Why Take Progress Pictures?

Because you'll regret NOT taking them. That's why. I do. When I first started trying to lose weight, truthfully, I didn't have enough faith in myself to think I would ever get even remotely close to my goal. Taking progress pictures, or "Before" pictures never entered my mind because I didn't believe I would ever make it to the "After" pictures. And while I'm still not what I would call an "After" (I'll explain later), I've learned throughout my journey the importance of taking these pictures, no matter how goofy you feel doing it. 

I should preface what I'm about to show you with a confession: I am a recovering scale addict. No exaggeration needed for dramatic effect here. I, quite literally, used to step on the scale at least a dozen times a day. And whatever that number said dictated what state of mind I was in for the remainder of the day. The problem with this lies in the fact that those numbers can fluctuate dramatically and not in any way, shape, or form reflect your true progress. Water weight will make that scale do some pretty crazy things at times - and it's particularly a problem for women, who tend to retain water like the Hoover Dam, depending on the time of month. Something you should also consider when relying on the scale is that muscle is more dense than fat, which means that if you are building muscle, your weight may stay the same or even go up.

You can rely on the mirror to tell you if you are making progress, or how tight or loose your clothing feel, but this can often be subjective depending on how you feel that day.

Measurements are a great way to track your progress - yet another thing I regret not taking when I started out. They tend to be a pretty accurate account of how far you've come - just be sure to take them at the same time everyday for consistency.

But the saying "A picture is worth a thousand words" says it best. Progress pictures really tell your whole story if you are consistent with them. Giving up my obsessive weigh-ins and taking pictures to document my progress was really the turning point for me when it came to re-claiming a healthy perspective on my clean lifestyle. Sometimes you become so fixated on where you are headed, that you forget to look back and see where you came from, as well as look around at the present and appreciate how far you've come.

After getting several requests to post "Before" and "After" photos, I've done my best to compile a few pictures that illustrate my journey for you.  This wasn't easy for me to do, because quite honestly, who wants to post pictures of themselves looking their worst for the whole world to see? But I reminded myself that seeing other people's transformations was such a big motivator for me, and I would feel silly not posting them out of insecurity if there is the possibility that it might motivate someone else. Therefore, I present to you my "Before" and "During" pictures. As I mentioned earlier, I hate the idea of calling them "Before" and "After". "After" implies that the transformation is done. But the truth is, we're never really the "After" because we're constantly growing, changing, and striving for new things. So while I may never be the "After" picture, I'm enjoying being the "During" because I love the process of change and growth. So here is a brief documentation of my changes! Hope it motivates you to make your own "Before" and "During" album!  ;)

September 2010 -
A week past my due date, VERY
uncomfortable, and officially the
heaviest I have ever been.

March 2012 -
Couldn't find any pics, but
about a month after this, I
reached the lowest weight I've
 been since high school!

                         

                                 To all the moms who think they will never see their abs again -
                                  it's not impossible, I promise you that! It just takes time,
                           hard work and a good diet.

Absolutely HATED having
my picture taken!

I never felt comfortable wearing
a bathing suit - now for the first time
I don't even mind being
photographed in one! 
This Pic ^^^ was the first bikini
I had bought in years, and this was
 the first progress 
picture I decided to take!

      






    

                  My latest progress...my goals have
             evolved as I have grown and
              learned new things... 

Instead of trying to be "skinny", 
I increased my calories slightly,
 and started lifting heavier and 
with more intensity to grow muscle...
"Strong is the new skinny."  :)

Like I said earlier, if I hadn't taken progress pictures, I'd still be obsessing over the silly numbers on the scale! It's so important to take a step back and look at your progress from a distance to really gain some perspective on it! Even if you feel funny taking them, I encourage anyone who is trying to change their body to do this - and no, you don't have to make a blog and post them for everyone to see! Use them as a tool to learn about yourself and about how you grow and change. I promise, you won't regret it!  :)

Why I Do What I Do

As I've mentioned in previous posts, the one question I tend to get asked pretty often is "How'd you lose all that weight?" People always want to know what "diet" I'm on, or if I even eat at all.  I notice this particularly among many of my clients, because to them, my weight loss seems pretty drastic, I would imagine.  When you only see your hairstylist every 6 weeks and every time you see them they shrink a size, I suppose it does seem like it's happening overnight.  I can't blame them.

The truth is that it isn't happening overnight - it's been a long, sometimes difficult journey of dedication and hard work.  And I've loved every minute of it.  No, really.  Everyone needs to have that one thing that moves them - something they're passionate about.  For some people it's religion, or politics or in my hubby's case, anything with a motor!  For me, this has been it.  And if you've known me a long time or if you've followed my previous blogs, you'll know that this wasn't always the case - I didn't grow up with any appreciation for healthy living or an active lifestyle.  I grew up in front of a TV, eating fast food and mac n' cheese.  So if I was able to fall in love with a life of fitness and clean eating, I'm pretty sure anything's possible! 

I get a multitude of different reactions when I answer the question, "How'd you do it?" with an enthusiastic "I eat healthy and I exercise...a lot."  Some people shake their heads and I'm sure they are thinking I've gone off the deep end and I'm one of those "health nuts".  They wouldn't be caught dead giving up their favorite foods or their time to go to the gym. Don't get me wrong - that's completely fine, as long as they are happy with where they are at - I'm not judging.  But others often say they wish they could be like that - to have so much discipline, but they're just not that kind of person, or they don't have the time, etc. What I wish to say to those people is that you can be like that if you truly want it - but you have to go about it in the right mindset.  If you go into it thinking of it as a chore, you're only setting yourself up for failure.  It's always a little awkward at first, starting anything new, but the trick is to learn to truly APPRECIATE the process.

When I first set out on my health/fitness journey, I'll admit, for me it was only a means to an end.  I wanted to be skinny and this was the way to do it.  But along the way, I've realized that it has become about so much more than just fitting into a smaller size. It's become an entirely new way of life. I have come to love it - and not only because it has provided results.  I genuinely look forward to my workouts and to eating healthy, balanced meals. If you're reading this and you still think I'm nuts, just hear me out.  These are just 3 of the things you stand to gain from living a healthy lifestyle - aside from a smaller waistline!  ;)  This is why I do what I do:

1. It feels good knowing you have a healthy body.  A few months ago - right around the time I found myself struggling with finding a healthy balance in this lifestyle - I took a pretty hard spill at work and went right down on my booty in a pair of shoes I probably shouldn't have been wearing!  When you're a kid, falling is a natural part of life - you get right back up, put a band-aid on it and go along your merry way.  As an adult though, your body doesn't always handle it as well and it becomes a bigger deal - and truthfully it shook me a little.  I knew that I would likely wake up in agony the next day from the "trauma" of wrenching my whole body around to try and catch myself.  Well, the next morning I was surprised to find that, while my butt didn't feel so great, the rest of me managed to escape unscathed.  Later that day, my dad commented that it was a good thing I was in such great shape, or I would have really been hurting.  That's when it hit me.  While my mind had been so focused on eating and exercising to LOOK good, I had managed to build myself a body that could take a little bit of a beating.  I had always been sort of a weakling in that way, and it made me proud to say that I had toughened myself up a little bit.

2. Empowerment.  Nothing feels worse than being helpless.  I know.  I've been there - that desperate feeling that you have no control over your life or your surroundings.  Living a fit life has given me a sense of empowerment that nothing else ever has.  Feeling empowered to make healthy choices, even when they may not always be the easiest ones to make, is a character builder like no other.  Just the other day, I came across this blog post by Electra over at Vanilla Bean Lean and she put very eloquently into words exactly what I was thinking while writing this post.  She said, basically that you ALWAYS have a choice, and any time is a good time to choose.  It's not something someone needs to twist your arm to get you to do - it IS in every one of us to make the decision to lead a healthy life, and to truly learn to love and appreciate the process.  It's just a matter of realizing that the power to choose is all you! 

3. A more positive outlook. This is not to say that there are not some very fit people with bad attitudes out there - if you've ever watched an episode of Jersey Shore you can attest to this!  But if you research fitness and health, one of the things you'll find is that a lot of the people who live this lifestyle tend to be pretty positive people.  My guess is that the first 2 reasons above have something to do with it.  If you have a healthy body and a healthy mind, even the hardships in life don't seem as bad.  It's much easier to keep a positive attitude if you FEEL good.  And if there's one thing I've learned, it's that a little positivity goes a LOOOOONNNNGGG way!  Energy, whether positive or negative, tends to build momentum.  It's like that Liberty Mutual commercial where one person does a nice thing and then they pass it on and so on and so on.  Do one nice thing for someone for no reason and you want to do it again and again and before you know it you're a positive ball of energy doing all kinds of nice things for people just because it feels good!  Similarly, if you wake up and stub your toe on the bed, and drop your toothbrush in the toilet, and burn your breakfast, and catch every stoplight on the way to work, it can be pretty easy to let that negativity build up and then you take it with you all day and the next day and so on. And before you know it, you're a miserable, negative person who makes everyone around you miserable!  Ok, now I'm really rambling, but my point is: it's much better to be the 1st type of person, and if living a healthy life will make me into that person, I'd say all of those hours at the gym were well-spent!

As I said earlier, if someone is happy without fitness in their life, more power to them!  Except a lot of people nowadays are not happy with how they look or feel but they see fitness and healthy eating as too much of an inconvenience to be for them.  All I'm saying is that it doesn't NEED to be.  If you take the time to really learn to appreciate what your body can do if you hold it accountable and push it beyond it's limits, you may find out that you get more than you bargained for - in a REALLY good way!  


     

Update: Baby Cheesecakes and a New Workout Split

I haven't had a chance to do much blogging the last couple of weeks because the battery on my laptop died and I had to wait for a new one to come in from Amazon ($18 by the way, as opposed to the $60 everywhere else, in case you're in the market for a replacement battery!).  In the meantime, I have been experimenting with a couple of fun recipes and trying out a new workout split, which I am finally getting the hang of, and am super-excited about!

So I thought that I would just write one big "update" blog to cover the high-lights of the last couple of weeks!

My Baby Protein Cheesecake w/Raspberry Chocolate Protein Sauce

LeanBodyLifeStyle's Protein Cheesecake was AMAAAAZZZZING!!!  Being me, of course I tweaked it, but only slightly.  And, sadly I can't manage to make cheesecake (healthy or not) without cracks so, they weren't as pretty as Michael's, but they did taste awesome - and that was with some of the toughest critics taste-testing them! Instead of making one big cheesecake, I revived an old cheesecake fave of mine and made "Baby Cheesecakes", using a cupcake pan, so you get 12 small portions.  I followed the recipe exactly, but decreasing the amounts by about 1/3 (only because I didn't buy enough cream cheese - oops!).  I also made a good Chocolate-Raspberry Protein Sauce to go over them, because as much as I love cheesecake, it's just not the same without either chocolate, raspberries, or - even better - both! To make the sauce, I simply cooked down a couple of handfuls of raspberries in about a cup of water and some stevia (the amount depends on how sweet you like it - I think I threw in about 3 or 4 packets).  Then I added a Tablespoon of unsweetened baking cocoa and about 1/3 scoop of chocolate protein powder!  If you like it a little smoother, you can blend it together like I did in the Magic Bullet, or leave it as is if you don't mind a little texture.

The macros on the sauce will obviously depend on how much you use, but it's pretty sweet so you won't need much and it's low calorie, so don't feel guilty if you don't track it!  ;)

Michael provides the macros for the original recipe in the video but here it is if you do the "Baby Cheesecakes".

One Baby Cheesecake (no topping)
Calories: 68
Carbs: 5 grams
Fat: 1 gram
Protein 9 grams

*********

As far as my workout regimen goes - it has been a tricky month or so and my routine has undergone a lot of changes. Being a creature of habit, this has NOT been an easy transition for me, but I know that you need to change to grow, so I'm working hard on it!  When I first started working out, I was unsure of where to start, like many people are, so I went with a really simple Upper Body-Lower Body Split. I definitely recommend it because it's effective and easy to follow.  It went something like this:

Monday: Upper Body

Tuesday: Lower Body

Wednesday: Cardio/Abs

Thursday: Upper Body

Friday: Lower Body

Saturday: Cardio/Abs

Sunday: Rest

But if you read my post I Pick Things Up and Put Them Down, you know that I recently decided enough was enough with this plateau phase and joined a new gym to change up my scenery and workout options. When I signed up, they gave me a free hour of personal assessment with a trainer, who suggested doing a Push-Pull split to break my plateau and then going back to my Upper-Lower routine after 6 weeks.  I wasn't crazy about it at first because the plan he recommended only trained each muscle once a week, but I have been playing around with it on my own, since I can't afford the ridiculous amount of money they charge for a trainer on a regular basis, and I think I've managed to figure out a split that works for me.  Over the past few months I have had a lot of people tell me that that their biggest challenge in the gym is that they don't know what exercises to do or the proper way to do them and they feel self-conscious about it, so they just don't go. Well, I can tell you from experience, you're only hurting yourself by doing that.  The awkward feeling of just starting out will eventually pass, but the knowledge that you let fear get in the way of reaching your goals stays with you.  That being said, though, I can totally relate.  Even though I've felt comfortable in my old routine for a while, starting a new one was a little unsettling, so I felt like a newbie all over again! What has really helped me though was preparing for my workout by researching example Push/Pull Splits online and having my phone with me to refer to during my workout.  I loved this one and have been doing a modified version of it for about 2 weeks now:

The people at my gym probably just think I text a lot during my workout - haha - but I'm actually going through my "Checklist" to make sure I've hit every muscle! Oh well!

What I really like about a Push/Pull Split is it forces me to think about what muscle group I'm working out and how the muscle moves, as opposed to just going through the motions, like I have been with my previous routine. And, bonus - while it hasn't been proven that muscle soreness is necessarily linked to progress, I'm not gonna lie - it's kind of nice to get up in the morning and feel a little sore from my workout for a change!  

So that's pretty much it for this post - I know my computer troubles came right in the middle of my breakfast recipe frenzy, so I will definitely be posting some of those later this week, and I have a couple of other ideas I'm working on finding the time to put down on paper computer (that didn't sound right, did it?).  Well, thanx for reading - stay tuned for more this week!  :)