Two months into a new lifestyle

I haven't posted here in a really long time for a couple of reasons. The first reason is I was not doing anything to better my health and fitness. The second reason is I let myself get to a point where I was at the heaviest I'd ever been and really didn't want to share that with the world. Back in April my mom and I started talking about living a Keto lifestyle. Our start date was April 15, 2018, which is the day after her birthday. We both did fantastic and I lost about 16 pounds before we went out of town for my brother's graduation. From May 2 through the 6th we were out of town and eating like normal. In that time I put back on about 10 of the pounds I had lost. Thankfully, I was able to quickly hop back into following the Keto way of eating and started dropping pounds again. Since I started back on this way of eating on May 7, 2018 I have not had a single cheat meal (I have swiped a french fry from those I was dinning with here and there) and as a result I am down 27.8 pounds. 

My exercise habits have not changed much and I am not doing any regular exercise of the traditional form, but I have increased my walking. Since June 11, 2018 I have made sure to meet or exceed my 10k step goal and I think this is the longest streak I've ever done. As a naturally lazy person, I have to get myself up and make myself walk to meet this goal, but I feel so much better once my fitbit buzzes at me for those 10k. I think making this one additional change has helped me continue to lose at a wonderful rate. I get my walking in two ways, one by walking to a park by where I work or doing laps around my work if the weather is bad on my lunch break. Then if I still need steps at the end of the day I will march in place while reading or watching tv. I find my heart rate still goes up while I'm marching in place and I'm willing to do what I need to meet that goal. 

The weight loss is only one of the benefits I've gotten from switching to a keto lifestyle. Another benefit is that I have so much more energy than I did before. I no longer get that 3pm slump where all I want to do is take a nap or guzzle more coffee. Don't get me wrong, I still want the coffee, but it is because I love coffee not that I need it to stay alert. My skin is also so much clearer than it has ever been. I've always had acne and eczema and both have cleared up for the most part since going keto. My sugar cravings are minimal, which is fantastic. I also have more will power than ever before. I have said not to salted caramel chocolate cake (which had been a HUGE weakness of mine) and I didn't feel deprived, only proud of the choice I made. 

I'm very thankful for the recipes that I've been able to find and the app that I use to count my macros because those are what have helped me stay on track and maintain this lifestyle. This is something I can see myself doing for the rest of my life; it has been that LIFE CHANGING. I love this lifestyle and really recommend it to anyone who has even a little interest in giving it a try. 

21 day Fix round 1 is done

Friday was the last day of my first round of the 21 day fix. When all was said and done I hit multiple goals. I started the program at 210.7lbs and ended at 198.7lbs. Overall I achieved a 12lb loss and lost 13 inches around my body, 3.5 of those inches were from my waist and 1.5 inches from my hips. I still have a long way to go, but I am proud of the progress I have made. This weekend I started slacking a bit, but I made sure to workout each day. Tomorrow I start another round of the 21 Day Fix and I've got my next week of meals planned out so I don't have to worry about food. I can't wait to see what the next round brings for me.
Before and after pix:

Day 8 of the 21 day fix

So, today was my 8th day of the 21 day fix, and it was harder to do today. I'm making a lot of progress weight wise (6lbs in 7 days), but for some reason my motivation was really lacking today. I managed to get through the workout and stick to the meal plan, but I definitely don't feel like I pushed as hard as I could have. I'll just have to push harder tomorrow. I want to get my motivation back tho. There's no reason for it to be lessening, but for some reason it has. If anyone has any suggestions, I'd love to hear them. 

Fitspiration:

4 days in

I'm 4 days in to my 21 day fix and I'm still going strong. It was harder to get up this morning and I'm not even getting up the earliest  I need to. The next two days are going to be a struggle to get up, but I know I can do this. I'm already down a pound, so I know I'm doing something right. Every time I move and feel sore I am reminded that I'm doing something great for my body and to stick with it. Just gotta go to bed early tonight so I can kill it tomorrow.

Fitspiration:

Day 2 of a new program

Well, I woke up today rather sore, but it felt great. It took a while for me to convince myself that I had to do the second workout, but I was able to do it. I also took the time to plan out my meals for the next week using recipes that work with the 21 day fix. Tonight I'll be prepping my meals for the next few days to try and help stick to this plan. I bought all the food I'll need today, as well as most of the tools to cook the food. This is hard, but it is going to be worth it.

Fitspiration:

Motivated

I'm not sure what, but over the last week something has clicked. I'm feeling super motivated to workout and eat healthier. My eating habits definitely haven't changed over night, but I do feel like I'm becoming more aware of the crap I'm eating and trying to make somewhat better choices. I have been consistent with working out and definitely feel changes in my body already. The sore muscles were the first thing I felt (but they always are). The next thing I started noticing was I'm feeling more energetic and less BLAH. I'm bipolar and went off my meds about 5 months ago, so I'm being very aware of my moods, but I think the regular exercise is helping me stay leveled out in a way that I like. The other thing I started noticing was my stomach seemed smaller. I think by engaging my core muscles while I worked out they started engaging on their own without me thinking about it. I absolutely love that because I feel like it made "instant" progress even though it is an illusion. The weekends tend to be the hardest times for me to workout and I found myself enjoying it both days this weekend. I'm starting to get back the addicted feeling I had when I was working out regularly last May and June (before my apartment burned down and turned my life completely upside down). I'm hoping that now that I'm settling in after my cross country move, I can turn these changes into life long habits. I'll be interested to see my progress over the next year as I try to juggle school, work, and all the other craziness that life throws at me. All I know is right now I'm motivated and I want to keep it up. Please add me on any of the apps I use and together we can help keep each other motivated.

Tools I'm using:
Myfitness pal -christinareed12
Fitbit - chrissy3562
Fitstar - Christina Reed
Hot5 - Christina Reed
Runtastic Six pack, Squats, & Push Ups - Christina Reed

Officially Addicted!

I'm officially addicted to my fitness & changing my life. I have been tracking my food & exercise intake daily for the past 50 days and in that time I've lost 9.5lbs. I feel like I'm making so much progress, even if the scale isn't completely reflecting it. On Wednesday I was able to slide my jeans off without unbuttoning or unzipping them. It felt AMAZING!I'm not sure what made it click for me this time, but it's been wonderful. I know that one thing that is helping me is the support I'm getting from a former rowing teammate. She's asking me about my progress via facebook when I haven't posted in a while and being very encouraging.

I just got done doing a double workout using Fitstar. It ended up being 25 minutes total, but each workout is 10-15 minutes on the program I was doing. I've upped it to a slightly longer program and the workouts will be 20-40 minutes. There are some days where I still dread doing a workout, but today I was looking forward to it. I've got a final on Saturday and it was a great way to break up my studying. 

I'm feeling strong and looking fitter each day. There's still a long way to go in my journey (56lbs), but I'm enjoying the journey. When I get back under 200lbs I'm going to celebrate, although I'm not entirely sure how yet. If anyone has suggestions, I'd be happy to hear them.

Fitspiration: