Tips to Help Anyone Love the Gym

I've tried over and over to make the gym part of my routine, and I feel like I'm finally getting the hang of it -- I've been going almost every day for over a month and I'm not tired of it at all! Here's a few tips and tricks that I found have helped me stick to it this time, and that I think are gonna help me stick to it for good.

1. Get a gym buddy.
It can be your significant other or a friend, but going with a partner makes skipping out a lot harder. It also means you want to work hard while you're there so they don't think you're being lazy. In the end, getting healthy is a choice you make for yourself and yourself only, but having someone to hold you accountable when you're feeling less motivated certainly doesn't hurt.

2. Wear nice gym clothes.
Nothing makes working out more fun than wearing a cute, practical gym outfit. I feel great in my workout pants. I don't want to invest in a full wardrobe of gym clothes yet because I'm losing weight and my size will change, but just the thought of reaching my goal weight and being able to have so many cute outfits helps. As long as you look and feel good in your gym clothes, you'll have a better experience and get a better workout!

3. Focus on quality, not quantity.
The first time I really started trying to lose weight was my sophomore year, when I started taking advantage of the free membership to a great gym on campus at my college. I would go every morning and get on the bike and go for an hour. I dreaded watching that clock on the machine go down slowly, so slowly. I was wasting my time! I only did it for a week and then I went right back to my bad habits. Now, I do 30 minutes of cardio. I go to different machines, and if it has a weight loss program feature, I use it. I can do it every day without wearing myself out, and it's not a pain to go to the gym -- it's only half an hour!

4. Stretch.
Stretching is wonderful, and not just from a health point of view. I walk into the gym, grab my sweat towel and think "Okay, I'm a little tired from a long day, but I'm still here." I go upstairs to the machines and start stretching. It makes my body feel limber and gives me a few minutes to think about why I'm there. My blood starts flowing, my muscles feel good and I'm ready to go! Nothing puts in you in the mood to workout like stretching out your muscles and getting them ready for another good routine.

These are the best tips I can give right now. As I continue working out, I'll definitely share anything new I learn. I just know that these are the biggest differences between my current routine and all the previous ones that have failed. And these tips aren't just for loving the gym -- they're for loving working out! Diet is a crucial part of losing weight and being healthy, but you've got to move your booty too. Get out there and do something, just move around!

Frequent Motivation

I should change "daily blogging" to "frequent blogging." Of course I'm not going to be able to write a good blog every day. I could probably sign on and cough some words up, but I don't want that to be the kind of posts here. I want them to have substance and meaning.

I had started to lose motivation this past week. We're going to the gym every day, but I wasn't trying as hard when working out. I know that moving is better than not moving, but I'm trying to lose weight and be healthier! I need to get my butt going! So, of course, I turned to my #1 motivation source: Pinterest.

I don't go to the healthy pins. I'll go to the weight loss before and after pins sometimes, they're definitely inspiring. But, as dumb as it may or may not sound, the best place I go for motivation is the women's fashion board. There's something about seeing all of this pretty clothes that I could wear if I was smaller and more fit. I'm a plus size girl right now, and I'm not even on the small side of plus -- I'm right in the middle!

I want to be able to go into any store and find clothes in my size, instead of hoping they have a plus size section. And even if they do, the selection is always a bunch of colorful bags. I want to be able to actually buy cute clothes at a thrift store, not the leftovers of someone's overweight grandma who just did some spring cleaning.

And one of the things I'm looking forward to most: wearing dresses. I love dresses. They can be adorable, sexy, playful, cute -- anything! But I'm over here in the plus sizes with tree trunk legs. I feel so self conscious when I show my legs, so I can never wear a dress and actually feel good in it.

Let me show you what I mean. If you're into this kind of fashion at all, I really think that just seeing these beautiful women in this amazing dresses will make you want to run to the gym this second so you can wear them too!

  

  

Friends are the Bane of My Existence

It is so much easier to eat healthy foods and make healthy choices when you don't have friends wanting to go out to eat with you for almost every meal! It's not that I have an exorbitant amount of friends, it's that the ones that I do have all work / live close together and today was a particularly unhealthy day because of it.

A friend wanted to go to Zaxby's (read: fried chicken fingers and lots of fries) for lunch, and the other wanted Denny's for dinner. I tried to hold back at both places, but even if you get chicken sausage and turkey bacon, you're still at Denny's. I feel horrible about today. And to top it all off, my gym closes at 8 today and Denny's made me sick. So I didn't get to go to the gym.

I'm going tomorrow and I'm going to work out twice as hard for it. No more going out with friends to horrifically unhealthy places. I need to practice will power. I see them all the time, I don't have to eat with them too.

My tip of the day: politely decline dinner with friends, especially if you see them frequently anyway. Ask to hang out after dinner instead!

My Shameful Past -- And Overcoming It!

So there's a reason I'm fat, and it's not just genetics. I have a low metabolism, but nothing so extreme that it prevents weight loss. I've always just loved sweets and food and I've crammed my gullet full of them until I'm about to explode. So, on to the shameful past part of this.

In high school, I was going through a rough time. I'm not going into the details of it, but I was emotionally unstable. My senior year I came home early every day because of this early dismissal program. I didn't need any more classes to graduate so I just left after 5th period. So I got home at about 1:30 or so.

Now, this next thing didn't happen every day, but it happened at least once a week. I come home. I go into the kitchen, grab the butter, vanilla, sugar, peanut butter, and milk. I throw it all together into a delicious, fast and microwavable peanut butter fudge recipe. I take the whole casserole dish of fudge. I go to the computer, I open up Youtube and I eat it. All of it. While watching Let's Plays. Now, we didn't have a huge casserole dish. It was probably about 6 in x 6 in. But that is still way too much peanut butter fudge! Even for a once-a-month kinda gig! And I did it every week. Now, I'm in college. I've moved on. I don't do that any more.

Today I had a rough day. I skipped the gym. I went into the kitchen. I heated up some skim milk, threw in almost a whole jar of peanut butter, a little sugar (notably less than high school at least), vanilla, butter and some oats. I made peanut butter fudge. I took it to my computer. I opened up Youtube. I took about 5 bites.

This all took about 20 minutes to go down. I looked at this giant bowl of fudge in front of me and I looked down at my big tummy. My bat wing arms. And you know what I did? I took that fudge and I poured it into a baking dish and I put that sucker in the fridge, to share over the course of the next few days.

Just because you slip into a rut doesn't mean you can't climb right back out. Do I feel guilty about today? Yes. But you know what? I also feel good. I didn't eat that whole bowl of fudge, and that definitely counts for something!

I need to keep this face in mind -- the face that just went to the gym and worked out hard. The face of "wow, I feel good about myself!"

Day One of Daily Blogging

Welcome to my new blog - Measure Me Slender! I'll be tracking my progress as I lose the pounds and finally become a happier me. I've been trying off and on to drop some weight and slim down for years now. Well, I've been going at it since the beginning of April! I've had a week or two where I was bad, but overall this is the longest I've gone without rationalizing that "I'll always be fat" or "this McDonald's makes me happier than being thin."

No excuses this time. I'm going to keep up my 2 month streak and turn it into a lifetime. I'm not cutting out everything unhealthy, but I'm going from 90% crap and 10% less crap to a much healthier 80% whole, nutritious foods and 20% moderated indulgences. I'm going to eat healthy, home-cooked food. I'm not eating out multiple times a week anymore. I can spend that money on something that will make me happy for longer than a 30 minute meal. I've always been bad with finances, and one of my biggest expenses is eating out. No more! I'm going to shrink my waist and grow my wallet. Join me on this daily update of my journey.