FLABULOUS

Have you ever heard of the Freshman 15? It’s a “milestone” for kids right out of High School, in their Freshman year of colleger per say. Basically the tradition is, life is so different, so out of whack and we’re on our own for the first time so we eat terribly, drink too much alcohol, stay up too late and party too hard. In our Freshman year we gain the basic 15 pounds. Cute story but hardly realistic. I mean, for me it was the Freshman 30 and it just went up from there.

Well I’ve hit another famous 15, ok it’s not famous, but it’s about to be. This past week I hit the flabulous 15. What does it mean? After years of being flabulously fat, I’ve finally roughed it past the hovering pounds and lost 15, a milestone for me. Actually I skipped right past 15 and went straight to 16 pounds lost, but you get the poin. It’s not even a quarter of where I want to be, but it’s something. It’s going down.

LJ here, keeping on trucking.

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It’s been a while since we’ve written in the blog and we’re sorry!!

Things just get so crazy sometimes with work and school and babies and freelance work and trying to live a healthy lifestyle and still keep up your relationships with your friends and family. Life can get SO busy.

So here’s an update: KJ is doing great. She’s lost over 25 pounds now and has really kicked things into gear while working and taking care of a baby and being an incredible wife. Me? I’m doing okay. Mounds of full time work and freelance while trying to be a home maker have really bogged me down. Sometimes I get so busy in the day I don’t even realize I’ve skipped lunch. It’s not healthy and I love food so much I never thought I’d be that kind of person but work can do strange things to a person.

But I haven’t forgotten my main goals and what I need to do. Hopefully after I put my freelance work to bed this next week I can start to put my focus back on my health, which I never should have lost sight of to begin with!!!

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I love to go on vacations. Driving or flying. Fancy hotel or motel. Sightseeing, walking around, sleeping in and YES the food. Let’s face it, when you go on vacation one of the main planning happens in the “where to eat” category. It’s so fun to try different foods from different places. But do vacations cause “diet” sabotage?

My take is that vacations can either kill a healthy lifestyle or work with one and YOU are the one that makes that choice.

I just got back from a week long vacation in New York City, lucky me! We flew and had to deal with airplane food, we stayed at a nice hotel and we planned a lot of things to see, do and eat. It was a total blast. While I wouldn’t say we ate like health angels, my husband and I both made a conscious effort to scale back on the food portions, eat healthy when we could and the main thing? WALK everywhere.

We really worked hard at this plan and I have to tell you, my feet have never been so tired. But you know what? It totally paid off. I lost 2 pounds on the trip!

The bottom line is that you can’t let vacations sabotage you. They are supposed to be exciting times where you can let your hair down. They can be that and still not crush your healthy lifestyle if you simply make a plan and stick to it the best you can!

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Lately things have been really stressful in life. I’ve been trying to work out and eat right, I’ve had finals, I’ve just had another persons entire job description fall to me and now I have to get everything settled before I go on vacation this week. Something I’ve noticed is, stress makes me fat.

When I get stressed, I guess it manifests itself into hunger because I get so hungry. I mean hungry for anything. I don’t really want a meal, I want snacks. Give me a box of cookies, give me a bag of sugar peas. It doesn’t matter, I’m just hungry. And of course the easier thing to reach for (when you are near coffee houses and gas stations instead of real stores) is the crap food. It’s just a terrible habit or whatever, that helps make me fat. And it’s hard to keep in check, but you just gotta you know?

This pretty much goes hand in hand with emotional eating for me. I’ve pretty much decided that my stupid feelings have way too much control over my diet. It’s really silly isn’t it? But as they say, the first step is admitting that you have a problem!!

By the way, after some light reading about stress in relation to weight gain I’ve found that studies show chronic stress contributes to a slower metabolism, cravings, blood sugar and fat storage. So if you are sick of stressing out and don’t want to gain weight while you do it . . . I dunno, do some yoga and meditation!

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Flabulous Deal of the Week 5-12-08

A great way to really get into a health and fitness journey is to read up on the subject. Barnes & Noble has plenty of great books you can read through to find the weight loss method, or get fit method that is right for you. You know, research it before you try it.

One of my favorite weight loss books that I’ve read is Skinny Bitch by Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin. It’s a No-Nonsense, Tough-Love Guide for Savvy Girls Who Want to Stop Eating Crap and Start Looking Fabulous, or as I’d like to say, flabulous. This book isn’t really a diet book, but an informational book with great ideas to help you achieve a better you. Everything is optional, and if you can’t do something it offers modification tips for you.

Right now Barnes & Noble is offering Fast & Free Delivery. Delivery in 3 business days or less. Plus free shipping on orders of $25 or more.

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So KJ and I finally got our pictures back from our first 5K. Some company actually took pictures of everyone crossing the finish line and then sent us samples of the pictures they took of us with an offer for us to buy them. Bottom line? They were horrifying to say the least, so we didn’t opt to buy them. however we decided to keep the samples as a sort of “before” picture and then next year when they send them again, that can be a little “after” example, see how much we’ve changed you know?

Anyway, the picture above is of me and KJ. I’m on the left and KJ is on the right. Ohhhhh the memories. Isn’t she beautiful? That’s my sis!

I’ve also posted a picture of us near the finish line so you can see a little of the hub bub going on at the 5K event; the people lining the streets, cheering us on.

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Flabulous Deal of the Week 5-5-08

Summer is almost here and that can mean only one thing; FUN IN THE SUN! Between swimming, camping, sun bathing and playing endlessly outside there’s just so much fun stuff to do in the summer. But I have to admit, my favorite thing about summer is that it’s grill time!

There’s nothing better than hanging out in the back yard with your friends and family, grilling some burgers, hot dogs, steaks and ribs. But summer time grilling doesn’t have to mean all red (or mixed) meat and high fat foods. A great way to stay healthy and add something delicious to your regular BBQ is to grill your vegetables and even your fruits. It cooks them well and brings out so much flavor, but it’s hard to do without burning them or getting your grill really dirty.

So here’s a really awesome item, the Stainless Steel Flexi Grill Basket from Sur La Table. They have several different baskets depending on what kind of food you want to grill, but these things are great. Easily grill chopped up veggies, grill some peaches or pineapple for dessert without getting the grill stuck with sugar, you can even grill your meats and fish in these to keep a cleaner grill and flip your food easier. And because it’s stainless steel it’s going to be really easy to clean.

The Stainless Steel Flexi Grill Basket is a great way to grill delicious food and still keep yourself eating healthy!

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Photo by Presidents Challenge

Remember in grade school when you were in gym class and you had to the the Presidential Physical Fitness Challenge (I can’t be the only one that had to do it)? I HATED that. I was pretty good at most of them, push ups, sit ups, the mile walk/run, the how far you can stretch, but I was the worst at the pull ups. Who does pull ups anyway?

Now to my point, I don’t have to do this test anymore, and now I want to! I thought it would be fun if on the first of each month I do the test to see how far my fitness level has come. It would certainly be a motivator and a measurement of progress that isn’t a scale.

Here’s the Physical Fitness Challenge:

Workout as usual and then once a week, once every other week or once a month check your progress with the above challenges below.

1. How fast can you walk/jog/run 1 mile?
2. How many push-ups (on your knees or regular style) can you do without stopping?
3. How many sit-ups (or crunches) can you do without stopping?
4. How far can you stretch? For this challenge I am going to see how close I come to touching the floor by holding the measuring tape and seeing how many inches I have until I reach the floor.

I did my first test of this at the beginning of last month, and now this weekend, just by doing the Physical Fitness Challenge I’ll be able to see how much progress I’ve made in the fitness area.

Give it a try!

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I’ve hit a lot of milestones lately; 100 days without any soda, 10 pounds lost and finishing a 5k. So why all of the sudden am I totally losing motivation?

Over the past couple of days, while I’ve kept up my workout routine, my eating habits have been down right shameful. I’ve eaten so much sugar, I haven’t really had a good balanced meal,  I haven’t really had breakfast and my fruit and veggie intake has dwindled significantly. Plus, I haven’t really blogged much if you hadn’t noticed!

Why is it that every time I’m really making progress my mind goes crazy, my motivation fades and I just stop? Well, I’m not going to stop this time, I’ll eat a good lunch and dinner today and there is a banana on my desk. But I feel like even though I haven’t gained any weight back, the past few days have really set me back. Grrrrrr.

I’ll get my motivation back.

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Flabulous Deal of the Week 4-21-08

I’ve found that the best way to enjoy a workout is with music, and of course, what’s better to fill that need than an iPod. I use mine EVERY time I workout. It just helps speed things along and pump me up. Don’t have an iPod or need a new one, there are all new iPods at MacConnection.

MacConnection has every size iPod you could possibly want, and their new colors are great. Mine is the pink one, it’s to die for!

And right now at MacConnection get FREE SHIPPING on orders of $99 or more - ends 4/30.

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