Fit Friday: Make a plan

Too often people say they are going to start a diet or start working out and then fail to make a plan on how to accomplish their goal. By failing to plan they in essence plan to fail. I myself have been victim to that and the one time I was most successful at exercising and losing weight I made a plan, typed it up and put it on the fridge where I would see it everyday, and after following that plan I lost 30 lbs and was in the best shape of my life.

The first thing I do when making a plan is to set an overall goal and then small mini goals within that plan. Right now my current goal is to lose 20 lbs to get back to my pre-pregnancy weight. I also force myself to be honest with myself. Before I became pregnant I could run for a solid 20 minutes and was pretty fast, I could do an hour zumba workout and not be sore, I could do a 20 minute hardcore ab routine like it was nothing. So I know it is possible for me to be able to do those things again - however, I need to rebuild that strength. There is no way I can get on the treadmill right now and run 20 minutes straight, it hurts just to walk! My abdominal wall is completely shot right now - I just carried a 9 lb 11 oz baby so rightly so - and there is no way I can bust out 20 minutes of hardcore abs. I need to take baby steps and that is where my mini goals come in.

I have been debating how I want to go about losing this weight - the main thing will be my diet, I do weight watchers so I will be following the weight watchers plan. What I love most about the weight watchers plan is that you track EVERYTHING you eat. So if I take a bite out of a snickers bar I write that down. It really makes you look at what you are eating and helps you pinpoint where you need to improve and why you are failing. It also helps to gauge how much you need to eat during the day and if you are over or under eating. WW gives you a tracker each week that you weigh in, however, for me I like to make a tracker on my computer, print it out, laminate it and then place it on my fridge and write everything on that. This way every time I go to open the fridge I can see how many points I can eat and I tend to make better choices in my snack or meal choices. When I lost 30 lbs before I did it completely on diet alone. I didn't want to workout because I didn't want to worry about the whole muscle weighs more than fat mentality people get when it comes to dieting and working out. I wanted to make sure I was successful by my food choices alone and then once I hit my weight goal I then started working out. This time around I am going to do cardio along with eating right because cardio is the most effective way to lose fat!

After I set up my goals I create a way for me to be accountable, in order to ensure my success. This is so important to successfully losing weight! If I just said I am going to exercise everyday and then never made a way to be accountable it would be too easy for me to not exercise because no one but me would know. So just like I place my tracker on the fridge for myself and everyone else to see, I also make up a workout schedule with mini goals for each week and place that on the fridge as well with a place for me to mark off for every goal I accomplish. I then tell my husband that he needs to be my cheerleader and my "boss" when it comes to working out. He knows better than to comment on how much I weigh and whether or not I should be eating something, instead he knows to ask me if I have worked out yet and if I haven't when I was planning on doing that. He also never gets bothered if I need him to watch the kids while I hop on the treadmill or watch sports in our room instead of the living room if I am working out to a dvd.

So here is my plan: I am going to walk for 30 minutes straight 6 days a week for 2 wks. Then run for 5 mins and walk the rest for 6 days, then each consecutive wk increase my run time by 2 minutes each week until I am running 20 minutes straight. As for strength training my main focus is increasing my core for now so I will do my ab routine which normally requires doing each exercise for 1 minute each but instead I will do each exercise for 30 seconds, until that no longer hurts, then increase it to 45 secs, then 1 min. I am not going to start my ab exercises until N is 6 weeks so I know my body has fully healed from child birth and pregnancy and my dr. has cleared me. As for diet like I said my plan is to continue doing weight watchers so I will go to a meeting every week until I hit my lifetime goal once again. I need to be at my goal weight by August 15 to remain lifetime so that is my goal.

To me trying to lose weight without a plan is about as smart as opening up a business or writing a book without a plan - you can't succeed unless you make a plan!

Fit Friday: Water is my new best friend

So my goal for the year is to get flat abs. Before I became pregnant with N I was the smallest I had ever been weight wise, but I still had a gut because I drank diet soda like it was going out of style. So I prepared myself during my last trimester that as soon as N was born I was going to cut soda completely out of my diet. Because I mentally prepared myself the switch has become a breeze! I have only had a half of a diet in the past 3 weeks since N was born and that was because I didn't prepare myself before leaving the house and we went out to dinner and water wasn't an option (crazy right!).

Anyways since I have had N I have lost 30 lbs (which is definitely helped by nursing and eating right) and a lot of that is credited to water. I average 8 glasses of water a day and I have seen a huge difference in how I feel and look. My skin feels smoother, I feel better, and surprisingly I don't have nearly as many energy crashes as I did when I drank soda regularly. I also feel like I am more likely to make the healthier options with food because I'm not putting a ton of sugar or sugar additives in my mouth all day.

Here are some interesting facts about how water helps you lose weight according to an article from weightlossforall.com you can read the whole article here:

1."Water can help your metabolism burn calories 3% faster."
2. "help(s) to subside your hunger so you can better manage your portion control"
3. By drinking water during your meal it will help you feel full faster and you will eat less
4." If you want to gain the benefit of increased energy and metabolism a good guide is to drink one ounce of water for every two pounds of body weight. A person who weighs 200 pounds should drink around 100-ounces (12.5 cups) of water in order the gain the weight loss benefits of water." (that I had never heard before)
5. "Drinking water before, during and after exercise will keep energy levels high and help muscles recover after training."
6. "Water is one of the most vital substances our body needs."

If you don't like water, add crystal light to your water or buy flavored water! Just watch the calorie content because it adds up!

Fit Friday: How to lose 20 lbs in ten days

I have tried a lot of workout programs and diets and the one I have found to be most successful at losing 20 lbs fast is . . . are you ready . . . give birth to an almost ten pound baby! That's the only way that I know of that you can lose weight fast, otherwise it is a long drawn out process!

Getting healthy is key in my opinion to being an involved parent, before I became pregnant with N I weighed the least I had weighed in a long time (probably since my freshman year in high school) and I found that I had so much more energy and could do so much more with my kids.

My personal goal right now is to get back to my pre-pregnancy weight by August 15 that is 3 months after N turns 6 wks and I can start really working out, and that is how long weight watchers gives me to get back to my lifetime goal. From there my other goal is to get flat abs within a year from the day she was born so every Friday I am going to post about my progress and things I am doing to help me reach my goal!

I strongly encourage you to set a goal to get healthier and set a date for when you want to achieve that goal, then make a plan to make it happen!