Fitness Friday

Yesterday was the best day ever. Why? Because I finally got my body and muscles to respond enough so I know what I must do in order to hit my final fitness goal leading up to the big wedding day. WOOT!! *cheers* I absolutely love my boxing gym that I go to and it keeps me going throughout the week. However, it just didn't seem to be enough for me. Now my trainer from my old gym transferred his power circuit classes over to the gym I go to now and I am ECSTATIC. After I went to my power boxing class, I decided to stay for the 30-minute power circuit class that I've been missing SO much since I left my previous gym #fitnessproblems. Well..it's more like a love/hate relationship since they fricken kick my ass every single time even without a prior workout.

Instead of just making you sweat a lot, these circuits work every muscle in your body. It's a HUGE pet peeve of mine when people focus on sweat...just because you sweat a lot during a workout, doesn't mean jack when it comes to reaching fitness goals. You can sit on your ass all day in a sauna and sweat buckets, but does that mean you'll look like Gisele at the end of the day? No. Of course I'm not a certified trainer, but I've been trained by some fantastic people and you really shouldn't be measuring a workout by how much you sweat, but by the quality of the workout. At least this philosophy led me to where I am now which is officially about 40lbs lighter while replacing my fatsy cells with muscle.

I was in a fitness rut for awhile and did the same routines, but now I'm finally back to REALLY kicking my ass now that I'm almost at the three-month wedding marker. Shit just got real. Looking at my before and after photo is definitely my motivation every single day. I don't know about anyone else who has fitness goals out there, but staying focused on how far you've come is a great way to keep going strong.

I've had a few people ask what I did and what they can do to lose weight and really...I have no magic pill. If there was one, believe me..I would have found it by now. I reached each fitness goal by working my ass off (literally) by hiring a personal trainer at first and then once I was knowledgeable enough to tough it out on my own at the gym, I did just that. Hiring a personal trainer at the beginning was the best thing I could have done since I knew that I wouldn't slack at all or make excuses if I knew someone ELSE was counting on me to show up at give it my best. A great trainer gives you the tools for the bod that you want and he did just that. He also let me know what I should be avoiding and what I should be focusing on. When I began my whole fitness gig, I was in college...SO naturally my diet consisted of alcoholic beverages, pizza and everything that was not good for you. Lately, I've been making myself kale and baby spinach salads with turkey. I've also replaced a lot of empty carb foods like breads and pasta out of my diet to hit my final fitness goal. (Wish me luck...) I just about attacked anyone with a sandwich or bagel within the past two days since I'm pretty much a carboholic. These Sambazon superfood juice blends have become a favorite of mine to keep me satisfied throughout the day. The blueberry + pomegranate is probably my favorite.

I think the hardest part right now for me is to avoid the extras such as Starbucks, avoiding things that come out of a box and sticking to my meal plans. I'm also planning on trying out the AdvoCare Cleanse phase to detox my body a little. Although I've always been scared of "cleanses" since I don't really have the time to be hitting the bathroom every 15 minutes...oh well, I need to hit my next level of badass!