So… What makes this attempt different?

So… I have been gaining weight for 9 years. Why now? Why do I think this attempt will be different than all the others?

WEDDING- Well I’m getting married!!! Yep I will be getting married January 2014 in Riviera Maya, Mexico.




Sweating for the Wedding!

I bought THE DRESS for the size I am now… but of course like most every bride I would like to be thinner for my wedding day. I want to cherish not criticize my wedding photos. I want to be able to wear shorts and dresses and not worry about my legs. I want to sit in a swimsuit and not feel my stomach. I haven’t worn a bikini in many many years and that is not a goal of mine, but feeling good about myself in a swimming suit is! For starters I need to change the above I want to I will. I will! I will!

Okay besides “sweating for the wedding” what else is different this time…

GYM- I found my gym. Not so much a gym but a fitness studio. It is a wellness studio that has unique fitness programs, massage therapy, cooking/nutrition class, service projects, and friendship. (I will have another blog on choosing Fit By Burn and my first experiences). Friendship? At a gym?  Again it is a studio, you will not find rows of ellipticals and treadmills with TVs and magazines here. LOL you don’t have time to watch TV or read a magazine at Fit By Burn! At Fit By Burn you have your friends cheering you on and pushing you. I will never step foot in an impersonal mega gym again.

BOOTCAMP- I am a Fit By Burn Boot Camper! Bootcamp is twice week from 5:15-6:30am. The workouts are always challenging and always pushing us to new limits. The small group dynamic is awesome. We have all become friends and encourage each other and keep each other accountable on coming. It is really hard to get motivated to get up that early some days, but thinking it might be a partner day and I might be leaving my partner Kim solo I get my butt into the studio. No bootcamp is the same as another, which I love!  Running, jump rope, hills, stairs, kickboxing, HIIT training, kettlebells, body-weight strength training, TRX…. So now working out is fun and sometimes I actually look forward to it!

TRAINER- Another reason why this time is different is because I didn’t just find my studio/class but I found my trainer, Mendy. Picture Jillian Michaels! Yep I get yelled at sometimes. I swear the girls must I have thought my name was “Jessica get your butt down!” because that is all they heard for my first few classes. And yes they still hear my name quite a lot during the class. But that is because she is encouraging me and pushing me. She pushes me to hold a squat or plank longer and lower than I would even attempt. She advises me to go up on weight when something looks too easy for me. She corrects my form and makes sure I am doing the exercise right. She doesn’t yell or correct me to be mean… no quite the opposite! I know she does it because she cares and wants me to improve my health. If I went to mega gym with a friend we would likely chat during the workout and boost each other up by saying, “oh yay us, we went to the gym”! Going to a mega gym can be an accomplishment in itself, I know I never could find the motivation to go alone or deal with the crowds and wait on machines. But my accomplishments in bootcamp are not just showing up, they are doing an exercise I wasn’t strong enough for before or improving my physical test or being told by Mendy I did something well or improved on something. Oh yea Mendy does a body fat physical test every 6-8 weeks. My last testing Mendy looked at the numbers and said “what are you eating”! “Um obviously not what I should be” was my response. I had no excuse. Just working out is not going to get me to my goals.

FOOD-

Now I am tracking my food on myfitnesspal and making huge progress in choices I eat. I now pack my lunch and snacks every morning and plan dinner out. Before I would go out to eat for lunch with a coworker or heat up a smart one. Now I make a spinach salad for lunch and cut fruit for snacks. Before we would come home and be tempted by how easy and fast pasta was. Now I make sure I take the meat out of the freezer and put it in the fridge before I leave for work and I make sure we have all the vegetables we need to go with it. Coming home to a planed out meal makes it easier to stick with that health choice instead of making pasta or going out to eat.  We have even enjoyed cooking together at night.

WORK OUT MORE- I have even increased the amount of times I see Mendy from twice a week to 4 times a week. I now also workout Monday and Wednesday at night at Fit By Burn’s Daily Burn class. The Daily burn has 7 workout times a week but I have only been able to add two of the 7 to my bootcamp schedule as of now. But I hope to go from working out 4 times a week to 6 in the next few weeks. This class is more weight training, even smaller than the bootcamp, and more one on one with Mendy. I love it!

So please raise your protein shake and join me in a cheers that his time WILL be different!