Tone Em' Up Tuesday Link Up!

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It's time for Tone Em' Up Tuesdays! I mentioned last week I'll be linking up with Brandi every week to talk about what I'm doing to help my Short Shorts Initiative.  Link up with us and share your fitness posts! How are you gettting ready for summer? Do you have a goal outfit you want to wear? Share your stories with us! Copy and paste the code above to add the button to your posts as well.

First let's talk motivation...because I don't think you're ready fo' this jelly

Can we say AHHMAYYZING!? This girl's got awesome legs, and I want them.  SO how am I gonna get em?  3 ways: Diet, Cardio, and Stregth training.  Let's be real here; you can't "spot reduce".  If I want my thighs to get smaller, my whole body has to get smaller, and the key to this is diet and cardio.  And we all know that you can't out-run a bad diet, so that really has to get better.  Cardio is key to burn calories, but the strength training is what will tighten up that jiggle...I'm talking squats, lunges, leg lifts galore.  This morning I got in a 5k on my treadmill to hit the cardio side

...and later tonight I'm going to try this move (that the internet tells me will get me legs like Beyonce...we'll see about that!)

Sumo Crab Walk.
Works: Inner thighs and glutes
Need: Room to walk
Directions:
1. Get into a sumo wrestling stance: your feet wider than shoulder-width apart, toes pointed out, and knees extended over the toes.
2. Keep your back straight, chest out, and abs tight throughout this move.
3. In this almost-sitting position, take a step forward, one foot at a time, and advance as far as you can go in the space you are in; then turn around and walk back to your starting position.
4. Do 20 steps total or until you feel the burn in your legs.

What are you doing to reach your goals this summer? Link up with me and Brandi every Tuesday and share your story too! (You must be a follower of both Babe Before Baby and Thin After Twins to participate!) Be sure to link the actual post, not your whole blog, so we can all get inspired!

  

Motivation Monday

This past weekend was a whirlwind of events…I have been so busy lately that I haven’t had time to think!  My weekend started at 5am Friday morning, up super early to get in my Insanity before traveling for work for the day.  I rushed home from out of state for 5:30pm, when we picked up my niece and headed out to grab dinner before the hockey game we were taking her to.  My niece slept over, but we had to be back up at 6:30am to get her ready to go back home since she had something to do early and I had Bootcamp at 8:30.  Bootcamp, then a white trash shower and a first birthday party (2 hours away).  Back home by 4pm, insert manic house cleaning in preparation for Sunday’s Super bowl party and a trip to the grocery store.  Sunday back up to be at the diner by 6:30am, home by 2, showered and start cooking for our guests that arrived around 4.  Super bowl black-out which meant guests didn’t leave until 11:30…and insert yawn here.

 From Thursday night through Sunday night, I ate literally 1 meal at home, and that meal was the Super bowl gorge-fest we put on last night, so it didn’t exactly balance my eating out all weekend.  I’m busy.  I get it.  I found a way to make time for exercise by getting up extra early on Friday and Saturday, but I didn’t find a way to make my diet work.  I ate crappy on Thursday night, and Friday morning I had a bagel for breakfast (not awful but not great either).  Friday at lunch I had a flatbread that I think was relatively healthy, but by dinner I was starving since I’d been on the road all day and stuffed my face with sesame chicken at a Chinese food restaurant.   Saturday morning, egg white flatbread from DD for breakfast, pizza for lunch, leftover pizza for dinner.  Sunday morning, bagel for breakfast, blueberry muffin for lunch (both of these were at the diner I work at, not very many healthy options to choose from!) and then everything under the sun for dinner.

 

I almost cried when I saw the scale this morning, but reviewing my weekend, it’s no wonder I saw a gain.  I start the day off with good intentions and when I’m faced with the real-life temptations of pizza and Chinese food, I can’t control myself.  I have more willpower at home, no question about it, but I came to the realization this morning that life is not going to stop because I’m on a diet.  My schedule will always be crazy.  There will never be a “good time” for me to focus on my food, because it’s always going to be hard.  I have to focus on my diet or I will never see the changes I want.  I have to start planning my meals, and planning my time away from home better.  I’m not sure what the answer to pizza parties is just yet, but I have to stick to my diet much more strictly, especially when I know a pizza party is on the schedule.  I have (yet another) birthday party on Sunday for my BFF’s son’s first birthday, and yes, it’s a pizza party.  I am traveling out of state again all day on Friday, but otherwise (right now) I have no other obligations.  I will not eat out this week aside from those 2 planned events.  I will make smart choices.  I will get better at this eventually!

How did your weekend go?

The Short Shorts Initiative

Confessions of a fat girl: I don’t wear shorts.  Like ever.  I’m talking 95 degree heat, super high humidity, and this girl wears capris.  Or knee length skirts.  Or pants.  Because I hate my thighs that much.  They’ve always been the biggest part of me, the place that every bad thing I eat goes right to.  And have I mentioned the cellulite? Oh there’s lots of that.  Even when I’m losing, the brail just doesn’t seem to go away.  I have decided that my biggest goal for this summer is to rock the short shorts look.  To rock the short shorts and higher heels, legs for miles look.

Allie Larter has a SMOKIN bod!

 

 I’ve ALWAYS wanted to do this.  I’ve NEVER been confident enough in my body to even try.  This year will be different.  This year, I will make it my mission to lose enough weight and tone up my thighs so I can pull this look off in public.

I took some comparison pictures last night at Target, and it wasn’t pretty. 

Please excuse the bad dressing room lighting

 

These are juniors shorts, so they’re cut a bit differently than I’d like, but they had no women’s shorts out yet so it’s all I had to deal with.  Oh and I did purchase those nude heels…in anticipation of my coming out party J  I’ve got a lot of work to do, but I’m teaming up with my pal Brandi to make sure it happens.  We’ll be doing a Tone Em’ Up Tuesdays blog link up, starting next week, to talk about what we’re doing to glam up our gams.  I hope you’ll join us!  What have you done to slim your thighs? I’m always open to suggestions!

Dear Mr. A.....EFF YOU

Do you follow me on Instagram yet? Well head on over and follow me @babebeforebaby so you can keep up with the ridiculous drama I posted last night. 

Some cowardly mother effer decided to post a nasty comment about me being full of crap and that I'll be fat forever.  EFF YOU Mr. Anonymous.  You don't even have the courage to post under a real name? Your hatred just drives me more.  You might have pushed me down, but I'm going to get right back up.  And yes, I may be fat right now, but you know what? I can fix fat.  You can't fix ugly, and that's exactly what you are.  Your nasty, ugly comments lead me to believe that that's the kind of person you are, and I'm not going to waste a single second more talking about you.

Thank you to all my positive, inspiring readers that have given me lots of love over the past few days.  I decided to listen to my heart and change up my insanity schedule to incorporate running every other day. 

I know some of you disagreed, and while I appreciate your input, ultimately I have to do what I think is going to work best for me.  Thanks so much for all your advice, I appreciate you more than you'll know!

What would you do?

Busy weekend, lots to talk about….

Saturday I decided to skip Insanity for the day and go back to Bootcamp; the exercises we do at BC are pretty similar to the ones Shaun T does in Insanity, so I figured it was an equal trade.  While I was there, I saw that they were starting a new weight loss competition, called “Mission: SLIMpossible” (The BC studio is called Mission Fitness FYI).  I usually do good with competition involved, it drives me more than doing things on my own, so l paid my $20 and weighed in.  The competition goes for 8 weeks, and the top 3 highest percentage losers win 3 months of unlimited classes (that’s HUGE!) I have to focus now!

 
So this leads me to my next revelation this weekend.  Sunday morning I woke up SORE.  I’m talkin’ could barely squat to pee sore.  Hurts to walk up stairs sore.  Don’t want to shrug my shoulders sore.  GOOD Sore.  I worked out HARD sore.

And I did work out hard.  I wore my HR monitor and found I burned over 600 calories, almost 200 more than I usually do with Shaun T.

 

 And it got me thinking.  I love Bootcamp.  (Well, I love to hate Bootcamp anyways).  And, well… I hate Insanity.  There I said it.  I HATE INSANITY.  Not in the I love to hate it kind of way.  I just plain hate it.  I know it’s not supposed to be easy.  I get that.  But I need variety.  I need human interaction.  I need to know that even though I know the individual exercises, I don’t know what’s coming next.  I’ve been going to Bootcamp on and off for 3 years now, and I have yet to attend a class that was the same as any of the others.  And I love that about it; the variety keeps me coming back.  I know what to expect with Shaun T.  And I’m dreading getting up in the morning to see him.  I’m not looking forward to my workouts.  I’m not even feeling good about them when I’m done; I haven’t pushed myself to feel as sore as I am now, 2 days after Bootcamp, because I don’t like Insanity.  I’m doing the workout, I’m going through the motions, and my HR Monitor tells me I’m burning between 4 and 500 calories per workout.  But I don’t like it.  And I don’t see myself continuing this after the 63 days are over.

 

 

I stated before I listed my “goals” for 2013 that I wanted to make lifestyle changes, not resolutions that would be so hard that I would give up on them a few days or weeks into it.  I also stated that one of my goals was to finish a round of Insanity.  That leaves me torn.  I know I made a goal to finish a round of Insanity.  I also know this is a program that I will likely never do again, which completely goes against my lifestyle changes goal.  I thought about this a lot yesterday.  Why am I doing Insanity? Because I had hopes it would help me lose serious weight.  Because I wanted to get stronger, more toned muscles.  Because I made a commitment to do it.

Right now, the only reason I’m still doing it is that last one.  I’m pretty sure there’s not enough straight cardio to help me drop pounds the way running was.  And I’m getting toned muscles, but there’s a lot of fat still over those toned muscles, and I’m just not going to see the definition I want right now without more fat loss from straight cardio.  I think I’ve come to a good solution for this, but I’m curious what you think.  I’m half way through Insanity right now, on week 5 of 9.  I’m considering modifying the remainder of the program as follows:

Continue with Insanity for 3 days a week, instead of 6, so that I can add more variety and running back into my routine.

Monday: Insanity
Tuesday: Run
Wednesday: Insanity
Thursday: Run
Friday: Insanity
Saturday: Bootcamp and/or Run
Sunday: Rest

That’s still 6 days a week of exercise.  I reserve the right to take an additional rest day as needed, because sometimes 6 days a week is just too much, but I think it’s a good goal to aim for.  What do you think? Am I giving up to easily? What would you do?

Motivation Monday

I have a serious problem. I keep shoveling crap into my piehole.

I ate like 130923485 Girl Scout cookies this weekend, and even after I realized how many I had eaten, I ate some more (what’s wrong with me!?!)

I need to get my diet mojo back.  They say losing weight is 30% exercise, and the other 70% is diet. I’m totally eating my way out of any loss I might see from all my hard work I’ve been putting in with Insanity.

I think I need to change up my daytime menu a bit…I usually do great during the day/at work, but by the time I get home, I’m STARVING, don’twant to cook, and end up snacking on everything in sight and ordering takeout.

Maybe if I vary my daytime meals a bit it might help.  I’m realizing that as much as I like green monsters, when I start my day off with them, I’m not as satisfied and end up wanting lunch by like 11am, and I’m taking in more calories with a green monster than I would with a yogurt and some Kashi….so I’m heading to the grocery store tonight, hopefully a few changes will go a long way.  In the meantime, a I'll leave you with a little motivation to start your week of right (I know I could use some!)

 

Feelin Good

I woke up feeling pretty good today.  I made it through a tough Insanity work out without feeling like I spent more time lying on the ground than working out, and when I pulled out my clothes for work, my “staple” black pants that I’ve worn forever were super baggy around my thighs, something that I’ve never experienced before.  All of my weight goes right to my thighs, so buying pants is usually an impossible feat…if they fit my waist,they’re skin tight on my thighs, and if they fit my thighs, they gap at the waist.  Today, they were loose all around, and even though the waist part has been big for a while (they’re size14s), I really felt like my thighs were getting smaller when I put them on today!  I got to work with lots of energy(and thank god, it’s been a busy day!), but it got me thinking…what did I do different? And then it hit me.  Yesterday I made a real effort to focus on my eating. I logged all of my 1400 calories into MFP (I ate back 200 exercise calories), and ate almost 100% clean/unprocessed foods all day (with the exception of a bag of pop chips last night after dinner!).  I also decided to try and hit my 10k steps while watching TV instead of lounging on the couch….and I’m sure that helped too, but I really think that my diet had a ton to do with it.  Enough so that I want to do it again today…sowhen lunch rolled around and we had a rep bring in catered food with yummy artisan sandwiches, potato chips, and cookies, I didn’t think “I can’t havethat”…I thought…”I don’t want that!”  I’mgoing to try to keep my meals as clean as possible this week (within reason),  not because I’m on a diet but because I like the way I feel when I eat like this.  I feel healthy.  I feel fit. I feel energized.  And all of this is enough to convince me to keep going. 

 

 

PS. I finally caved and got an Instagram account….follow me! @babebeforebaby