Tag Archives: working out

Fitness Fridays – #2

Posted on June 20 by Jillian416 • 2 Comments

TGIF, friends! It’s finally Friday!

Who remembers watching TGIF on ABC on Friday nights?? Anyone? I’m sure I am not the only one! I used to look forward to that night of TV more than anything. Well, that’s not entirely true, I did look forward to the night Full House was on. I’d love that show, still do (and I still watch it today).

Anyhoo – I completely veered off topic there. We’re in week #2 of our Fitness Friday link-up and I’m really excited because we had two great blog posts link-up with us.

Meet Brianna from Hungry Gator Girl!

Meet Katie from How to Make the Sun Shine.

Thanks for linking up ladies!

Last week, I explained that we would be picking a weekly theme to talk about on our blog. Last week’s theme was ensuring you fit exercise in while traveling, this week we decided that we’d discuss how to keep motivation for working out when the newness of a fitness program has passed.

Staying motivated when the newness has passed

If you’re like me, it’s can be really difficult to stay motivated to eat right and workout hard, but there are ways to overcome your slowly waning drive.

1. Assess the Workout You are Doing. Consider the workout you’re doing, is it something that you enjoy or do you find it boring or repetitive. If you find that your answer is yes to either of those, PICK A NEW WORKOUT! There are so so many options out there for staying active, don’t ever let yourself get bored and fall off track.

2. Have You Plateaued? If you’ve been doing the same routine or type of exercise for some time, it’s possible that you’ve plateaued. When that happens, you can get frustrated and have a hard time keeping your focus. Switch it up, try something new, take a different running route, anything that will shock your muscles back into action.

3. Are you getting lazy? Yes, it may sound harsh, but are you getting lazy? Is your motivation disappearing because you just can’t “find the energy” to get up off the couch and put your sneakers on? Then stop making excuses, put the sneakers on and just work out. Even if you convince yourself to do 10 minutes, that 10 minutes is better than keeping your butt on the couch.

Onto the goals

Amount of Weight Lost

Last week I maintained, this week I gained 3 lbs. I’m not really surprised, I had pizza Wednesday night and on Tuesday, for lunch, I had pulled pork and pasta salad (at a work meeting). Neither lend itself to being healthy, so I gained.I need to get focused next week!

Exercise Goals

Last week I said I wanted to keep working out, using the 21 Day Fix and I can share that I have continued to stick with it and I am enjoying the workouts so much. I got through the entire 7 days and I loved them all, even the hardest day, Total Body Cardio Fix. Yikes! That’s a toughy!

This week, I am going onto my 3rd week of 21 Day Fix. I’d like to continue with that and get 7 days worth of workouts! On the side, I’d like to take some more walks with Emmett and get to the outdoor pool with him a few more times.

Food Goals

I set a goal to continue sticking with healthy eating and drinking my Shakeology, and I partially completed that. I had my Shakeology every single day (I am loving it!) and I stuck to the 21 Day Fix Meal Plan about 75% of the time. It’s a wonderful feeling, I just need to get to 100%. 😀

Next week, I want to continue following the 21 Day Fix Meal Plan, and drinking my Shakeology. I look forward to reporting a loss next week. 🙂

Alrighty, that about does it for this week’s Fitness Friday – We’d love it if you shared your awesome fitness related posts with our link-up below.

Kathy at The Panda Post|Bloglovin’|Facebook|Twitter|Instagram

Your turn!

How do you keep your motivation up when you’ve been working out for awhile?

What are some of your exercise and food goals for the next week?

If you want to start your Monday off on a generous foot and want to support cancer research, donate to my ride. I’m riding for Roswell Park Cancer Institute and their Ride for Roswell. Anything will help me reach my goal, and further advance cancer research. Just click HERE to donate.

An InLinkz Link-up

Filed Under: Food & Fitness

Friday Fitness – Restart

Posted on June 6 by Jillian416 • 1 Comment

Happy Friday!

I don’t know about you, but I am SO thrilled to be here again. It has been one heck of a week and I’m really excited for the weekend. A certain someone special in my life has a birthday on Saturday (Seamus), so we’ll be celebrating that, otherwise we’ll be doing some stuff around the house and some major relaxing.

Friday Fitness

I’ve been thinking, and I decided that my blog needs a new (old) series. For those of you who have been reading since I started, you may remember when I had a post that I did every Friday where I talked about my fitness goals, the weight I lost or didn’t lose, whether I was tracking my food, etc (you can read all of the old Friday Fitness posts, here). It kept me accountable, until it didn’t, and the reason it didn’t was because I began making excuses and then just decided to cancel the series because I hated sharing my failures each week.

I’m at a point now, where I truly believe that I am ready to lose the weight and that my mind is too. I’ve had a few different instances over the last week, where I was craving junk food (Tim Bits to be exact), and after really thinking about it, I realized I didn’t want them and that I didn’t want to feel like crap after eating them. It was easy for me to turn away! I hope this means that I am beginning my road to recovery.

Steps to Better Health

I’ve begun taking steps to better health, I recently signed-up to be a Beachbody Coach, I’m really excited about this and will be sharing more as time goes on. Since I signed-up as a coach, I chose my first Beachbody program and went with the 21 day FIX. If you’re interested in learning more about Beachbody and their workouts and having me as your coach (for free – your only cost is that of the challenge pack) or are interested in becoming a coach for yourself (again more details on this in a few days), you can visit my page by clicking here.

Goals

So, how this is going to work, is that I will be sharing my weekly goals and in future weeks, I’ll be sharing my success/failure from the past week. My goal is not to cop out after a few weeks, even if I fail. Failure is a part of getting into shape, especially when you are as out of shape and overweight as I am, I want you guys to know me as a real person. So I will be sharing the good, the bad and the ugly!

Exercise Goals

I will be working out 7 days a week for 30 minutes, following the 21 day FIX schedule. I can do anything for 30 minutes!

Food Goals

I will also be following the 21 day FIX food plan, which I will share more in detail in future posts.

Here’s to a really great week of workouts!

Your turn!

I’d love to hear what your goals are, or what workouts you’re doing?

Has anyone ever done a Beachbody workout before? What are your thoughts?

If you want to start your Monday off on a generous foot and want to support cancer research, donate to my ride. I’m riding for Roswell Park Cancer Institute and their Ride for Roswell. Anything will help me reach my goal, and further advance cancer research. Just click HERE to donate.

Filed Under: All About Me, Food & Fitness

9 Month Pics

Posted on May 6 by Jillian416 • 0 Comments

Here are Emmett’s 9 month pics… Finally!!

9 Months

4 Months

The End!

Filed Under: Family

March Goals

Posted on March 4 by Jillian416 • 0 Comments

I know many of you read my blog for the baby updates but for those who might be interested I want to start sharing more of my weight loss journey. I’ve shared throughout the months that I struggle with my weight and if you’ve seen pictures of me, you also know the extent to which I struggle. I am so very tired of being fat, tired of feeling sluggish, tired of being anything but my best and this needs to change.

I shared my March goals in yesterday’s post and I’d like to give some background surrounding those goals.

My first goal was:

Get in 16 workouts for the month

I’m setting my goal to 16 because that is 4 workouts per week, which is achievable and manageable. I know I need to be more consistent in my workouts and what a great way to do it! I WILL get to 16 but getting above that number is even better. Annnnd I’m already down to 15 workouts, after Saturday’s run!

My second goal was:

No fast food for the month, allowing for 4 meals eaten out or ordered in for the month.

This one deserves an explanation. As most people who are overweight, I’ve followed one diet after another and my weight has gone up and down (by my own accord) since forever. However, every single time I’d lose weight, whether it was WeightWatchers or just eating healthy, I’d always allow myself to eat whatever I wanted on Fridays after I weighed in. I’m talking going back 7+ years that I’ve been doing this (talk about an ingrained habit) and it needs to stop. This is not a healthy mind set and is not a mind set of a naturally skinny person, so going forward I will not allow myself to eat anything but healthy foods except for 4 meals in the month of March and the 4 meals that I may eat out should be healthy choices. I shouldn’t lose sight of my goals and let loose and have greasy, bad for me foods.

My hope is to break the junk food cycle because I enjoy fast food (aka: McDonald’s) a little too much. I’ve read numerous blogs over the last few weeks, written by folks who cut fast food out of their diets, and they claim they no longer crave that food and find the thought of it disgusting. This is exactly what I want and I am willing to try anything to achieve it!

I don’t care about being skinny, I care about being healthy. The weight should come off naturally but if it doesn’t and I’m eating healthy, clean foods and working out hard, I will accept that I am built to be heavier (this is not likely). So far, 4 days in, I am feeling so much better, more energetic and ready to take on new activities.

My third goal was:

Spend more time doing things that make me feel fulfilled and less time being a lazy lump.

Everybody wants to sit on the couch and do nothing and I will allow this to happen on occasion but I want to use my time more wisely. I’m considering reading the book, “168 Hours: You Have More Time than You Think.” The book dives into how to track your time so that you know how you’re spending the time you have and can then adjust and have better time management. I don’t have terrible time management but I do wonder where my evenings go because one minute I’ll look at the clock and it will be 6pm and the next thing I know it is 10:30. There are so many things I want to do that I am not currently doing, ie: make jewelry, workout, blog and read.

A Pair of Earrings that I Made in the Past

All three of those items are ways that I use to spend my free time prior to baby. Now that my life has leveled off and I have learned how to handle being a mom, working and having free time (though, this is ever-evolving), I need to get back into each activity. I honestly feel like this will be THE hardest goal in March. I need to spend some time trying to figure out how this will look.

Emmett is usually asleep by 8:30 and I usually head to bed by 10 or 10:30, so that leaves me an hour and a half to spend how I please. I do need to share this time with getting my clothes and lunch for the next day ready, so realistically, I have about an hour a night. I’d like to use 3 days making jewelry but I can also spend time doing that on weekends, so maybe my best use of time during the week is to read, blog and workout.

Hmmm… That gives me something to think about.

Thanks for reading and keeping me honest!

Filed Under: All About Me, Food & Fitness

Friday Fitness

Posted on December 8 by Jillian416 • 0 Comments

Hi everyone! Sorry I’ve been MIA the past few days, it’s been a rough week (I’ll explain in another post) but I’m back and feeling better!

Amount Lost:

Maintained

Maintaining is better than gaining but man, if I’d just get my ass in gear, then I’d consistently lose.

Amount Remaining to Lose:

123.2

Goals for 11/30/12 – 12/6/12:

Food Goals:

Continued consistent tracking

This I can actually say I’ve done. Even on the worst of days, I tracked. I’m hoping to just make this automatic and a constant habit.

EAT MORE VEGETABLES!

I didn’t necessarily eat MORE vegetables but I ate a decent amount. I had my usual carrots with lunch, my tomato (yes technically it’s a fruit) with my cottage cheese and usually some form of a veggie with dinner.

Bring lunch from home and cook dinner at night

I always give myself Friday to eat out and I stuck to that plan. Thursday, I really really wanted to eat out but I sucked it up and ate my planned out lunch.

Fitness Goals:

WORKOUT!

Ugh. I seriously suck when it comes to fitness right now. I don’t even have a real excuse, so I won’t give any.

Earn 10,000 steps on at least 3 days

I earned 7,000 on at least 3 days. It isn’t the 10,000 I aimed for but 7 grand isn’t bad.

Go to the JCC and swim at least once.

Yeah, this didn’t happen. 🙁

“Dad can I wear your sweatshirt?”

Goals for 12/7/2012 – 12/13/2012:

Food Goals:

Continue consistent tracking for all meals
Measure or weigh out all food so that I’m eating only 1 serving of foods
Pack and bring lunch everyday except Friday

Fitness Goals:

Earn 10,000 steps on at least 3 days
Do at last 3 other workouts
Swim at least once

Filed Under: All About Me

Friday Fitness

Posted on November 30 by Jillian416 • 0 Comments

Amount Lost:

0 – gained 2 lbs.

I’m very disappointed in myself. The week of Thanksgiving really threw me off and unfortunately I let it spiral into this week. No excuses, just getting back on track!

Amount Remaining to Lose:

123.2

Goals for 11/16/2012 – 11/22/2012:

Food Goals:

Continued consistent tracking

This was actually not a problem. I tracked 6 out of 7 days, my problem came with what I was eating.

Eat sensibly on Thanksgiving.

I definitely ate sensibly. I had only one helping and didn’t pig out! This was easy to do because I’m not the biggest fan of Thanksgiving, I prefer Christmas food.

Increase my veggie by 2 additional servings a day, this will put me at 5 a day.

I struggled here. I got maybe 2 servings of veggies most days and 1 serving of fruit, no where near enough.

Fitness Goals:

I all around sucked at my goals for fitness. I did continue to park further away at work and take the extra walk to get water from the cafeteria but I didn’t do any additional workouts nor did I ever hit 10,000 steps. The closest I got was 7,000, not bad but that was only one day, not all week.

“Mommy, I’ll keep your seat warm for you.”

Goals for 11/30/12 – 12/6/12:

Food Goals:

Keep the consistent tracking going
EAT MORE VEGETABLES!
Bring lunch from home and cook dinner at night

Fitness Goals:

WORKOUT!

Seriously stop making excuses and get off your butt and do something!! I’m so sick of reporting laziness.

Earn 10,000 steps on at least 3 days
Go to the JCC and swim at least once.

I need some tough love because I really am sick of posting this talking about how lazy I am. I want to write about successes and possibly inspire someone else who may be struggling.

Let’s help each other work towards our goals!

Filed Under: All About Me

Friday Fitness

Posted on November 16 by Jillian416 • 0 Comments

Amount Lost:

-1.4

Another fantastic Weigh-in!!

Amount Remaining to Lose:

121.2

Food Goals:

Continue to track all meals!

Tracked everyday except for today and that is because I give myself the day off from tracking once a week so that I do not become overwhelmed with “writing down” everything thing I eat.

Find a new recipe to make with Seamus

We found a new recipe but we are holding off on making it until after Thanksgiving because it is a Thanksgiving-like crock-pot meal. I’ll share it after we make it.

Continue to slowly make the switch from processed foods to whole foods

I made a very conscious effort to buy more vegetables and to actually eat them and I plan on rolling that into next week. I still struggle with cutting out frozen lunches because I have so little time to make a lunch that I go for something low fat and and fast but I don’t want to beat myself up too much over this. I’m making the journey slowly but surely.

Fitness Goals:

Get in extra steps!

I’ve been parking farther away from the door at work and when I go to stores. I’ve been take the extra walk during the day to fill my water bottle in the cafeteria instead of just the nearby water fountain. It feels great to get up and move more during the day.

Complete at least 3 workouts.

I only did 1 “official” workout over my steps. I need to start working harder at this goal.

Find time to do some stretching breaks throughout the day. It feels good and assists in the recovery of sore muscles.

I can check this one off! I have a great stretching routine that I am doing at least twice during the day. I do it right after I finish pumping before I walk back to my desk. It’s really perking me up and putting an extra pep in my step.