the unexpected domestic

Fitness Friday / 03.

To keep up my motivation for living a healthier life by incorporating fitness training/exercise and healthy eating I will be posting every Friday about my progress and habits and ideas.  When I exercise and eat healthy, I feel better and I sleep better.  My goal is to check in weekly what I've been up to!

A few weeks ago, I came across this verse, Proverbs 31:17 She girdeth her loins with strength, and strentheneth her arms.  This was so encouraging to me to continue with my fitness and exercising!  God gave us our bodies and we honor him by taking care of ours.

I have a few work outs that I do where I focus on my legs and others that focus on my arms.  One of my favorites with the arms I do with a dumbbell!  When I first began using a dumbbell I thought it was easy.  Um, no. It's not.  Not if you're doing it right!!  I have three sizes, 5 lb, 10 lb, and 15 lb.  I am still using the 5 and 10 lb, I haven't made it to the 15 lb dumbbell yet but I know that by keeping up my exercises then I will get there! 

I am excited to continue with my walks and love using my Fitbit to track the steps I take.  It is quite addictive!  I mowed the yard which has been expanded since we did the garden and that was a work out in itself, but now I have more space for me to walk in without having my feet in tall grass!  Speaking of the garden...planting the garden was a huge work out and I know that tending to it will take a lot of physical work. 

I am looking forward to all of these things and am loving (almost) everything about them! 

Until next time!!

Fitness Friday / 02.

To keep up my motivation for living a healthier life by incorporating fitness training/exercise and healthy eating I will be posting every Friday about my progress and habits and ideas.  When I exercise and eat healthy, I feel better and I sleep better.  My goal is to check in weekly what I've been up to!

This week has been pretty laid back for me.  I have gone walking/running every day either before work or after work.  I have a route that I've been consistently using that includes taking a trail through the woods!  This adds a little bit of change of scenery because I get to see the trees and I know the dogs really enjoy going on this trail.  An upside is it is completely shaded and although I am sweating, it is a lot cooler than when I'm out there in the field/road!  Last year I ran every morning before work before the sun even got over the trees across the field but this year I haven't been able to run like that.  Partly due to my laziness, but also my schedule has been crazy mixed up.  I did take Sally to the park one day and we had a blast!  She loves riding in the car, too.

On Monday I cooked a couple of meals to take to work.  Meal prep is hard work y'all!  I made chicken fried rice for the first time.  It was actually a lot easier than I thought it would be, too!  I started cooking at 5:30 in the evening and was planning to just cook chicken and saute' some vegetables to eat a few meals that week but when I got to cooking, I remembered that I also wanted to make chicken fried rice.  I didn't finish cooking and cleaning up until 8:00 and then after I exercised it was past 8:30 and I was worn out!  But really, it was so worth it.  I have had plenty to eat all week and it tastes so good!  

I've also been gardening for the past two days and y'all, if you don't think that is hard work then you're not really working very hard at it :)

Until next week!  

Fitness Friday / 01.

Sooo I feel like I'm constantly start and stopping my fitness journey.  And then I get on these kicks where all I think about and want to do is exercise!  I am currently on one of these kicks.  Starting last Monday, I picked up my (heavy) weights back up.  Y'all, they felt a lot lighter before I quit lifting them for like two months than they did last week.  But this time, I will keep going!  I realized last time that it was a lot easier to keep to my work out routine if I wrote on a calendar what all I planned to do each day.  It was a great feeling to cross off the exercises as I did them, too!  I need to pick that habit back up.

My personal goal is to lift weights with a focus on arms or legs (or both) 6 days a week.  As far as cardio goes, I want to run at least 45 minutes to an hour daily.  I really love running. However I have very weak self-discipline and usually end up walking the majority of the way!  This past week I began running again but ended up walking most of the time.  The way I look at this is I just have to work up to it again :).  At the same time, I feel like this could be an excuse.  Butif I'm sticking with it then that's awesome anyways!  This morning I walked/ran for a total of 47:35 minutes!  yay!  

I used my Fitbit to track it and I always like to look at my route I take.  Since I pretty much run in my backyard, the lines constantly overlap and look kinda crazy!  Especially with the new road coming through, my circuit got totally messed up.  But I'm working my way through this emotional and physical loss. haha.  When they first began construction, I pretty much gave up running.  I loved running back there and I couldn't anymore because one: there was a big hole in the ground at first, and two: the road crew was always out there and I was not about to run in front of them!  The construction has slacked off a little, mostly due to the rain I think.  So this week I have found time to be outside and it has been awesome!

I got my Fitbit for Christmas from Adam and Katherine and I totally love it!  I love seeing how many steps I take and using it to track my runs.  But that's about all I did with it.  A few weeks after I started working at my new job, Mandy invited me to be her Fitbit friend.  It's so fun!  Both Jenn and she have them so I have two friends and that gives me a lot more use with it.  We are always talking about getting our steps in and it has encouraged me to actually try to get mine in.  The default setting is 10,000 steps and that's what I have kept as my goal.  On my walk/run this morning I got 4,418 steps in.  I wonder how the number of steps I take will differ once I start running more.  I guess I will find out in a few weeks!  The other day I got 10,000 steps for the first and my Fitbit did this little buzzing thing and I totally skipped around the yard I was so excited!  I did not get many steps in yesterday, it rained a lot and I did not really go anywhere.  I guess I could have just walked around my house, but that seems a little silly to me. 

Anyways, that's all I have for today!  I'm ready to get my fit on this upcoming week!  Until next week y'all :)

home alone goals 2/24

Well y'all, it's that time again.  Time for my two weeks without the hubby being home.  It's always hard for us to part and I don't really know how long two weeks feels to other people, but it feels long and short all at the same time.  I look back at the last two weeks and realize that a lot actually happened and wonder how it all fit into those two weeks when they seem like they went by so quickly.  So maybe that's how days work, the days are long but the weeks seem short.  

I don't know why I feel this way, but every time he leaves, I make mental plans for things that I want to accomplish before Kevin gets back home.  Maybe it is because there is more of a time restraint and that way there is more of a deadline for me to aim for.  Who knows!  Anyway here are my home alone goals for this hitch:

- Clean out pink room.

- Redo open cabinet decorations.

- Bathroom closet and shelves.

- Meal Prep.

- Etsy shop opening.

- A lot of knitting and exercising!!!

I'll try to check back in as I do these things, what do y'all think? :)

fitness journey update

So far I have been exercising practicaly daily since well, I don't know! I know definitely since August 11, because that's the first day I tracked a workout via bodybuiling.com.  In my new years resolutions, I said I would exercise three days a week.  Well for a long time, I didn't do much.  Not even once a week sometimes.  But since about April I have been exercising a couple times a week and for a while now I have actually been exercising steadily, even working out in the morning before work and in the evening!  It is so great a feeling to exercise before work and it just makes the day go by so much better.

I really love looking at other people's motivations like on twitter or body space.  or the most part, being part of a fit family is such an encouragement.  Everyone is so supportive of everyone and it just so good and happy!  Reading fit inspiration posts and then exercising is just plain addicting too!  

I've begun an exercise program this past week for "sexy legs" by someone I follow on twitter.  It is definitely a killer workout and i am loving it!  You can look into her programs at zbody fitness inc.  Since I've gotten more into my fitness , I've been trying to do better with planning.  I printed out a calendar and have written in all my workouts and posted it on my fridge at home!  That way i can see it all the time and I've been crossing off the exercises as I do them.  It's quite fun to see that I'm getting stuff done and it is motivating to want to get the exercises crossed off!  In the side, i have written one of my favorite encouraging sayings "get it done today, the time will pass anyway"  

I also picked up this magnetic bulletin board from my old room at my parent's house to use.  It was a Christmas gift an old friend created for me back when i was in high school.  You can tell by the words I was a big softball player back then, haha.  Check it out ladies, she didn't need pinterest to come up with amazing DIY gifts!  :)
I'm going to use this as a motivational board hopefully!  At first I thought I would repaint it, but then I figured that since I'm going to be using it as motivation for exercising, I think i will leave it as is!  It can remind me of where I started from.

I have also come up with another idea, I guess to serve as motivation and a little bonus for working out.  In two months, my best fitness friend and I have planned a shopping trip to academy's around her birthday!  Hopefully they will be having a good sale and we can get some awesome fitness clothes!  So my plan is to put a dollar in a jar for every time I do a workout.  i want to use one of my old jars that I have, i think that would be super cool.  Also by doing this, I figure that at the end of every day I'll either be proud of myself or disappointed in myself haha!  I think jessica is going to do this too!  I love that we can share our ideas with each other and it's just even more of an encouragement because we just keep building on the original idea.  

Does anybody out there have any motivational techniques that really work??  I'd love to hear them!

moving on.

for the past year, there has been an activity in my life that I have been putting a lot of my thoughts and effort into.  It was something that at one time I really enjoyed and am very good at.  This past week I realized that I no longer felt the same about my project.  It just was not the same anymore and I could feel myself drifting to other things even though I still had not admitted it to myself yet.  

So what do I do now?  What am I supposed to focus my energy on now?  I have gotten on this blogging kick lately.  And I've been knitting some.  However, I think I know what my focus and energy is going into...being fit!  I have exercised every day for the past two weeks.  In fact, I've done it in the morning and then again in the evening.  I know I have already talked about why I love running and all, but y'all.  for some reason all I want to talk about is the latest workout I've been doing.  Luckily, I have some great friends who listen to me ramble on.

Once upon a time, working out and exercising was pretty much all I ever did.  Running and lifting weights and playing sports consumed me.  Looking back at that time in my life, I wish I had embraced it more.  Well fitness, here I am!  Let's do this.  Yoga pants and sports bras are already my best friends.  This past week I have pushed myself running more than I have all year.  You know, it's a lot harder to do mself than when I had a coach pushing me.  Ha!  But I fee like this is something worth putting all my energy into.

And how lucky am I that one of my besties is also just as much into her fitness??  It's pretty great to have someone that I know I can constantly relate to and to be an encourager.  Even though we do not do exactly the same thing, we can still encourage each other no matter the activity.  There are also many other outlets where I can get my fitness fix, too!  I'm hoping to convert my hubby but I'm not sure I want to do that because we work out way different. and only one set of adjustable weights.  ha!  I would love to find more fitness blogs to follow, it is always nice to find inspiration from other people with a similar mindset.

ttyl!  elizabeth

I Love Running! (When I'm Done)

I do love running.  I haven't always loved it, though.  Mostly I have discovered how much I took it for granted.  After years of being an athlete and training for softball, I did not do many things that involved exercise of any kind once I was no longer involved in sports.  During my time of being a high school and college athlete, I never even gave much thought to running.  In fact, it was something I usually dreaded and often hated doing.  Oh, how naive was I!  A few years later, I began to miss it.  I couldn't understand my feelings, but could I have actually liked running??

Fast forward to 2014.  I found this success story of a woman losing all her baby weight and even more by doing this thing called crossfit.  While I don't have any baby weight, I do have some weight that I don't want to have anymore!  For some reason, her story has stuck with me and inspired me to begin exercising on my own.  I do some of the crossfit workouts but I do not claim to be a "crosfitter" lol.  I have begun running several times a week and try to do some kind of strengthening workout in the evenings.

I really love running, especially early in the morning before work.  It makes my day go so much better and I feel a whole lot better throughout the day.  Plus, if I go ahead and do it first thing, it helps me from pushing it off until later and later until I just say I'm gonna do it tomorrow.  In the morning is also a good time because the Mississippi heat is killer after the coolness of the morning disappears into the humidity.  Unfortunately, with Kevin being home, we stay up later than normal which makes it more difficult to wake up early in the morning.  

I think most of all, I just want to be someone who can just go running and run for like, an hour or something.  I took it for granted before when I used to be able to do that, but I won't take it for granted again.  

BFFs (Best Fitness Friend)

Lately, I have really been on this exercising and fit life kick. It really consumes my thoughts and I love the happiness I get from exercising. Because it consumes my thoughts, it's pretty much all I wanna talk about. Lucky for me, I have a BFF whom I can share all my fit thoughts with. Not only is this girl my bestie, but she is also my best fit friend! One of the sites I follow, Fit Bottomed Girls, celebrated a best fit friend week last month! Well I know without any kind of consideration or extra thought that mine is Jessica! Here is the main thing about her and even our friendship with each other, actually, we are always building each other up! Another thing is we don't even like any of the same exercises but we each encourage one another and I think that goes a long way! Yay for BFFs!

Day 8: Rest Day

Today is the 8th day since I began working out and I decided that I need to rest.  I have been doing an ab work out for six days now and I have been jogging for at least twenty minutes every day since Saturday.  Yesterday after my workout I read a blog post about over-working your body.  At the time i did not give it much thought until this morning when I had trouble fully waking up and getting uot of bed.  With the article in the back of my mind, I became concerned that I did push too much to begin with.  So today I am just gonna let my body rest and recover.  But, I am feeling much better and healthier!  I plan to keep on this healthy track and exercisig kick for a better lifestyle.

 

The Beginning.
A couple of weeks ago, I was looking on Pinterest and stumbled upon a pin about crossfit at home.  While I had heard the term before, I did not know much about crossfit.  Curious, I followed the link to a blog about a woman who does crossfit.  I had been wanting to begin some kind of exercise and after reading post, it inspired me to begin.  I wouldn't claim to be someone who does crossfit, but looking at how people's bodies ar changing by their exercise routines, it sure does keep me inspired to continue to work out!  After a couple of days, I began to tell that my body was slowly changing.  I was so excited! Kevin works offshore and once he was home, I did not keep up the exercising asmuch as i had been doing.  He left 9 days ago and I began to pick back up exercising every day.

Jogging.
When I played softball in junior college, I trained like I had never imagined training before.  According to our trainer, we trained more than the football team.  As a pitcher, I trained with the other pitchers and catchers even harder than the rest of the team.  After practice, we would run on the soccer field usually for an hour.  It was long and hard to do, but looking back at how I felt, it was probably the best feeling I have ever had.

When I began my ab workouts, I did not intend to do any kind of jogging or running.  That changed this past Saturday when I walked across the field to my in-law's house.  On the way back, I could tell that my dog wanted to run but she also wanted stay with me.  So we ran!  And that quick sprint was all I needed.  After that mnute or two, I continued on for at least fifteen more minutes.  The next day when I woke up, I could not decide if I wanted to run or not.  Finally I thought, what the heck, and got out of bed and put on my running shoes.  Since then, I have jogged every day.

The Pact.
Kevin has been a great encourager for me this whole time.  I know he really wants me to be happy and healthy so when I sobbed to him one morning because I was "fat" he said that if I was that unhappy then he would push me.  For the most part I have resisted him.  This past Friday night in our phone conversation, I mentioned that I wanted to fit into a pair of my old blue jeans by Easter.  We talked some more about it, and we came up with an agreement:

If I could lose two pants sizes by Easter weekend, then I could spend $200.00 on clothes.

I have been tweeting my progress with the tag #2sizesbyeaster.  I have another pair of jeans that I barely can fit into now, so this Friday I plan to try them on to see how far I have come.  Fingers crossed that they fit me!

Exercise.
Up until now I have only done four moves in sets of fifteen:
1 - sit ups
2 - ab pulses
3 - reverse sit ups
4 - push ups
I am going to add in more moves starting tomorrow:
1 - lunges
2 - burpees
I am loving my exercises and look forward to doing them every night.

Nutrition.
I haven't done much to my eating except that I am being more conscious of how much I eat.  I feel like I eat moderately healthy, there are just some tweaks to my regular diet I make.  I am not starving myself by no means; I eat when I'm hungry, I just stop when I'm not hungry anymore.  I am also using an app, my fitnesspal, to track my caloric intake, water consumption, and exercise.  It is so interesting and eye opening to see the way all of these factors work together.  Yesterday was my best day ever!  I can't wait to see the imact all of these things will have on my life!