The Beginning

I guess I should start from the beginning...I'm fat! I've always been overweight and looking back I know why. I've let myself be lazy and I've eaten lots of foods out of boxes and pretty wrappers. Well guess what? I'm on a mission! My mission is to be lean and healthy by the time I'm 30. That means I've only got 19 months to reach that goal so I've got work to do! Ultimately, I want to lose about 80 pounds. However, I'm taking it day by day and tweaking little things to lead me to an overall healthy lifestyle.

I've started going to workout classes at the gym. I have a new found love for Zumba and a love hate relationship with Body Pump! Zumba makes me feel like a fool but I know that I burn tons of calories moving and grooving and even find myself smiling sometimes! Body Pump on the other hand is a chore! It is an intense barbell workout with tons of repetitions. I'm almost always really sore the next day. Aside from those classes I'm trying to incorporate a nice long weekend walk and some dumbbell workouts at home.

Aside from working out, one of my biggest goals is to move away from packaged foods and add a lot of color to my diet. Not too long ago I was doing the Weight Watchers plan. Sure, it worked really well when I followed it but I found that I didn't have much energy. I realized that I was eating things to use my daily points but wasn't really taking into consideration their nutritional value. So here I am with a new outlook. I'm really reading labels now. If there are a bunch of things I can't pronounce I figure I probably shouldn't be eating them! I want to limit my consumption of food out of packages to things such as tuna, oats, olive oil, vinegar, spices, yogurt and maybe a few other things. So we'll see how it goes!

I've decided to start this blog in part to share my meal ideas and pictures of my creations but mostly to hold me accountable. I hope you enjoy it!