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How to find time to workout regularly?

How to find time to workout regularly?

Motivation to stay fit, , , , ,

How to find time to workout regularly?

Can't find time in your busy schedule to workout? I was like you once, but managed to develop a way to workout 5 times a week for an hour or more! Want to know how I did it? I share my 5 secrets on how to find time to workout in your everyday busy life for a healthy life!

Just think of your workout time as a start towards a new healthy life. Here are 5 tips to get you started on your journey towards living a healthy life and workout regularly:

1. Limit your time spent online and on social media

Chances are that you are spending your free time online browsing the internet and/or checking Facebook. My excuse was that after a long and hard day at work I am too tired mentally and physically to do anything else but stare blindly at the TV screen or Facebook. If you still believe this, then I have news for you: schedule a workout session instead of turning on the TV or your laptop.

By the time you finish your workout, you will feel positive about yourself, and the thought that you did something for creating a healthy life in the long run fulfills you much more than looking at pictures of your coworker’s best friend’s summer holiday in Dubai from 2010.

Remember my words the next time you are about to turn on the TV or open a tab to start typing “fac…” and stop right there. Instead go to YouTube and type in the search bar “yoga at home” and click on that 30 minute workout video and follow the instructions! Daily workout done! Welcome healthy life!

2. Spend time with friends while doing a workout

How to find time to workout regularly?
This could be you and your friends jumping happily instead of sitting and sipping coffee while complaining about your day at work.

As being a very social person who enjoys spending time with her friends, I found really challenging to say no to my friends when they asked me to grab a cup of coffee with them after work. But because I scheduled my workout right after work, I had to say no many times. And I felt awful about it, because I didn’t want my friends to think that I don’t like spending time with them.

So I came up with this thing: whenever one of my friends asked me if I want to grab a cup of coffee with them, I immediately asked if they want to join me at the gym or take a Zumba class with me instead. At first they were really surprised, but there were friends who happily said yes to a workout opportunity. And there were friends who later asked me if they could join me to workout on one of my Zumba classes.

3. Try out different workouts to find the one you truly enjoy

It wasn’t a fast journey  to find the right workout type that I enjoy and love. It took years to develop my current workout routine that  is challenging enough so I don’t get bored. So take it slow, try out different workout types: Pilates, yoga, aerobics, running, gym workout, Zumba, weight lifting and many more. There are plenty workouts you can choose from! You can workout at home by searching for workout videos on YouTube or you can join a class to be around other people to motivate you. Try out anything that could take you closer towards living a healthy life you always wanted!

4. Schedule your workout in advance

How to find time to workout regularly?
Schedule your workout advance for next week in your calendar.

The trick to sticking with a workout routine is to treat it as an appointment. So put your workout hours in your calendar. You wouldn’t miss an appointment with your dentist would you? So treat your workout session as that appointment: set your mind in that mode. Workout is equally important as your dentist appointments.

At first this will be hard, because everything around you will try to make you miss that appointment: family will ask you to do something important, friends will want to meet you for coffee and chitchat at that time, your phone won’t stop ringing. But you need to make it clear to yourself and to others: everything can wait an hour until you finish your scheduled workout session. This is the only way to get closer to living a healthy life.

Family and friends won’t respect your workout hours if you are not treating it as something you need to do whatever happens. You need to make that yoga class on Wednesday at 8 p.m. and everything else can wait for you to finish your scheduled relaxation.

5. Re-think your priorities

If you’ve read through this list and still think that you wouldn’t be able to fit a workout into your busy schedule, then you seriously need to re-think your priorities in life.

Just think about it: you believe in a healthy life mindset, and you would like to change your current lifestyle for it to be more healthy.

In order for you to make time for workout and live a healthy life you need to make it a priority in your life.

If it is important enough for you to live a healthy life, then you will find a way to make time for workout. [Tweet this!]

If workout and healthy life are not important enough to you, then you’ll find excuses. If you can’t fit workout into your schedule, then it means that you have other priorities in life which are currently more important to you than living a healthy life.

Take a time to re-think your priorities in life: what are the things that are more important to you currently than living a healthy life?

There is nothing wrong with that, just make it clear to yourself that you are not living a healthy life because you don’t want to. If you’d really want to, you’d find a way to make it happen.

Want to start going to the gym but you have no one to go with? You can go alone! Fear not! Here are 4 hacks to get you to the gym if you are afraid of going to the gym alone as a girl >>>

Want more tips on living a healthy life? Click here for my weekly updates>>>

Small breasts after weight loss? Your guide on how to deal with new bra size

Small breasts after weight loss? Your guide on how to deal with new bra size

Body image problems, Emotional issues after weight loss, , , , , , , 
You've lost weight? Good for you! The weight came off from your breasts too? You are freaking out about your new small breasts? Fear no more! These tips will help you deal with your new bra size.

Small breasts after weight loss? Your guide on how to deal with new bra sizeThere is no such thing as spot reducing. So by losing weight the fat comes off from every part of your body: your breasts as well. Whether you like it or not, if you lose weight your breasts will become smaller. However, breasts becoming smaller is no reason for you to give up on your aspiration of losing weight in order to hit the healthy weight range. Let’s address this secretly feared issue of losing weight from breasts and having small breasts.

Does the size of breasts matter?

So my lovely ladies, does size matter? We say that size does not matter. However, when it is the size of our breasts, suddenly size is an issue.

“Oh, I wish my breasts would be bigger!”

“Why do I have such huge breasts?”

“I wish the shape of my breasts would be different…”

“I can accept that the shape of my breasts is not perfect, but can’t just the two be similar?”

Can you spot the common theme here? Whatever your complaint may be regarding your breasts, one thing is sure: you are not satisfied with the breasts you have and you want different breasts.

Small breasts after weight loss? Your guide on how to deal with new bra sizeMany ladies struggle with because they can’t see their breasts as pretty. They struggle with accepting their breasts because the breasts they have don’t reflect the actual breast trends. These trends in breast shape and size change in time: just remember the ’60s rocket-shaped breasts or that in the ’70s breasts were allowed to sag. In the ’80s breasts supposed to be round and firm like grapefruits. Then came the ’90s when smaller, athletic breasts became trendy.

One thing we can conclude from all these breast trends is that there is no such thing as the perfect breasts. There are trendy breasts and then there are your actual breasts.

Your expectation of what breasts should look like comes from society’s current standards. So how could you be satisfied with the breasts you have when the media is constantly bombarding you with unrealistic breast shapes and sizes?

The only thing about your breasts that matters is how you experience your own breasts. [Tweet this!]

6 questions you need to answer to help you to deal with small breasts after weight loss

Take a few minutes to answer these 6 question about your breasts for yourself:

1. Describe your breasts: size, shape, sensitivity, other properties. What is your relationship with your breasts?

2. What are your nipples like in terms of size, color, shape? Is there anything you’d notice about them? Flat or inverted nipples, extra nipple or hair around nipples?

3. How does your significant other treat your breasts during sex? What do you think how men feel about female breasts? Are those feelings a biological reaction or are they influenced by media?

4. Do you feel different emotionally or physically if you wear a bra or if you go bra less? How does it make you feel?

5. Do you wear clothes that accentuate your breasts or clothes that hide your breast? Why?

6. What words are you using when talking about your breasts or describing them? How do you feel about other words that are describing breasts?

By answering these questions you’ve addressed the emotional issues arising regarding your small breasts after weight loss. But it wouldn’t be me, if I didn’t give you real hands-on advice on what to do with your small breasts. So let’s see, what can you do about your new bra size?

3 tips on small breasts after weight loss

Tip #1: Wearing a proper supporting bra for exercise is a must

Even if your breasts became smaller by losing weight, and you feel like you don’t need to wear a bra, you must wear a proper bra for breast support while engaging in any type of exercise.

The more vigorous the exercise is the more support your breasts will need. During active exercise, your breasts move up and down, side to side and front to back.

No matter how muscular you are, the underlying chest muscles don’t support breast tissue. In order to support the breast tissue you need to wear a proper sports bra while exercising. Different breasts need different kind of support for exercise: more compression, more cupping or the combination of these.

Tip #2: A well fitting bra will be your small breasts’ new best friend

Small breasts after weight loss? Your guide on how to deal with new bra sizeBad news for women with small breasts: breast tissue is made up of fatty tissue so as you lose fat your breast size decreases further.

If you are like me, losing weight will make you go out on a shopping spree to get new, smaller clothes, and you will forget about buying a new, smaller bra for your smaller breasts. However, a properly fitting bra is essential: you will instantly look more attractive in all your clothes! Even if you are not at your ideal weight yet, the fastest way to weight loss is to find a bra that fits, because wearing the wrong size or style bra makes you look fatter.

For determining your new bra size you could go to a department store or a lingerie shop to get fitted by a professional bra-fit specialist. Or you can do what I did, and measure yourself at home and then calculate your bra size using an online sizing guide.

Tip #3: Experiment with going braless

If you are used to wearing your bra all the time, now after losing weight and some fatty breast tissue is the time for you to start experimenting. See what happens if you go braless! The world won’t end, trust me.

Celebrate the feminine side of life by going braless today!

Want more guides on how to deal with after weight loss issues? Click here for my weekly updates>>>

Does weight lifting make you feel less feminine and sexy?

Does weight lifting make you feel less feminine and sexy?

Emotional issues after weight loss, Motivation to stay fit, , , , 
Does weight lifting make you feel less feminine and sexy?We've all heard the misconception that weight lifting will make a woman big, bulky, and she will lose her feminine side. I've addressed these misconceptions earlier, so we've established that weight lifting won't make you accidentally look like The Rock. But what can you do when becoming physically stronger than most of the guys around you makes you feel less feminine and sexy?

Is it possible to stay feminine and sexy as a woman on the inside while weight lifting?

Yes, it is possible to stay feminine and sexy as a woman while weight lifting. But the real question is how? Spending time in the weigh lifting section of the gym among guys 3 times a week can influence not just your weight lifting abilities and body, but your perception of yourself as well.

Does weight lifting make you feel less feminine and sexy?Imagine yourself after few months of weight lifting seeing a guy with big manly muscles use the same weight dumbbells as you. Pretty self confidence booster, isn’t it? Now fast forward a few months of regular weight lifting, and you’ll be watching more and more guys using smaller dumbbells than you are. After 9 months of weight lifting there will be only few regular guys at the gym using heavier weights for weight lifting than you.

This is exactly what happened to me, and at this point when I realized that I lift more than most of the guys at the gym, I panicked. Suddenly I started to feel less feminine and sexy because seeing myself stronger than most of the guys placed me in front of them on that invisible weight lifting hierarchy ladder in my head. I’ve became one of the guys. Then I remembered:

My strength does not come from lifting weights, my strength came from lifting myself up when I was knocked down. [Tweet this!]

So how can you stay feminine and sexy on the inside while weight lifting?

3 tips to make you feel more feminine and sexy while weight lifting

Use these 3 tips to make you feel more feminine and sexy inside and outside of the gym while you regularly do your weight lifting routine.

Tip #1: Spend time with other women

 Spending time in a gym weight lifting where most of the members are guys you are comparing yourself to and competing with is exhausting. All that manly energy and testosterone surrounding you while weight lifting may result in you ending up feeling less feminine and sexy.

What you need to do is get yourself among a group of women. By spending time with woman will make you unconsciously observe their feminine body language and movements, and after a few hours you will start to imitate them. Spending time with women will turn on your feminine side that you’ve put aside for weight lifting.

Tip #2: Be graceful

Does weight lifting make you feel less feminine and sexy?When out of the weight lifting room, make smooth movements instead of powerful ones!

You can teach yourself to be graceful and more feminine. Watch your posture: tighten your abs, move your shoulders down and back, away from your ears and raise your chin to be parallel to the floor.

To walk gracefully in heels or in any other type of shoes, do the following: take small steps, walk heel to toe not toe to heel. Don’t rush, lean slightly back while walking and visualize yourself walking in a straight line.

Tip #3: Dance

Dance classes are great for improving your feminine posture and teach you graceful movements. Just be sure to choose a dance class that requires you to learn sexy, feminine moves! It doesn’t have to be modern ballet, I suggest belly dancing, or my favorite, Zumba! After you learn the steps, you will be able to pay attention to your body movements in order for them to become calculated and fluid.

Get more useful tips on how to motivate yourself towards a more balanced lifestyle! Click here>>>

3 myths you need to know about weight loss before you start

3 myths you need to know about weight loss before you start

Motivation to stay fit, , , , , , , , , , 
Starting a weight loss journey is challenging. Check out what are the noob mistakes that you make after beginning  a weight loss program.

4 steps to healthy life mindset even if you are lazyWhen you start thinking about weight loss while being overweight, you start with an idea in your head about weight loss. You believe that you know exactly what you need to do in order to achieve weight loss. You believe your only problem is starting and sticking to a weight loss program.

So what are the myths that every noob believes at the start of their weight loss program?

Myth #1:

I have to do an hour or more cardio per day for helping my weight loss

Noobs believe that doing hours cardio will burn off that extra pizza slice they had for snack. If you still believe that you can burn off extra calories you’ve eaten, you’re wrong. Here, let me prove this by giving you an example of how many calories you burn with cardio and how many pizza slices you’ve burned off*:

Burn off that pizza slice
Exercise type Calories burned/hour Pizza slice burned off
yoga 148 kcal 50% of a pizza slice
pilates 148 kcal 50% of a pizza slice
walking 177 kcal 60% of a pizza slice
belly dancing 266 kcal 93% of a pizza slice
aerobics 384 kcal 134% of a pizza slice
spinning 413 kcal 145% of a pizza slice
swimming 413 kcal 145% of a pizza slice
running 472 kcal 166% of a pizza slice
zumba 519 kcal 182% of a pizza slice
elliptical trainer 531 kcal 186% of a pizza slice

* used MyFitnessPal’s calculator based on: a pizza slice has 285 kcal, a person has 59kg/130pounds.

So basically you can see that doing belly dancing for an hour will burn off that pizza slice that you had for a snack, but it won’t make you lose weight. Doing hours of cardio won’t help your weight loss.

Don’t get me wrong, cardio is beneficial for you because it can help you build endurance. It has many other benefits as well, as it can stronger your heart and lungs, reduce stress, make you feel more energized, help you increase bone density, reduce the risk of heart attack, make you sleep better and so on.

But relying solely on cardio for weight loss is naive.

Here comes the second myth:

Myth #2:

I must exercise to lose weight.

3 myths you need to know about weight loss before you start
You can sit on that machine for hours and it won’t make you lose a single pound

This is a lie. In reality: weight loss is only 20% gym and 80% kitchen. It means that you can lose weight by changing eating habits, you won’t need to step into a gym at all. However, everyone knows that exercising has many health benefits, so it is always a good idea to exercise. I am the spokesperson of healthy eating, but if your single goal is weight loss, you can always achieve it by eating less calories than you are currently eating.

I am not a fan of different crash-diets, detoxes, cleanses, but these also work for weight loss (even if they are unhealthy and bad for you in the long run) because the require you to eat at a caloric deficit.

You don’t see fat kids starving in Africa. So chances are, if you are twice as heavy as your healthy weight, then you are eating for 2 people. No matter how much you exercise, you can’t outrun your bad diet.

Myth #3:

Doing a bunch of ab exercises will give me defined six pack abs

No amount of ab exercises will give you great six pack abs. I learned this lesson by doing tons of ab exercises daily to loose my belly fat. It was successful until a point, where I could not lose the leftover belly fat from my bottom half no matter how hard I tried.

I had abs of steel, but they were invisible under that layer of body fat. So I seriously considered the truthfulness of the following statement:

Abs are formed in the gym but revealed at the kitchen. [Tweet this!]

3 myths you need to know about weight loss before you start
You can do 1000 crunches a day and still won’t have her abs

So I’ve tweaked my nutrition, and bamm, visible abs! I considered myself a fool for not making the connection between body fat and visible abs, as well as for not thinking about the importance of nutrition as a component of having abs of steel.

Once I made a mistake of telling the girls at my Zumba Fitness Core class that they won’t get abs of steel by attending these classes once a week, but they looked at me in disbelief, like I was crazy.

Sure, they will strengthen their core and sculpt their abs, but they are expecting flat tummies and six pack abs at the end of the 4th week. Well, reality check: if you keep eating that pizza slice for breakfast every morning, no abs of steel for you lady.

 So remember: in order to lose weight, start eating healthy, pick up healthy habits such as regular exercise. You’ll lose that fat in a healthy way for good!

Want more of my “no more bullsh!t” advice? Click here to receive weekly updates>>>

How to deal with family saying I am too skinny after losing weight when I am actually just being fit

How to deal with family saying I am too skinny after losing weight when I am actually just being fit

Emotional issues after weight loss, , , , , , 
After losing weight and going from obese to fat to fit my family says I am too skinny. My family is using every opportunity to tell me that I am too skinny, I am not eating enough, being skinny is not healthy, skinny is ugly, I will get sick if I lose more weight and keep up exercising(!!??). So how do I deal with family like this?

How to deal with family saying I am too skinny after losing weight when I am actually just being fit Imagine this scenario: family gathering, family members sitting around the table stuffed with food, eating. Then suddenly grandma turns to you and says:

– Sweety, you are eating like a bird. Here, have some more potatoes!

Your plate and mouth are full of delicious roasted chicken, and while you are trying to swallow that bite of Brussels sprouts and start explaining that you are eating right, your father joins the “conversation” and says:

– Eat more! Skinny people are ugly!

You finally swallowed that bite and start defending yourself by telling them that as they can see, you are eating. In fact, you were chewing when grandma turned against you. Plus you are not skinny, but fit. There’s a difference. And you start flexing your muscles to prove your point. All this, while your husband quickly goes into supportive mode and starts explaining that your weight is in the normal range. You cut his sentence in the middle to inform everyone that if they remember, not long ago you were obese. You worked hard to lose weight in order to look like this. This ain’t no accident.

But they seem like they hear what you are saying but anything that you say does not convince them that this is healthy. For them, you are way too skinny. They loved the fat girl, not you, the fit girl.

Now imagine this scenario repeating itself every Sunday. For the past 8 months. Sunday family time equals living in hell.

Sounds familiar? Then keep reading to find out how to deal with family (or friends) saying you are too skinny when in fact you’ve lost weight and went from obese to fat to fit!

Some of my favorite things my family says to me after I’ve lost weight and went from fat to fit are:

1. “We are concerned about your health”

How to deal with family saying I am too skinny after losing weight when I am actually just being fit
“Here, have my pills, they will make you healthy fat again.”

That’s right, my overweight and obese family members are concerned about me not taking care of myself. My family and relatives with diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, indigestion problems and obesity are giving me health advice. Yeah, I should definitely follow their advice – if I want to end up with those kind of health problems. The thing is: I don’t. It was my main motivation to start living a healthy lifestyle and start working out regularly to avoid all of the above mentioned health problems that I’ve seen my family members struggle with.

Polite reply while dealing with family:

– Thank you for your concern, but I am fine. I have never felt this good in my life before. I am energized, focused and I sleep good. In fact, I have my latest blood test results with me as a proof that everything is okay with me. Care to check?

They never check.

Angry reply while dealing with family:

– I just had my blood test results back. My doctor says I am in top shape! How are your results?

Trust me, they’ll never ask you about your health again.

 2. “You look too skinny”

It’s like you can do nothing about becoming fat, but being fit or how they call it, “skinny” is something you should be fixing – by eating more!

Polite reply while dealing with family:

– I am fit, not skinny. And I worked hard for looking like this, it didn’t happen by accident. I want to look like this.

Angry reply while dealing with family:

– I think you look a little heavy.

Just be prepared that they will get offended, because the social norm is people thinking it is  okay to call someone skinny, but telling them that they are fat is considered really rude. You won’t get more comments about being too skinny. Though very few people in your family will like you after that.

 3. “Are you still on that diet?”

How to deal with family saying I am too skinny after losing weight when I am actually just being fit
“See? Orange juice is better than apples and bananas.”

I regret the day I told my family that I don’t eat chocolate. Every time we meet, they have to double check if I am still not eating it. So I started eating it around them.

Not to mention my husband and his keto diet. Family just don’t understand what eating bad means. For them, bad food means that it is spoiled. There is no such food in their dictionary that will make you sick, unless it’s rotten.

A diet in my family’s head equals strict dietary limitations, staying unrealistically thin and depriving yourself of the foods you love. For them, you are not on a healthy eating plan, you are dieting. And it can’t be kept up in the long run.

So what to answer when they ask you if you are still dieting?

Polite reply while dealing with family:

– It is not a diet, I am eating healthy. I developed healthy eating habits for long term. This is a complete lifestyle change, not a 12 week eating plan.

Angry reply while dealing with family:

– Do you believe it is healthy to eat even when you are not feeling hungry? Did you know that hunger is the body’s way to let you know that it needs nourishment?

My overweight family believes that I am way too skinny – for them being overweight is normal. Sometimes it seems to me that in our society, where most people are overweight, being overweight is the new norm. Being fit equals being too skinny.

If your family’s constant remarks bothers you, then you need to learn how to deal with family. Try explaining them the reasons of why you choose to live a healthy lifestyle, and be sure to tell them how you feel better now that you are working out regularly and eating healthy. If this doesn’t help, then do what I did: shut them up by threatening them! I told them that if they keep bullying me, I won’t visit them anymore. Never heard a bad remark again.

Found this guide useful? Get more useful quick tips on how to motivate yourself towards a lifestyle full of healthy habits! Click here>>>

anorexia vs phantom fat distorted body image

15 things I wish I knew before I started losing weight while I was obese

Emotional issues after weight loss, Motivation to stay fit, , , , , ,
anorexia vs phantom fat distorted body image
[Image courtesy of marin at FreeDigitalPhotos.net]

I have a confession to  make: I enjoy being the fit girl! Not just because of my looks and health benefits of regular exercise, but also because of the things that I’ve learned during my journey from fat to fit girl.

Some of them are little, important things that I’ve discovered during my journey from fat to fit while other things came as a big revelation! Looking back I wish I knew all these things before I started losing weight while I was obese, because it would have made my journey from fat to fit more easy. And faster. Knowing all this, I would have jumped on the “get fit now” bandwagon a decade ago!

Becoming fit is not a destination – it’s the road that You’re on

The new year has started! Whoohoo! Back to my usual workout routine! The holidays gave me time to look back at my last year’s accomplishments. Going from fat to fit was the biggest achievement of my previous year! Becoming fit takes a lot of commitment and focus. You learn a lot along the way from fat to fit. Thinking back to my old fat self made me think of things I wish I knew before I started losing weight.

Sometimes it’s the journey that teaches you about your destination. [Tweet this!]

The things you learn during your journey from fat to fit are a valuable lesson. So what are these secrets?

15 things You need to know before You start losing weight

I figured that I’ll compile a list of 15 things I wish I knew when I was obese! Let it be a help on your weight loss journey from fat to fit. It doesn’t matter if you are getting started now or if you already made the first steps towards becoming fit and living a healthy life!

  1. You don’t have to be fat. I wish someone had told me this when I was a kid. Seriously. I’ve spent my childhood, teen years and adolescence thinking I have to be fat, because I don’t have a choice.
  2. You weren’t born fat. Have you seen a newborn? Babies aren’t born fat. They are fed into being fat. Trust me, it’s not your genes, it’s the amount of food that you eat.
  3. Being fit is not just a temporary state. If you keep up with your lifestyle changes by developing healthy eating habits and make exercise part of your life, then you won’t get back to being your old fat self.
  4. You can be a fit mom. This realization comes from the fact that my family was fat/obese. So I figured that I can get fit while single, but once I have kids, I’ll go back to my old fat self. Well, that’s not true! Check out my inspiration mom, Maria Kang!
  5. The time you spend figuring out how to dress to cover up your fat body to look slim could be spent at the gym making your body sexy/fit. Think about this for a second. All that time and brainpower wasted into hacking your looks to make you seem thinner. Let’s get real: you’re not fooling anyone, but yourself.
  6. Being fat is exhausting you. You may not be aware of it, but looking back I see now how little energy I had because of my bad lifestyle choices. One more reason to change from fat to fit!
  7. Working out and exercising will make you feel in control of your body. By engaging yourself into any type of exercise or sport activity will make you more in control with your body. Yoga will help you with your clumsiness, running will tune your gross motor skills, Zumba will improve your coordination skills, weight lifting will make you carry your heavy groceries in one trip.
  8. That voice in your head that feels ashamed of your fat body that you are trying to silence is actually trying to help you. The voice is trying to tell you that you are hurting yourself by getting any fatter. You lifestyle is bad for your health, and you know it. Deep down you know that being fat is unhealthy for you, even if you don’t admit it openly to others or even to yourself.
  9. Being fat is your choice. Your choice only. So is becoming fit. So choose wisely.
  10. Going from fat to fit isn’t emotionally harder than living as a fat person. I realized this now looking back at my mostly fat and obese life and the journey from obese to fat and then fit. Becoming fit made me struggle with body image issues, I couldn’t see my new fit body, I thought I was going insane. But being fat also had it’s emotional downs, and struggling with emotional issues while reaping the benefits of being healthy was way easier than it was struggling with being fat.
  11. Being fit doesn’t mean spending endless hours on the treadmill or in the gym. I wish I knew this at the start of my weight loss journey. It’s the type of the exercise adjusted to your goal that is important, not the time spent with workout. I fell into the trap of exercising for hours exhausting myself, with no benefits whatsoever. Now my exercise is 3 days at the gym for 1 hours lifting weights, and on the 2 between rest days doing Zumba for faster, active recovery (it helps relieve soreness by stimulating blood flow and improving circulation to the muscles).
  12. Being fit is more about your eating habits than working out. Weight loss is 80% nutrition or what you eat, and 20% exercise, also known as the 80/20 Rule. Yet again, wish I knew this at the start of my weight loss journey.
  13. Being fit doesn’t mean that you can never eat sweets or junk food. Weight loss is more about eating less food than you used to. Just make sure that the healthy foods way overbalance the junk food that you eat.
  14. You can start exercising or get into a sport at any age. There is no such thing as not being born as an athletic type – you make yourself an athletic type by engaging in a sport activity.
  15. You feel awesome and accomplished after a good workout. An intensive workout is exhausting, but after it you feel like you accomplished something. You don’t feel depressed like after you finish stuffing unnecessary sweets in your face in unlimited amounts.

Follow me on my journey from fat to fit girl! Click here>>>

How not to freak out about losing workout routine while injured or sick

How not to freak out about losing workout routine while injured or sick

Emotional issues after weight loss, Motivation to stay fit, , ,

It happens if you workout regularly: sometimes you get injured or sick and you can’t do your workout routine like you planned. Your control freak mind gets stressed instantly by screaming at you one of the following two sentences when you are injured or sick:

Freak out #1: Oh my god, I’m gonna get fat if I don’t workout!

How not to freak out about losing workout routine while injured or sick
For calculating your TDEE you will need a pen, a notebook, a measuring tape and a tomato. The tomato is crucial, trust me.

Don’t worry, I have good news for you: you can avoid weight gain even if you can’t work out because you got injured or sick. It’s all just math: if you eat enough calories to maintain your weight, you won’t get fat nor lose weight if you are injured or sick. When you work out, the formula is different: you can eat more calories and burn the excess with working out. Now, if you haven’t already figured out how much calories you need to eat in order to maintain your weight, you can do it by heading to a Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE) calculator here. It will help you figure out how much calories you will need to eat while injured or sick.

There, we addressed your biggest fear of not working out when injured or sick.

So what’s the second fear of not working out when injured or sick?

Freak out #2: But I will lose my fit form, if I don’t work out!

The most important thing you need to know is: you injured yourself or got sick because your body is sending you a message!

How not to freak out about losing workout routine while injured or sickGetting injured while working out means that you haven’t payed enough attention to your workout and you were pushing yourself harder than you should have. So the last thing you need to do is making the injury worse by further pushing yourself. Take a few days off of your workout routine, so that you can access the damage.

If it’s an injury that takes longer to heal, then after a few days you can start coming up with a plan to work around your injury or sickness. This means that if you’ve hurt your ankle, you can try to come up with exercises that will not require your ankle: build your upper body, use hand weights! Modify your workout routine to fit your current state. You can always find an activity that will get your heart rate up and keep your blood flowing.

However, I highly recommend that you just use this time of being injured or sick to rest and recover. Sometimes we all need a little break. Remember:

Working out is not a destination. It is a way of life. [Tweet this!]

Get back to your workout routine slowly, with time.

How not to freak out about losing workout routine while injured or sickDon’t worry, you can take time off your workout routine while injured or sick, and still be able to maintain your form.  No matter how much muscle or strength you lose while laying in your bed injured or sick, you will gain it back much faster than it took you to gain it at the first place. This is just one of the reasons why lifting weights is awesome. It has long-lasting effects on your muscles. Thumbs up for muscle memory! It is an awesome thing!

In fact, just relax, don’t worry too much about missing a few workouts, because it’s not a big deal. Just think about how awesome you are for making a lifestyle change and sticking with it! The fact that your brain wants to workout even when you are injured or sick shows your dedication and commitment! Just think about all the awesome things you’ve accomplished so far!  You are truly awesome! Everything is awesome! Even the Lego figures agree on that one:

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4 steps to healthy life mindset even if you are lazy

4 steps to healthy life mindset even if You are lazy

Motivation to stay fit, , ,

4 steps to healthy life mindset even if you are lazyThe healthy life mindset I had developed while losing weight has made me achieve a mindful and healthy life. And this healthy life mindset continues to make healthy changes to my life and changing for the healthier not only my body but my mind as well.

Identifying Your bad habits

The healthy life mindset raised my awareness: I became more aware of my bad habits that were not beneficial to my health and I worked hard in changing them. First it started with the bad habit of eating lots of processed and junk food, unhealthy snacks, lazy lifestyle, being used to not take seriously my body’s needs, spending free time in front of a computer browsing Facebook, watching stupid shows I didn’t even wanted to watch.

4 steps to healthy life mindset even if you are lazy
My number one bad habit on the left. Number two bad habit on the right.

In order to start my weight loss journey, I had to identify these bad habits and then address them one by one: choosing healthy foods for my main meals, cutting back on snacks and supplement chocolate and cake with fruits, seeds and nuts, start walking to work and choose the stairs instead of the elevator, paying attention to drinking enough water, developing outdoor interests, choose meditation to clear my mind of work induced stress instead of the brainless TV watching, changing my priorities and daily schedule in order to fit in going to the gym or to a zumba or yoga class on weekdays.

Healthy life is just a romantic idea in Your mind

My goal was clear: I wanted to lose weight in a healthy way – and I was prepared to make drastic changes in my lifestyle in order to achieve that. Looking back it wasn’t only my lifestyle that changed; the healthy lifestyle changed my view of the world, my priorities in life, and even my always panicking and stressed out mind changed for the better.

While being overweight I knew what I had to do in order to change my body and I knew I had to develop a healthy life, but I wouldn’t take even the first necessary steps towards a healthy life.

While being fat, living a healthy life was just a romantic idea in my head that I could achieve anytime I wanted to. [Tweet this!]

I know exactly how I can get a healthy life and fit body, I know I have what it takes to do it, it’s just that I don’t want healthy life right now. I figured I have time, I will do it one day.

The push you need if You are a lazy sloth

4 steps to healthy life mindset even if you are lazy
Here is a cute puppy acting like a lazy sloth.

The one thing that made all the difference and what pushed me, a fat lazy sloth over to take steps is when I realized that I am in my 30’s and maybe I’ve spent half of my life(!) in this limbo of “Oh, I can get fit, I just choose not to” mindset, and not only will it be harder to get fit as I age, but I already had health problems emerging related to being overweight and living a sedentary lifestyle that I wasn’t even aware of, and accepted as a necessary evil. I watched my aging overweight parents struggle with serious health issues because of an unhealthy life we all lived.

I just suffered a heart wrecking break up, and was after a relationship that I thought was going to last forever – we girls tend to believe this when we are in love and the guy has at least two good qualities. So becoming single in my 30’s when everyone around me is either getting married or having a kid is life slapping me across my face shouting:

“Wake up princess! Time to get fit!”

I figured if I’m lucky I’ll be near my 40’s when I have my first kid, and the kid will be forced to watch me deal with serious health issues because of my unhealthy lifestyle. Well, this scared the sh*t out of me, and I was ready to do anything in order to provide my future child a worry free childhood without making him watch me suffer because of my unhealthy lifestyle choices. I don’t want my future kid to be forced to watch me struggle like I am forced to watch my parents struggle with their health.

If you didn’t get a similar slap from life yet that gets you  want to improve your life for the better and start living a healthy life, then keep reading carefully.

4 steps to healthy life mindset

Steps on how to develop the healthy life mindset – even if you are a lazy sloth:

1. Set clear goals

Setting a clear goal is important because it is crucial for long term success. If you are anything like me, you hate setting goals for yourself, because it seems hard to come up with a realistic goal that is not impossible to achieve, yet it isn’t too easy too. But you need goals because they will help you stay focused, motivated and they will also allow you to manage your time efficiently. Your goal needs to be clear, measurable, and you will need to add a time frame for it.

Have one goal for short term, and one for long term.

My short term goal WAS that I wanted to lose weight for my  future wedding in order to look good in the wedding dress; my long term goal IS that I want to live a healthy life.

2. Find motivation to make the first step towards your goal

My motivation was fear, because I was being freaked out by the fact that my children will have to watch me struggle with health issues and they will not be able to do anything about it, just like I am unable to help my parents with their health issues because of their, our unhealthy lifestyle.

Of course you can make your motivation other than the fear of dying too young, just make sure to think of a motivation that you need in order to make the first step towards reaching your goal set in step 1.

3. Make it a habit

Making your routine a habit is an important part of the healthy life mindset. You can achieve great things slowly, step by step – the only way to ensure that this happens is to make it a habit.

You can make it a habit just like I did: by replacing your existing bad habits one by one with new healthy ones. Or you could develop a new healthy habit for yourself.

The secret is to stick with it.

4. Continue and repeat

Repeat steps 1-3 until your results are met. Easy!

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Use these easy ideas to achieve cute & stylish good looks when you hit the gym

Accept new fit body with creating your fall 2014 wardrobe

Body image problems, , , , , ,

Becoming fit has left me with lots of big clothes that were filling up my wardrobe space. In the fall of 2014, I decided that it was time for purging my old wardrobe. I wanted to create my fall 2014 wardrobe that I will love and that will be functional to fulfill my wardrobe needs. After getting rid of clothes either by putting them in bags and taking them out of my wardrobe to storage or donating them, and repeating this for 2 or 3 times, I was still left with lots of fall clothes in my wardrobe that were taking up the space in my wardrobe but I did not wear them for some reason.

Yet when I needed to dress up for a night out, for a serious business meeting at work, or just for walking my dog, I felt like I have nothing to wear. It was time to change all that.

How to start creating your fall 2014 wardrobe

Luckily I came across a minimalist fashion blog that had a simple and usable guide on how to build yourself a capsule wardrobe. It took me a whole weekend to identify my clothing needs that fit my weekly activities and to purge all the unnecessary clothes from my wardrobe. It took me weeks to get the missing items for my wardrobe I have identified that I needed in my closet but I did not own or were too big or worn out to keep on wearing.

Five steps of creating your fall 2014 wardrobe:

Accept new fit body with creating your fall 2014 wardrobe
How to create your fall 2014 wardrobe

Get a look of my fall 2014 wardrobe

For the first time in my life I managed to clean out my closet and build a fall 2014  wardrobe for myself that I am happy with. My fall 2014 wardrobe consists only of clothes that I absolutely love to wear and I feel good in. It has 37 pieces of clothing, that fit into my wardrobe perfectly.

My happy little 37 piece fall 2014 wardrobe:

Fall 2014 capsule wardrobe

What to look out for while creating your fall 2014 wardrobe if you are still losing fat?

I am a girl who is into fashion – and by being into fashion I mean that I am following a lot of fashion blogs and watching the celebrities on red carpet and their everyday street styles. When I was overweight, I was looking at stylish pictures of girls wishing I could pull off their outfits with my fat body without looking like a beach ball. So naturally I thought that if I ever lose weight, I will be as stylish and beautiful as the models and fashion bloggers are. Well, turns out that losing weight and changing your body from fat to fit does not make you a stylish fashion icon.

During my weight loss journey my clothes on me looked crappy: being unaware of the fact that my body changed and was becoming more and more fit instead of fat, I was still wearing my old fat clothes. My wardrobe was full of clothes (even my casual business office outfits) hanging lose and folding unflattering on me. For the first time in my life I regularly started using belts regularly for my pants that were being baggy. But the weigh loss continued and my clothes were becoming bigger and bigger, and my family was the first who started to point out that I needed a new wardrobe. I was happy that I can finally shop for new clothes, and wanted to get all the latest trends.

Continuing with becoming fitter and fitter my clothing size went smaller and smaller. I had to shop frequently, plus I enjoyed that I can buy clothes that are a smaller size. I ended up wearing clothes for 2-3 weeks before they’ve become too big. Tailoring my big clothes wasn’t an option for me, because I don’t have a tailor I trust and the few clothing items I took to a tailor to fix were a disaster and I ended up not wearing them. Plus, you should not force your new fit body into old fat clothes!

Trying on new clothes while out shopping will help you to see your new fit body if you are suffering from phantom fat and you don’t see your weight loss on your body in the mirror.

I learned that only stretchy clothes fit my changed body, so I started to shop smarter for my wardrobe, knowing that in 2 weeks my body will change.

My advice to you while being in the losing weight phase is to search for stretchy clothes – you’ll be able to get more wears out of them that way. [Tweet this!]

Benefits of having a fall 2014 wardrobe

My fall 2014 wardrobe has 37 pieces of clothing, that fit into my wardrobe perfectly. I have more space in my closet than ever before! I can see all of my clothes, which makes matching items and putting together outfits easy and fast – I can put on a perfectly polished outfit for office in the morning in less than 3 minutes!

I wash and iron clothes more frequently but it takes up less of my time. I don’t know how this is even possible, but washing and ironing takes less time than it used to.

Believe it or not, there are no drawbacks of having a 37 piece fall 2014 wardrobe, and I have no idea why I haven’t come up with a capsule wardrobe before. I thought it is much work and fuss to put together a wardrobe and I wasn’t sure I would be able to pull it off. It took a bit of planning, a lot of thinking, but it made me more aware of my lifestyle and habits.

Building a fall 2014 wardrobe was not only a cleaning of my wardrobe and my old fat clothes, but unintentionally it was also a big cleaning of my thoughts and I got rid not only of my old big clothes, but of my old fat self body image as well.

Got inspired to build your own wardrobe? Check out my fall 2014 wardrobe for inspiration! Click here>>>

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How people treat You differently after Your weight loss

Body image problems, Emotional issues after weight loss, , , , ,

Getting fit and losing weight affects not just your looks and attitude but also the perception of how others around you see you. There will be a change in people’s attitudes towards the new, fit you.

Part of the changed view of you comes from the fact that your looks have changed, and that change in your body becomes noticeable at a first glance to others. This is why you are drawing the wanted or unwanted attention of your friends and acquaintances. You may find this to be pleasing, and it can even give you a temporary boost in motivation to workout harder. On the other hand, if you are like me, you will find all this sudden rush of attention unwelcome and have mixed feelings about people who unexpectedly shower you with compliments, and struggle with finding the best way to deal with all that sincere or false openness. Whatever your reaction is, one thing is sure: people will treat you differently after your weight loss.

Let’s see how the different types of people around you will treat you after your weight loss:

  1. Family and relatives

Family could be supportive of your attempts to build yourself a healthy life. However, if obesity runs in your family, then family and relatives will be opposed of your lifestyle changes. It will seem that your family wants you to keep your past identity of being overweight and out of shape. Relatives will not see your hard work behind you looking fit and healthy. Don’t expect to get support from family, as they will only see that you’ve gone too far, and as you are now unhealthily thin. You can try to persuade them otherwise, and can spend hours of talking about being happy and healthy, and present them with facts of how this is a normal weight range for your age and height on the body mass index (BMI) chart, they will stay skeptic. Family members could even criticize or try to disrupt your fitness undertakings in order to maintain stability in the family. An overweight child has a specific role in the family – he or she deflects attention from other issues there are in the family, so by losing weight and becoming fit disturbs the whole usual flow in the family and its members.

As we know, change is hard. But inevitable.

You can frustrate yourself over this (like I did), or choose to accept that you recognized how you’ve led an unhealthy lifestyle and now you’ve taken charge of it to change it for the better.

  1. Coworkers or classmates

Coworkers and classmates are the ones who see you every day of the workweek, and since you spend so much time with them, they will be the first to notice changes in your body. However, because you were identified as someone who is overweight and out of shape for years, when you get fit, the balance changes – they may start to feel threatened.

They will start to be jealous of your new fit body, and start commenting your success. The other option is that they will start to feel guilty because they’ve let themselves get out of shape and now the tables have turned and you are the sexy one in the office/classroom.

I work with women who were considered really hot back when I was obese. Fast forward a few years: I started lifting weights, they gained weight. Now the tables have turned – I am the one with the fit body. I try not to bring it up, but boy, they are jealous. You can see their faces lightning up with envy whenever someone walks into the office and comments on my new found good looks. But then again, they could use the stairs instead of the elevator too. Plus they shouldn’t have pizza for breakfast every morning.

  1. Boyfriend or husband or a significant other

    "I love you more now that we are thin!"
    “I love you more now that we are thin!”

People tend to get involved with a partner who’s attractiveness is alike. So if you are overweight, chances are that your significant other is also on the bigger side. If you are lucky, you are on your journey to slim town together, so you have each others’ support and are going through the lifestyle change together. If this is not the case, and only you decided to lose weight, it slowly generates tension in your relationship. The other party will start to feel threatened when their partner becomes more attractive to the opposite sex. It will also produce a sense of inadequacy. This is exactly what breeds small fights, and can lead to serious problems in the relationship that are very hard to overcome. Yet again, both parties need to change: if you’ve changed on the outside, your partner will need to change on the outside too or on the inside in order to deal with the changes that your healthy lifestyle brings. Your best bet is to face the changes together, and develop a life with a healthy diet and exercise together that will benefit the both of you.

  1. Exes

The satisfaction you feel when meeting your ex about yourself and your weight loss is equally proportional to the amount of the drama you two had breaking up.

If weight was an issue in your past relationship, the guilty, dirty pleasure gets multiplied. That said, this is not a healthy attitude to have and you should not strive to motivate yourself to lose weight for your ex (either to get back to them or to get them back).

Do your workout because you want it and need it for yourself, and not for anyone else!

[Tweet this!]

 

  1. Jealous friends

    "She looks hotter than me now that she's not fat"
    “Damn, she looks hotter than me now that she’s not fat anymore”

Loosing weight by changing your lifestyle comes with gaining a bunch of self confidence. So be prepared that you might loose a best friend when you get high self esteem if it was based on low self esteem issues. Just remember that you are the one that changed, not your friends – so if they are judging your new appearance, it means that they were always so judgmental. It’s just that when you were heavy, they never said anything to your face because they were ashamed to show their judgement in front of you.  They are jealous of your achievements because now they feel insecure when they are around you. Their jealousy and resentment towards you is a reflection of their own insecurities and lack of self esteem they are projecting on you.

  1. Supportive friends

If a friend shows no difference in how they treat you now that you are fit and before you were heavier, it means that you chose wisely about friends that you keep around you. A supportive friend reinforces the positive changes that his or her friend makes. You should look for friends like this. Just keep in mind: successful and fulfilling friendships are a two-way street.

So however people might treat you differently after your weight loss, you need to remember that you got fit for yourself. You are doing it all for yourself, and not your ex, boyfriend or to make girlfriends jealous! Many things in your life changed after your drastic weight loss, and almost all of them were positive. Find a motivation to stay fit for yourself, and start caring less about what others think of your new fit body. Especially since what other people think of you is none of your business!

Found this useful? Get more tips on how to motivate yourself towards a lifestyle full of healthy habits! Click here>>>