MY FITNESS JOURNEY

I wanted to share a little bit about myself and my fitness journey today. I'm going to share things about myself that I don't particularly love but I feel are necessary to share in order to help myself make changes and to encourage others to make changes too.

I'm not one of those people who has been fit for their entire lives. I played a few team sports but I was never a spectacular athlete. It wasn't until I went to college that I decided to lose a little bit of weight and tone up.

Me during high school (looking super happy)

I still don't work out nearly as much as I should. Since I started college I have had an off and on again relationship with exercise. I do really well for a few weeks and then I stop exercising altogether. I'm sure I'm not the only one that has this problem. Things always spring up in life that make me feel like I don't have the time or the energy to work out. It's especially difficult with a little baby. I have work around her schedule which isn't always very predictable. I generally work out when she is napping but there are some days when she will only nap while I'm holding her.

Since I have a degree in Exercise Science I feel like I really need to step up my game. I feel like I need to be the fittest of the fit. The importance of exercise has been drilled into my brain for four years, so I really have no excuse to be such a slacker.

I was 119 lb on my wedding day in December 2010. When I became pregnant with Eve I was up to 130 lb. The last time I weighed myself before I gave birth I was 172 lb. I am now down to 125lb.

Me and my husband on our wedding day

Me and Eve when she was 2 days old

I have passed below my pre-pregnancy weight but I would still like to lose a little more. I would also like to become more toned and fitter. My goal is to exercise regularly and be the fittest I've ever been before I become pregnant again. That's not going to be anytime soon so I should be able to accomplish this. I wasn't able to exercise as much as I would have liked to while I was pregnant with Eve because I hadn't been working out very often before I became pregnant. I want things to be different the next time around.

I'm going to be sharing my fitness journey here on the blog. Each week I'll let you know how often I work out, what I did for my work out, and my weight. I'll also occasionally share some other stats, such as my body fat percentage and other measurements.

Date: 7/29/2013

Weight: 125 lb.

Body fat percentage (according to skinfolds): 17.1%

Body fat percentage (according to BIA): 17.3%

Hip measurement: 36.5"

Waist measurement: 26.5"

Right leg measurement: 21.5"

Left leg measurement: 21.25"

Right arm measurement: 11"

Left leg measurement: 11.25"

My plan right now is to work out 6 times a week. I'm going to do strength workouts three days a week and jogging for the other three days. My jogs are more like walks right now because I'm just starting out (and I'm terribly unfit).

Here's my schedule for this week. I successfully kept to this schedule last week. Let's see how well I can stick with it this week

Monday: Jogging

Tuesday: Legs + back workout

Wednesday: Jogging

Thursday: Chest + back workout

Friday: Jogging

Saturday: Shoulders + arms workout

Calorie-wise, I'm aiming for 1800-2000 calories a day. That's about 500 more calories than I would usually eat when trying to lose weight because I am nursing . I'm going to be keeping track of my calories using the app, MyFitnessPal.

Lastly, I'm going to share some rather unflattering pictures of me from after my jog today. I'll plan on posting progress pics about once a month.

Thanks for reading! If you are also working on losing weight or improving your fitness, I'd love to hear about it! Feel free to comment or send me an email at thefitnessfoxblog@gmail.com