Fitness Goals

Today I am thrilled to be welcoming my bloggy friend Karissa to My Life Well Loved. I am sharing my fitness and healthy eating evolution over on her site, so please go read it and leave some comment love. 🙂 We agreed to share some of our fitness goals and challenges and to hopefully inspire others to join us in making 2014 your healthiest year yet! Please read on below to learn a little more about cutie patootie, Karissa.

Resolutions. We all make them, and most of us make them based on one goal: Weight Loss.

Weight wasn’t a struggle for me until I went to college. I hit 115 pounds my senior year of high school.  Then at 18 I went up north, joined a sorority, and started living the college life. I ate during meal time, I ate when my friend’s ate, when I wasn’t hungry, in the middle of the night- basically ALL THE TIME. I also drank a LOT of beer. Well, you can’t consume thousands of calories every day and not gain weight (unless you are a boy). By my senior year of college I weighed 130 pounds. I realize that is not a HUGE number but I’m only 5’1 and it completely changed my body shape and my self-confidence.

I didn’t know how to lose weight. I’d never had to do it before! I also couldn’t believe that one day of making good choices didn’t show up on the scale. I really had to remind myself that ‘one salad won’t make you skinny, and one cheeseburger won’t make you fat.’  I graduated college in the spring of 2012 and realized I had to make a life change.

I cut most dairy out of my life. I switched to almond milk and stopped eating ice cream, and tried to eat less cheese. If you can cut cheese out of your diet completely, I commend you. I also cut pasta out of my diet- since I was eating penne noodles, alfredo sauce, and parmesan cheese daily at college. I stopped drinking anything except coffee in the morning, water during the day, and the occasional glass of wine or beer at night. (that made a huge difference).  I love juice but it’s full of sugar! I added a lot of veggies and fruit into my diet and cut out most of the carbs. I’m not an extreme dieter by any means and if you bring cupcakes over to my house, I’m going to eat one. I’ve just tried to be more conscious of what I’m eating, regulate my portions, and cut out unnecessary dessert and snacking. Within the year, I had lost the 15 pounds I gained.

Here’s the thing though, I wasn’t working out. I went through a short phase of running, and even ran a 10k last summer, but it didn’t really stick. I didn’t do any physical activity all fall and into this winter. While I wasn’t gaining weight necessarily on the scale, I felt flabby and gross and not fit. So I decided in November I wasn’t going to wait until the New Year. If I wanted to change my body I was going to start right now and not let the holidays make it even worse. I talked to a friend who is also a Beach Body Coach and ordered T25 and a bag of shakeology.

T25 is hard- especially if you are not in shape like me. But, it’s only 25 minutes a day so I can justify it in my brain. For the last 3 weeks I’ve been eating pretty clean (lots of chicken/fish/broccoli/quinoa) and drinking shakeology for breakfast about 3 times a week.

Here are my 3 week results:

Note: I’ve only lost 1.5 pounds but you can already see my body shape is starting to change.

I’m excited to continue my physical journey into 2014. I’ve already taken a step to change myself for the better and I feel confident that I can complete the 10 week program and see some definition in my body.

I’d love to share my journey with you, especially if you are working on losing weight in 2014 as well. I am so motivated by the people around me who are transforming their bodies and getting in awesome shape! Come stop by Karissa & Company and we can encourage each other to keep our 2014 goals, stay focused on fitness, and be bikini ready this summer!

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