I hit TONS of road blocks along the way! Dinners out, movies, people asking me to go to ice cream, the lure of the couch, and the list goes on. I needed to find my inner inspiration and make this happen. A huge part in my motivation to lose weight is my big upcoming trip to New Orleans!!! During my diet, I consistently think about how good it would feel to go to New Orleans as a lighter and healthier version of myself. Superficially, I would feel better about myself, fit into clothes better, and take better pictures. On the flip side, losing weight will keep me focused on health throughout my trip. I just lost all this weight, do I really need another scoop of ice cream to risk losing all my hard work when I step back on the scale at home? There is a ton of walking to do there, getting fit now will help me have more energy and allow my to keep up with my boyfriend! I value both the superficial reasons and health-focused reasons to be fit. I love putting on an outfit that I think I actually look good it; but I also love to walk all day without feeling out of breath or incredibly sore the next day! The point is I had to find my own inspiration to do better for myself. That is different for everyone and sometimes really takes a lot of thinking. Find Your Fitspiration! | Inspiration and Motivation go hand-in-hand. You must find inspiration that motivates you to push forward. From your motivation, you should be inspired to keep going!
I definitely recommend making a list and using that to move forward. Start by organizing your thoughts about your health goals. Use this list to more clearly define what you are working towards. Be sure to include both short term and long term goals. These goals should, surprise surprise, motivate and inspire you!
Inspiration should be unique to you. I will always recommend that you pick positive elements to provide you base motivation. However, I must admit that I do draw some of my motivation on aspects of my self that I do not like. If you are like me, maybe you don't like the flab in your arms or the undefined tone of your thighs, try to focus on your positive goals. Turn those negative thoughts into something that boosts you up! Instead of thinking "I hate the bulge of my stomach" to motivate you at the gym, try "My next goal is to get to size X pants". While the goals is essentially the same the latter is specific, positive, and has a clear fix -- diet and exercise! | Here is an example of my inspirational goals!: - Gain muscle mass -> slim my thighs and tone my abdominals
- Improve heart health through cardio
- Look and feel great in clothes
- Be more confident in public
- Incorporate more fruits and vegetables in my diet
- Decrease intake of empty calories
- Be able to run a 5K
- Get into the 140 pound rage
- Fit into a size 10 or smaller
- Learn how to cook healthy and nutritious meals and snacks
| Take some time to create your own list! It can be ANYTHING you want. The list above is a smaller targeted sample, I have a longer list that outlines every little thing that I want from better health and healthier weight. No one has to see your list unless you want them too. Every so often I get out my crafting supplies and create a health motivational board. In the past this has meant colorful paper, markers, and lots of phrases, words, and ideas. I am working on a motivational inspiration board that includes pictures, tips, magazine clips, quotes, stickers, ribbons, glitter, and more to really help keep my moral up! The point of this mental exercise is to use things that will make you want to pursue health every day.
I hope this helped and stay tuned! Have a great last week of June =)
Valerie
 Hello everyone!
Here in Virginia it is a snowy slushy mess and I got (most) of the day off of work! It is easy to take a bad weather day and turn it into a lazy and glutton filled day of non-productivity. All I want to do is eat and watch movies. Even my coworkers were talking about that exact phenomena that when the weather is yucky outside, we someone how want to match that with our insides by eating junk and not moving around.
I want to come up with some fun tricks to at least stay somewhat healthy on these at home days of fun!
Each picture shown is one of my favorite exercises! They target all the areas I love to build muscle in and they help me feel better about myself by building a strong, lean, and sexy body.
| Backwards push-ups are a great way to target the muscles under your arms where a lot of women will complain about "flab" | You can do these walking lunges without weights to get around the house. Or better yet, do these while putting away dishes or clutter to give you the benefit that gym weights would! | Please remember, I am NOT a trainer, these are just exercise I like and want to share! Go at your own pace and remember to stop if anything is painful or if it doesn't feel right. I like to push my self to feel a good burn so I am sore tomorrow, but not everyone can, or will want, to start there. If you are new to exercising, you may want to start with fewer reps – try 5-10 to test each exercise out =)
| A great way to stay on track when the kitchen and couch are calling out your name is to get active! This can be hard when trapped inside, but there are TONS of amazing blogs, apps, and website to help you get moving even just in your living room. If you find that it is really hard to commit to a 40, 30, or even 20-minute workout without the gym, my suggestion is to start slow and build up over the day.
You can do squats without the jump at the end, but the jump is a great way to kick up calorie burning by adding some cardio. Squats and leg raises are great for quadricep, calf, glute, and ankle strengthening When working around the house try kicking up the intensity. You can pick up the pace and work double time as you vacuum, sweep, scrub, Clorox, and Swiffer. This may result in you having to do this twice, but hey, getting moving is what this post is all about!
Do both of these exercises (above and below) with a bent knee or a straight leg. This primarily works the glutes but remember to keep your abs engaged! Workouts help you burn more calories during the next few hours. Muscle building also helps burn more calories all the time – even while you sleep! Today I have no article to support this but I hope to have some future exercise posts where I explore more about calorie burning, muscle mass, and the effect of exercise on the body, mind, and mood! For now that is just great motivation! If anyone is like me, I try to find any excuse to burn some extra calories through out the day!
| For more of a challenge: don't let your feet touch the ground, just let them hover and inch or two between each rep. For less of a challenge: bend your knees so your calves are parallel to the floor when you raise up For the couch potato: do 10-20 reps of any strength training exercise during each commercial.
If you are a Netflix fanatic, try doing 20 reps before each new episode starts plus an additional 20 reps during the show.
Add in some cardio with jumping jacks, running in place, jumping rope, but kicks, and jumping from side-to-side an front-to-back (as you can see jumping is the best way to get your heart rate up at home!). As you do this, be careful not to hurt your knees or back. We used to do releves (or calf raises) in Ballet class and I have always loved this exercise! Stand next to a wall or chair to keep balance and raise up onto the balls of your feet, try to keep your weight centered in the middle of your foot so your ankles don't roll! As you perform more sedentary tasks (such as putting dishes away, laundry, brushing your teeth, microwaving, making coffee, dusting, etc…) you can use walking lunges, squats, calf raises, and leg lifts (be creative!) to kick up your calorie burn and build muscle daily.
This is another glute workout! I do this one as show and then another set with my ankles raised and knees on the ground. I also do a set without my ankles touching so it looks like a clam opening up | If you have any favorite exercises feel free to share. As always, if you have any thoughts, comments, feelings, or questions, don't hesitate to ask.
Well that's all for today! I am off to do a few of these on my own and make a nice healthy dinner starting with a big salad!
Re-motivation
SO unfortunately I have lost about 2 weeks of steam! I haven't even updated the blog since the 18th of last month and I have absolutely no excuse!
| Here is some visual motivation! Something to strive for and some nice eye candy on the bottom right ;) | I only have 2 posts so I am pretty sure I have no followers, but I still feel the need to apologize, mostly to the universe, for giving up on myself and on everyone out there. I started this blog with hopes of firstly keeping myself motivated and informed about nutritional and health topics. My dreams were that somewhere along the way, I would touch a few other people’s lives. I am NOT perfect so just like my health, I believe that this will be a long journey! However, I am committed to trying and I hope that as I move forward I will get better and better at writing and updating! For anyone who is out there – please bear with me as I struggle to keep moving. Lets keep each other motivated and focused =)
| As I try to continue to stay focused on my blog and my health, I am also trying to find a good way to format my posts. Something I want to provide for any readers, followers, and those who only stop by once, is real facts to back up any tips, tricks, and thoughts. Please be patient with me as I try to find a way to effectively relay information!
What Motivates You To Be Healthy? Today I would like to talk about MOTIVATION since I have so obviously lacked it for these past two weeks!
This post is focuses on getting you thinking about change and motivation for yourself.
A huge hurtle in almost everyone’s journey is to find the power to get going and keep going. Motivation is part of changing behavior. Motivation is both conscious and subconscious thoughts that leads to a decision to change. The key is to find something that drives you forward and gives you something to work towards. You may feel like you bounce back and forth between knowing that you WANT to change but not believing that you CAN change (just FYI you CAN do it!!!!!), and knowing that you CAN change but not being sure if you really WANT to due to time, energy, effort, and a million other reasons. These tips should help you out.
| Everyone needs to find his or her own motivation and drive. My motivation has developed into many elements, all working towards the same goal. Having lost weight in the recent past, I often focus on how I do NOT want to end up at that weight/state of health again. I use what I felt in the past and what I feel on my bad days, whatever it may be (guilt, queasiness, sluggishness, laziness, disappointment, embarrassment, etc.…), to refocus and move forward. I use motivational pictures, websites, and blogs to keep in mind what I want (healthier body weight, less body fat, more muscle/strength). I also strive to have better nutritional health. Small daily and weekly goals keep me focused on what is actually going into my body.
What I suggest is to sit down and brainstorm! Write down everything you want, everything you don’t want, everything you think, everything you feel, and really just everything related to your health journey! Sometimes I will create motivational boards to keep me going. This includes everything I listed above plus pictures, exercises, quotes, and tips that I can look at every day and draw strength from. The more you think, the more defined your motivation will become =)
| | Now A Little Bit About Behavior Change!
There are several theories of behavior change. I won’t get into them but you can feel free to read about a short summary here http://www.csupomona.edu/~jvgrizzell/best_practices/bctheory.html or a more in depth description here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioural_change_theories (ok so I know Wikipedia is not exactly a credible source, but I looked it over and the information is correct (for the most part) and has some great links. Anyways you get the point!) The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute suggest setting goals to help achieve and maintain motivation. Setting specific, attainable, and time specific goals will help lead to many small successes on your journey which (surprise, surprise) will keep you MOTIVATED! It is important to reward your many successes with things that will NOT compromise your growing health. That means no food rewards! I would caution against healthy food rewards also because it is easy to slip back into (or create a new) bad behaviors associated with unhealthy food rewards. Try a new book, movie, pair of shoes, sports bra, massage, at home spa day, relaxation day or anything else that will make you happy. Stanford University also examines positive behavior change. Our surrounding environment shapes, creates, and encourages our behaviors. Recognizing and outlining triggers in everyday life that lead to unhealthy habits will help you set small goals to overcome them and learn new ways to cope. This website by BJ Fogg has a TON of great resources and really great information http://bjfogg.com | | In my opinion, the most important part is to constantly refocus and reevaluate. Your goals should always be changing, morphing, and expanding to accommodate your ever-evolving behaviors and goals. Don’t give up on your goals but DO continue to push yourself! If your goal for the past 2 weeks was to eat 2 servings of veggies every day, maybe your goal for week 3 is to make sure that on at least one day you eat 3 servings of veggies! It may seem tiny, even insignificant, but these small changes will add up to huge amazing things in your future!!
As always I hope that this has helped! Please share with me any thoughts, feelings, frustrations, and emotions you are having. Stay MOTIVATED this week!!!
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Yesterday’s gym session was quite an adventure! I used the gym at my apartment complex and the treadmills were quite old. The decrease speed button on my particular machine was not working! While it did make me work harder, it was difficult for me to transition between walking and jogging, as I had to pause the machine and increase the speed back up from 1.5mph each time I wanted to walk or jog a little slower. One great thing: I achieved a faster 3-mile jog than ever before and burned more calories! While 36.5 minutes is no speed racer, it felt great to get closer to that 10-minute mile! I am toying with some speed variation, which helps me burn more calories, get used to jogging at faster speeds, and whip my heart into even better shape.
My determination for the week is high which gives me great hope. With 2 workouts down, I hope to get in 3-4 more as I finish out the week. My real day-to-day challenge is keeping my food and calorie intake in check. Today was good but I am still fighting the urge to eat something yummy and sweet – it’s a hard habit to break!
Tonight I am drawing my strength and serenity from a great quote that will keep my head in order:
Do not give up what you want most for what you want at the moment.
Wish me luck and I hope everyone out there is one step closer to their ultimate goal!
What are calories really?
Today I wanted to take some time to talk about calories! Food has always been the hardest part of my journey to better health. Calories are our best friends and worst enemies. We cant live without them yet most of us are in a constant struggle to create balance. Calories are used for energy in the body – we burn calories to stay alive which means we use calories when we sleep, walk, eat, brush our teeth, exercise, and watch TV.
Viewing calories as energy will hopefully help to change your view on food. Energy is like fuel, and if we fuel our bodies right it will run with more strength and efficiency. We all know that your car needs only as much gas as will fit in the tank to run. So why is that so hard for so many of us to grasp with our own bodies? No one would continue to try and pour more gas into their tank after it is completely full, allowing excess fuel to spill out all over the car and the ground. Yet, humans consistently attempt to provide their bodies with more fuel than is necessary to survive.
A single calorie is classified as the amount of heat needed to raise 1 gram of water up by 1 degree Celsius.
So what does that mean? Our bodies need to break down and utilize calories for life. Our body’s metabolism breaks food into more manageable building blocks. These include: sugar, glycerol, fatty acids, and amino acids. Calories that the body does not use are stored as fat. This is why so many people strive to have a fast metabolism – it means that the body is faster and more efficient at breaking down calories and using them.
Different types of foods have different calorie contents. As a rule: 1 gram of carbohydrates has 4 calories, 1 gram of protein has 4 calories, and 1 gram of fat has 9 calories. While our body needs all three of these components (but more on that a different day) you can see why low fat diets are so popular – they cut calories more drastically.
3,500 calories is equal to one pound of fat in our bodies. As stated earlier, if your body cannot break down the calories you ate today into nutrients needed throughout the body, they will be stored for future use.
So, what does that mean? If you eat 250 more calories a day than your body can burn, you will gain 1 pound of fat every 2 weeks. It is more common to eat these excess calories in foods like chocolate, chips, white breads, sugar, and syrups; however, overeating on healthier foods such as fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and protein is also possible and probable for many of us.
Weight loss in maintenance is theoretically as simple as balancing calories in and calories out. If we eat more calories than we can use each day, we gain weight. If we eat fewer calories than we use each day, we lose weight.
It is EXTREMELY important to find the right balance for you. Countless nutritional and health organizations advise not to cut calories to less than 1,200 per day. A great way to start is to determine your BMR or Basal Metabolic Rate. This is a rough estimate of how many calories your body burns just living. See my sources and site recommendations to learn more about calories and BMR’s. These websites are all an estimate…. It is difficult for a computer to estimate the calories you burn without more invasive testing. These results will give you a great estimate of what your body burns just staying alive. Eating less than this number, within reason, will allow you to lose fat mass. Eating more than this number will allow you to gain muscle or fat mass.
I hope this was enlightening in even the smallest way! As always, if you have any questions, concerns, comments, or thoughts feel free to share =)
| Hello everyone!
This is my first blog post ever so it may take me some time to get used to blogging.
As the rest of my website stated, I am here to get fit and healthy. I am on a quest to find what is right for my body and what works for me. Recently I have slipped a little and I am in need of some re-motivation! The weekends are always the hardest time for me to keep my focus. This week, I am dedicated to trying to find solutions to help me survive the Friday night to Sunday night hurtle that may undo all of the hard work I put in on the weekdays.
When given the choice of a nice lazy day at home reading, watching movies, going on pinterest, and baking or bundling up to fight the cold on the way to the gym, the choice is always easy. These winter weekends make me want to stay home and eat things like those scrumptious cupcakes pictured above! It is helpful for me to browse health and fitness websites. Seeing images of strength, motivation, health, and determination encourage me to achieve some of those attributes on my lazy weekend. The bottom picture from Shape magazine helps me to gain the inner strength to get moving and stay focused on health (picture from: http://www.shape.com/fitness/workouts/top-10-yoga-poses-increase-metabolism?page=5)
Evening out my exercise and calorie intake on the weekend helps me to maintain my weight and motivation. Switching from my Monday to Friday healthy foods and 1-2 hours of exercise a day to my Saturday to Sunday high calorie and low exercise routine creates a roller coaster gone wrong for my body. I am intentionally adding stress and inconsistency to my life that creates even more challenges for my body to process calories effectively. I am sure others can understand the devastation of 1 or 2 bad days. Your body doesn't feel as great, the scale may move up several pounds, and your emotions drop. Depending on the week, this can either motivate you to do better, or discourage you to not care.
The scale has been yo-yoing each weekend for the past 3 weeks or so and I am ready for it to stop. I have actually put on a few pounds due to the radical calorie changes (both what I take in and what I exercise out) from day to day. I can't change the fact that I didn't go to the gym yesterday, but today might be a silver lining. With plenty of time left for the gym, I plan to get a good work out in and to do some brainstorming on how to keep my dedication up come next Friday night!
Stay focused,
Valerie
| What I WANT to do: What I NEED to do: |
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