We all have a story

Mine is probably fairly relatable. I'm the skinny girl. My entire life I've never been overweight. But when I gained weight, more weight than I was ever used to carrying, I thought of myself as "fat".

I lost it all and got skinny again. (I know, I don't like the word skinny either)

Enter STRESS. More stress than I've ever had to deal with. A life changing event. Guess which way the scale went? Guess where I put the weight on? Stress does produce belly fat! If there was one area of my body that I never had an issue with, it was my belly. So this was new to me. I didn't like it.

I still exercise, but I still have extra weight. I joke around about it sometimes. I think I made a comment on Facebook once about eating everything in sight and then complaining about gaining weight as something that I do on a regular basis. To which someone replied, "The masses of America's women would love to be fat like you."

Made me think...

I am at the low weight range for my age and height, yet just because I was underweight for so long, it's hard to see myself now as "thin". It's such a mind game. Gosh, if I didn't stress about weight and just ate and exercised for pure joy and health, life would be so nice. No matter how hard I try, I can't seem to let it go.

Most days, I don't do any type of workout other than dancing. Even though weight lifting was my life some years ago, I rarely pick up my barbell. I keep telling myself that one day, when it's really important to me, I will get back into beast mode. But right now, it's not that big of a deal to me. I guess that's ok.

I recently watched a show called My 600lb Life. And I felt really bad about all the whining I've done about my body. Wow. I went from 110 to 120 and feel fat -  these people go from 600 to 300 and feel fantastic. It's just amazing. Can you even imagine loosing 300lbs?? I sure can't because even losing a pound for me seems like an impossible task! In one instance, this woman's husband tried so hard to prevent her from losing the weight that would eventually kill her and leave her child without a mother. Uh! The nerve of some people! They just can't sit back and watch other people succeed without trying to sabotage them! I could write an entire post just on that show. I was in tears.

We all have a story. We all have our battles. Let's just be supportive of one another. This world is hard enough sometimes without the petty negativity and one upsmanship that is endlessly a part of our everyday lives. Whether it's jealousy, hate, spite.....whatever it is, let it go. Spread love. Pay it forward. Do your part to make the world a better place for people who already hurt enough the way it is. You have no idea what someone else is dealing with. You don't know how people hurt on the inside. You only see a fraction of their life. Don't be another problem. Get over yourself. Rise above.

Now go spread joy. :)

Got 20 Minutes?

Here's a workout you can do with minimal equipment to get your heart pumping and those calories burning!

We are using SUPERSETS. This means that we will do two moves back to back with no rest in between. Why are we doing this? Because we will get a metabolic spike and continue to burn fat at an accelerated rate for up to 16 hours post workout.

After this supersets, do 15 minutes of low-impact cardio and eat when done. Like ASAP! Here's a great smoothie recipe:

1 C. unsweetened almond milk
1 C. frozen berries
1 scoop protein powder
1 scoop greens powder (this has antioxidants that will aid in recovery)

The following day, make sure you do a light activity, such as yoga or walking the dog, to keep your muscles from tightening up. Do this workout twice a week.

Ok, here we go!

Superset 1 -

A) hop ups (do for 1 minute) - jump with both feet onto a step, then jump back to the floor
B) burpee (12 - 15 reps)

Repeat 3 times

Superset 2 -

A) power knee to lunge tap (30 sec/per side) - use your arms for momentum and hop bringing the knee up high to the chest, hit the floor and go down into a lunge and tap the floor with your hand.
B) on guard lunges (8-10 reps each side) - hold 5 - 10lb dumbbells, lunge front then to the side, pointing your arm out as if fencing

Repeat 3 times

Superset 3 -

A) Tricep dip and reach (12-15 times per side) - dip and come up, then kick the leg out straight and reach with your opposite arm.
B) Mountain climbers (1 minute)

Repeat 3 times

Last exercise needs not be a superset because it's good enough on it's own!

Plank row leg lift (12-15 reps per side) - get into plank position with 5-10lb dumbbells in each hand, pull your arm up in a row and lift the opposite leg at the same time.

Done! Don't forget your 15 minutes of light cardio now.

According to Women's Health, you will burn 400 calories with this workout. But remember that the amount you burn is always going to depend on your weight and how hard you push yourself.

Having a goal makes you happier

I have a few minutes before I need to leave to meet a friend for coffee, so I thought I would share with you something I found interesting. I promised yesterday that I would fill you in on the correlation between having goals and happiness.

[start quote]
"Out there in the future somewhere is a goal of yours. You are always headed somewhere. That's human nature (for mentally healthy people), and I'm sure it's true of you. There's something you want, some condition you are aiming for or trying to move towards in your life. You have a goal, maybe many of them. You would like to be in better shape, you would like more money or a more secure future, you'd like to have a better relationship with your mate, or maybe there is something you'd like to create, some deed you'd like to do for no other reason than it feels right.

Regardless of what you're aiming for, the point is that we're never really satisfied with where we are (for very long at least), and we're always trying to get to someplace better, and that's a wonderful part of life. Lucky stuff happens now and then, of course, and it can make you happy, but you can't count on it. The only happiness you can count on is the kind you create with your own effort. This kind of happiness comes from the process of progress.

We think we'll be happy when our goal is attained, but that's not so. A great example of that is Christmas. Christmas night, when it's all over, people often have a feeling of sadness. You got all those presents, but you're sad because having what you want doesn't really make you happy. Getting it is where all the fun is. And no matter how many times we hear that and agree with it, it almost always feels like we'll be happier when we arrive. But that's part of the game. Human nature.

The happiness that you can create comes from the process of progress. If I want to lose ten pounds and I get on the scale and see I've lost one pound, I'm not where I want to be, but I've made progress, and I'll feel pretty good about that. I'm moving in the direction I want to go. If need to save $3000 to achieve my goal of vacationing in Greece, and I'm saving a hundred dollars every week, I will feel good about it each week when I put that hundred bucks away. I'm making progress toward my goal."[end quote]

I really liked this article. It made me realize that while I have a several goals that I would love to arrive at tomorrow, it's the getting there that's the fun part. Our experiences along the path of moving toward our goals, shape the person we become. And what happened if I were to achieve all my goals tomorrow? I would probably have another goal, another challenge, and most likely it would be even harder to attain than the previous goal. But I guess it's the ride that makes us happy, not the destination. The anticipation. Happiness is what you make of your journey. Or misery, it's ultimately up to you.

Hello again

Hi,

It's me. Been a while. How are you? I hope that you are doing well.

I remember a time when I found joy in blogging. It was therapeutic. I used it as an outlet for many things: journaling my thoughts and experiences through fitness and health being number one.

Journaling has many benefits. I found a release from the stress of daily life, which is great for mental health. And of course writing not only harnesses your creativity, but it also helps you process and express ideas more effectively. Super good for setting and achieving goals!

I used to try to keep written journals, but for some reason, typing online was easier to stick to. It kept me accountable by letting the whole world into my life - goals were not just in a dusty book on my bedroom floor. I liked to be able to look back on past posts, to see where I was at during a particular time period. I had recorded all my mistakes and successes. And if I was feeling down, I could find things that I did well and try to replicate what I did to get back on track. Seeing my past achievements was a great boost when I needed it the most. And being able to see what didn't work was beneficial as well.

I've discovered that I have really missed blogging. Even when I didn't have anything particularly helpful or interesting to say, it gave me all the benefits that I previously mentioned. And I realized that not only was I attempting to be a source of inspiration and motivation for my like minded fitness friends, but I was actually the source of MY OWN inspiration and motivation! And without that, I've been much less successful with my goals.

 

Sometimes, people will try to distract and deter you from your goals, especially if you are succeeding and finding great happiness in what you are doing. Tomorrow, I will share something valuable I learned about goals and happiness.

 

Good night, friends.

TBT

 

I would post this throw back pic on Facebook, but I don't want to be "that girl".

 

Really, I get it when people are annoyed when others post selfies too often. I'm not a huge selfie person, although I do them now and again for fun. Mainly to play with editing apps on my phone.

And I totally get that people who post body pics, like those above, are usually considered people who are just looking for attention. Well, I'm not looking for attention with these photos, I want to inspire people. I want to inspire myself. Body goals are difficult - but possible.

 

 Most of these pictures were about 2-3 years ago, when I was very lean and muscular. I was damn proud of my body and all the work it took to get it to look the way it did. I felt very empowered by it. At the time, I had no job outside my home and I felt as though I was accomplishing something by sculpting a body that could possibly enter a fitness competition one day.

 

When you work really really hard to sculpt your body, you take pride in it. All that time, pain, sacrifice, tears (yes, there are tears), and hard work you put in for a body that not many people have, there is a huge sense of accomplishment and pride. Not that I want to show off, but I do want to show what I am capable of. I used to take a TON of progress "selfies". Not to share with the world, but for my own way of tracking progress. A picture doesn't lie. I can't fake having a lean muscular body. This was real. This was me. And I can look back and say "Damn!". And to think at this point in my life, I was striving daily, constantly, to be better - leaner, fitter, more muscular. It was extremely hard at that point to improve farther. And only tightening up my diet to a point where I was unwilling to go, would have gotten me there.

 

My marriage would have only suffered farther.

 

I've read many instances where situations like this affect marriages. I didn't know how my personal eating habits and training could possibly be such a big deal to my husband. He wasn't being deprived of anything he loved to eat. And I still ate "naughty" stuff now and then - just not to excess. But the hard muscular body of a fit freak was not one he wanted to be married to. He likes soft, womanly bodies. I like fit bodies. I think once you have put in the work, and made the sacrifices, and know what it takes to get there, you have a better appreciation for them. And you know what mental and physical strength are required to get you there. It's admiration that goes farther than just the exterior body. The determination and dedication and HEART it takes is simply immeasurable. If you've never had a passion for body sculpting, I suppose it's hard to understand and have that level of appreciation.

 

It's not just a hot looking body, but an amazing inner strength and will.

 

I can look back at these pictures and say, "wow! That was me! I did that!" It's amazing what we can do with our bodies. And I've learned that it takes so little time to let a great body slip away. Years of hard work can disappear in a matter of a months. Getting it back doesn't take quite as long, muscle memory is pretty amazing, but it's still a battle.

 

I don't care who thinks I'm being vain, shallow, showing off, or any other hateful and jealous words I can't think of at the moment. I don't! I worked HARD for exactly what you see in those pictures. I had a goal, and had the heart and the passion to get there. We make choices and we live our lives in a way that moves us closer to what matters. At the time, my body goal mattered. It still matters some, just not as much. I've got multiple jobs which means more responsibilities. Priorities would have to switch if I had a serious body goal. But right now, it's just not an important enough for me to focus on. My kids are growing so fast and I don't want their childhood to slip away while I'm too wrapped up in a personal goal. It can wait.

 

This is why I can look back at these pictures and instead of feeling sad that I don't have that body anymore, I can be proud that I once did, and that I was strong enough to let it go.

For my family, for my kids, and for our happiness.

 

 

How we lose fat

So, I gave you the secret to my plateau busting, fat torching method - hopefully you gave it a try and found out how fun and rewarding it is! But did you ever wonder why these type of workouts are so much better at getting rid of your stored fat, in comparison to other workouts? Well, I wondered. So I researched it a little and what I found was super interesting.

Ok, we all know that we have fat cells (about 25 billion in a human adult). That's a lot of potential for fat storage! And we also know that we don't actually lose fat cells, but rather shrink them.

The type of exercise I've been incorporating into my workouts consists of metabolic bursting. Basically, it's a warm up, then cyclical bursting (going all out hard as you can for a short time, then recovering), then a cooling down period. And the reason this works so great is that immediately afterwards, your body will dump free fatty acids into your bloodstream where they can be burned off and expelled from your body via waste, breath, sweat, etc..

This is probably why it's important to incorporate some type of exercise that gives you that EPOC (post exercise oxygen consumption) where you are in a continued state of fat burning once exercise is over. EPOC burns calories, so it is important for anyone trying to lose weight to increase the time spent in EPOC. Resistance training has a greater effect on post-exercise oxygen consumption than cardiovascular training.

Here's a break down of what happens:
1) fat is broken down into chylomicrons which enter the blood
2) enzymes called lipoprotein lipases break fats into fatty acids
3) Fatty acids are absorbed into fat cells, muscle cells and liver cells. Once in the liver, fatty acids can either be further broken down or used to make glucose. The liver can only store 100g of glycogen (stored glucose) and muscles can store 500g of glycogen. Anything more will be stored in fat cells.

*Carbs are broken down into glucose, making it widely available to the body. So you can easily see how easily eating too many carbs will easily make you store them as excess fat.

Fat cells release their contents (triaglycerol) into the blood as free fatty acids and they are transported to the tissues needing fuel. So after I do a short bursting workout (average of 10-12 minutes or so), I lift some weights or do some form of strength training because I figure that my muscles are using these FFA's so they don't just get restored in my fat cells. It seems to make sense to me, especially since I'm noticing change. However, I don't claim to understand all of this science stuff. It's still pretty Greek to me.

Prior to this form of working out, I had been exercising - burning mega calories in fact - yet not really seeing much in the way of results for all my hard work. Whether I made my metabolism sluggish doing some stupid things in the past or just fell into bad habits for too long, I'm not entirely certain which culprit was to blame. I did know one thing, something needed to be done differently. And sometimes, that's all it takes. We know how important it is to confuse the body every now and then and that is why you run the risk of plateauing and never getting anywhere with fat loss if you do the same exercise day after day.

I think the whole biochemical process of fat loss is intriguing (and confusing) but it's important to at least be somewhat aware of what goes on in your body so you can understand why some things work and other things don't. There is a reason some people get results while others seem to be on the hamster wheel going nowhere with their fat loss efforts. Everyone deserves to get rewarded for their hard work! If only it didn't need to seem so complicated! But in my experience, the leaner you get, the harder it is!

YOU are awesome!!

I've never been big on competition. I get the competitive mindset though. I understand that it can drive people to do better. But I'm not at all competitive. Maybe some people would just call me a slacker. I can live with that.

This little meme describes my attitude - I hope we all make it. Because I do. I want everyone to succeed at what they do so they can live a happy life. Just think of what the world would be like if we were all a little happier?

There will always be someone smarter than you, prettier than you, faster than you, richer than you, funnier than you, stronger than you. But...

 

And yes...that means YOU!