Starting Fresh.

I haven’t been blogging very much, if at all, over the past year. I’ve been so busy with school and work that I never touch my computer when I have any downtime. BUT, I’m starting fresh this semester with a different way of eating and moving. I’m really excited to start this journey so for those of you that still follow me I hope you’ll stick around!

My big plan for this year is to start training myself for longer and longer runs/marathons, starting with a 5k, and doing yoga 3x a week through a university class. I also have been consuming a lot less meat and processed foods. I’ll start uploading a food journal as well not only to keep myself on track but to provide inspiration for those of you that are thinking about going the vegetarian route! I still plan to eat some sort of lean organic meat once a week though, I really don’t want to build an intolerance and meat is good for you, just so long as it’s not shitty, fatty meat. So far I’ve gone about 3 days without eating meat and I feel really, really good. 

I also plan to keep up my hoop dance! I just uploaded a video so I hope you’ll all watch and enjoy it. <3 

omfg you guys..

It happened. It finally fucking happened, and I want to cry. 

I started lifting again this semester when I got back to school, but I didn’t run. And now my thighs won’t fit into my fucking jeans. I keep telling myself this isn’t a big deal but the fact that I can’t fit into my jeans makes me want to cry. It’s safe to say I’m taking a break from lifting and starting up a mean cardio regime to make up for this. 

Not because I’m afraid of a little muscle, but because I don’t have money for new pants.. just saying. 

back to business, back to fitness.

School has started, thus my fitness journey has been reborn. My roommate agreed to train me again, even with her rigorous ROTC schedule and I am so thankful. We’ve added two members to our fitness group, both of which are on tumblr (sirhoopsal0t and benefit-ness).

Ty (my roommate) did not hesitate getting me back into the realm of lifting weights. She has kicked my ass for the past two weeks and will continue to create workouts that will have me sweating my ass off and pushing me to the next level. I took a two month hiatus from my workout regime and I cannot tell you how much I regret it. I had improved so much with cardio and my strength and definition was divine, and it has all gone to shit. I don’t doubt I’ll be able to bounce back more quickly, but at the same time it’s a personal let down. However, I did maintain a good diet for the entire summer and have almost successfully quit smoking. The only times I falter are when I’ve been drinking and even then I don’t smoke a whole cigarette. I’m so proud of this achievement and know it will help me get back into shape a lot faster compared to last year. 

My main goal for this year is go continue a more than fantastic diet and try to lower the amount I drink during the school year. Again, I’m not trying to lose weight. I don’t need to, but I do want to gain endurance and healthy habits for when I graduate and go off into the real world. I’ve already caught a glimpse of how easy it is to lose motivation after being in an office all day and how easy it is to not go to the gym after work. I don’t want that for myself.

Another big goal is to move away from group workouts and find self motivation to get into the gym and push myself. With Ty it’s so easy, she tells me what to do and I do it, no questions asked. She knows how to push me to the edge and then push me farther. But I need to be able to do this for myself. If I can get into the gym four times a week and work out ON MY OWN and push myself to those levels, I know I will be able to stay motivated outside of the school atmosphere. I do want to work out with her 1 or 2x a month still to keep that motivation there, but for the most part I’m going to start drifting off into my own workouts to really test my motivation. This might be a step I’ll do closer to October. 

diet IS really everything

Over the summer my weight training routine has pretty much gone to shit. As I knew it would. Working full time and coming home to pretty much eat dinner and pass out hasn’t proven good for keeping up my fitness plan. However, my diet has increasingly improved. I’ve been eating only homemade meals and a shit ton of fruits and vegetables every day. I’ve limited the times I go out to eat and when I do it’s usually sushi so I’m not too worried about the extra calories with that. 

The point I’m trying to make is - while I’ll be going back to the gym at school a bit weaker, my abs are still intact. This makes me ecstatic. I worked so hard on those puppies for 10 months and to know that the vertical line is still intact is a huge deal to me. So all of you girls out there wondering why you haven’t been seeing improvement in your abs afters and months of work, having a healthy diet changes all that for a more toned stomach! 

Working out is always going to be more than just putting in the work. If you don’t eat enough/healthy enough - all that work goes down the drain. 

always making plans.

When I go back to school this year, I wanna focus on mixing it up a little more. Instead of doing only weight training 5 days a week I would love to incorporate yoga and swimming into my workouts a lot more. I just really want to increase my flexibility, I think it would help my hooping incredibly, plus it’s just something I’ve always desired. 

I have 3 or 4 yoga dvds and such at my house, I think I’ll just bring them with me and force myself to do it at least 5x a week. I just hope that I get into it. I’ve always been fascinated by the poses and I absolutely love the meditative aspect. It can only do good for me to make it a part of my daily life. Swimming I’ll probably do at random when I’m feelin’ frisky. It’s not at the rec I usually go to so it’s gonna take a bit more out of my day to make it to a pool. 

bye bye fast food.

I have finally cut the worst habit of my eating habits OUT! Over the summer I made a goal to myself to bring my lunch to work every day (5 days a week) and to cut out eating out as much as possible. This was not only for health reasons, but also because my broke ass needs to be saving up money for rent come August when I move back to Warrensburg! While I still have 3 weeks (including this one) left, I have pretty much accomplished my goal. I have eaten out only once during my internship and that was as a treat from one of the sales rep, and I have maybe gone out to eat 4 times the entire summer with friends. Not too shabby! 

The funny thing is, is I used to LOVE fast food. I would crave it all the time and it was awful. But honestly, now that I’ve taken such a long break from eating it - it seriously is disgusting. I would definitely recommend trying to cut this out of your eating habits completely. I love hating fast food! 

run.

Went on an approximate 2 mile run yesterday with a friend and holy crap did it kick my ass. Cardio has never been my thing, mix that with a 2 month hiatus on working out and smoking cigarettes again… ugh. It was just what I needed though, I plan on going on another run tonight and then starting weight lifting again tomorrow. I’m really happy I made myself do this, it was just the kickstart I needed to start getting back in shape. I can’t tell you how much I missed that feeling after I ran. I felt so good!

The hardest part of this is going to be quitting smoking though. It’s seriously got such a hold of me at times and I absolutely hate it! But I will feel so much better when I finally kick the habit. I know it, my lungs know it, so it must be done! Turning over a new leaf for good, nothing feels better than being in shape to me and I want so badly to get back to that place! 

And so begins the summer workout journey… 

house to dorm

So I ran from Cam’s (the derf in the photo below) house to a dorm across campus which is about a mile and back. I will admit I stopped once both ways but I really didn’t walk much and was able to keep up with him (somewhat). All in all it was a good time… besides the fact that it totally sucked. Cardio is just not my thing! But I’m making a point to do this run all this week and all next. Hopefully my endurance will build up! 

I definitely recommend running outside versus running on a treadmill though. I can run for at least 6 minutes at a 6mph pace (which I realize isn’t very much) but as soon as we started running it was kicking my ass. It’s so much better of a workout because of all the hills and valleys on the ground. 

I’m probably gonna stop lifting for a while since it’s been a couple weeks and my body is probably week as fuck after the hiatus. Running is gonna do enough for me for now with all the end of the year bullshit and I’d rather not stress about how I’m not getting in the gym enough. Maybe my parents will be generous and buy me a two month membership to their gym for the summer and I’ll get back to my routine :)

running my cravings away!

The end of the school year is so stressful! I’m a junior in college and have had so many projects due that are worth over half my grade. I’ve been seriously slacking with working out because I don’t want my grades to fall. However, last week was the due date for most of those projects so I finally have some free time during the afternoon again! 

I made the most of it today and ran a mile and worked on abs. I also hooped for close to 3 hours in total. It felt great. I taught myself 3 new variations/tricks today with my polys and I’m back in sync with my hoop flow. I’m happy that my babies are no longer being neglected haha. 

My goal for the rest of the school year and the summer is to increase the amount of cardio I do. Because I’ve been slacking I’ve been smoking more often, the stress of school hasn’t helped that either. However I have a feeling that if I start running everyday during the week I’ll have less of an urge to smoke. There’s something about cardio that makes me want to be so much healthier and I love it! 

going, going, going!

Ran another mile today and cut a minute off my time! fuck yeah! 

motivated all over again.

So lately I’ve been feeling stuck in my workouts since my friend left for basic. We’ve been doing variations to keep the workouts from being the same but I still feel like I want to step it up more. We haven’t done cardio in I don’t know how long so today I did our normal arm workout, worked on abs, and then ran a mile. Holy hell did that suck. Not only have I been smoking more cigarrettes lately but the lack of cardio whooped my ass! I’m glad it did though. I’m going to make it a goal to run at least a mile everyday - no excuses. And on days when I want to spice things up I think I’m going to start doing circuit training and doubling the cardio. 

What I really want to do is start P90X, but my brother lent it to a friend -__- Everyone is doing insanity lately too - I just don’t want to pay for the dvds. Oh well, if all else fails bodybuilder.com is there to save me! 

If you guys have any suggestions for workouts that you do I would love to hear em!