Firstly this post is a little bit late, my apologies, but like many of you, I have been especially busy the past week getting everything organised for Christmas. Now that I am at my Boyfriends’ parents house (where I’m spending Christmas) I can finally put my feet up and relax. I am currently writing this post while sitting in my PJ’s waiting for my tan to dry and nibbling on Cadbury’s Chocolate fingers… yum!
Anyways on to the purpose of this post… my personal weight-loss or even fitness/health journey. As you should all know by now, as I keep going on about it, I have been taking part in my own Festive Flat Tum Challenge over the past few months and although I haven’t quite achieved a flat tum tum yet I have seen some results which I wanted to share with you.
I have on this journey gained more than I have lost.. I have gain a new perspective on my health, body and fitness. I write this post as a completely different girl than what I was 4 months ago. For example, yesterday I was out in torrential rain running… I have officially turned into a mad runner… but more than that I enjoy it! It isn’t a chore, I enjoy going out and working out, I enjoy pushing my body and working hard and no matter how many pounds or inches I lose will change that.
Firstly I need to explain that I don’t use weighing scales, so I measure my progress through this progress picture I am sharing with you, along with the inches I have lost and how my clothes fit. I used to have an unhealthy relationship with the weighting scale and would concentrate more on the pounds I lost than how I felt and looked. For example if I have a really good week where I had worked out 6 times a week and eaten healthily everyday but then I only saw a small amount of pounds lost I would feel awful, upset and demotivated. Now I concentrate on my performance in my workouts; how far or fast I run, how may squats I can do, how long I can hold a plank for. This means I end up pushing myself a little bit harder with each workout and I know the harder I work the sooner results will come.
To achieve the results I have I have simply changed my attitude; I focus on health not weight-loss. I eat healthy 80% of the time and workout 5/6 times a week for about an hour. I have not deprived myself of anything at all; If I want to go out for dinner and have a big burger I will. I just know to not have a huge big burger the next day. I eat 3 meals a day and have 2 small healthy snacks, so I am eating little but often. Because of this constant grazing I am rarely hungry so I don’t end up binging on something I shouldn’t because I feel starving. With my exercise I aim for 30 to 40 minutes of cardio a day and 30-20 minutes of strength exercises a day. For my cardio I mainly run, but do use a mixture of workout DVD’s and games also such as Zumba. With my strength exercises I either makeup a routine of simple but effective moves such as Squats and The Plank or I use a DVD such as The 30 Day Shred.
So my results are as follows. In 4 months I have;
- Gone down about 2/3 dress sizes on my top (dependant upon the shop)
- Gone down 2 dress sizes on my bottom (again dependant upon the shop)
- Lost a total of 13 inches, including 2 inches off my boobs, hips and bum and nearly 2.5 inches off my waist!
I still have a long way to go till I will be completely happy with my body, but I am very happy with my results so far.
Have to been on a fitness or health mission this year also? Have you seen any results from exercise or changing your diet recently? I always love to hear about success stories!
