Time to get fit!

I've let myself go over the last two years. I was doing really well maintaining my weight for the 4 years before that, but slowly the weight has gone up and up, till I've gained almost 20 pounds since then. Soooo, I've started a local Biggest Loser Challenge for my town. It's an online contest and I started it through Facebook. So far, 19 people have joined! Which is a lot more than I had thought would! I'm not sure how many will actually participate, but I'm very excited to have other women to help motivate me and to share ideas with.

My daughter Jillian is going to be my "Jillian Michaels" from The Biggest Loser show. She is determined to help me get in shape, so she has me on a nightly exercise routine. We start out with a yoga series to warm up. Then we do this Fitness Routine that is supposed to be repeated 3-5 times. Well, we started it last night and I made it twice. I made it twice again tonight, but I think I did much better tonight than I did last night. Tomorrow, she says I'm going for 3 times. ;) She is a tough trainer! We finish with the same yoga series to cool down.

I'm also doing a Leslie Sansone "Walk Away the Pounds" every morning before work. I did the Walk and Kick one today, which is a 30 minute work out. So, for today, I did 1 hour of working out!

Anyone local to Blairsville that would like to join me, just let me know! I'd love to have you!

One Million Steps...

Becca and I are members of TOPS (Take Off Pounds Sensibly), a weight loss support group, at our church. We were challenged by the Area Captain in February to make a goal of taking 1,000,000 steps from the beginning of February through the end of July.

Sounds impossible, doesn't it? But actually it's not at all. It's very doable if you break it down into daily goals!

I figured there are 181 days from the beginning of February through the end of July and then divided it into 1,000,000. That meant I needed to take 5,525 steps a day to reach my goal!

I started out February averaging about 6,000 steps a day. That would help me reach my goal of a million steps, but in reality, that is not burning enough calories to help me lose any weight. So, by the end of February, I was up to averaging about 8,000 steps a day. In March, I took it up a notch. I decided my goal was to hit 10,000 steps a day as many days in March that I could. I hit that goal every single day except for 5. So for 26 days in March, I had over 10,000 steps each day!

For April, I decided to kick it up another notch! My new goal for April is to take at least 12,000 steps a day! So far, I've been averaging about 13,000 steps a day!

If I would have set a goal of taking 12,000 steps a day from the beginning of February, I would be on track to take 2 Million steps by the end of July! Unbelievable, isn't it?

How many steps do you take a day?

Long walks with the girls...

What a beautiful evening! The girls and I took the dog, Lexi, for a nice long walk tonight. It was gorgeous outside and was about 65 degrees. There is a trail a few miles from our house that starts at a park, so we drove the car to the park, then got out and walked... The trail runs along a creek and is very wooded, so it will be a nice cool walk in the summer as well.

We walked for a mile, then turned around and came home because it started to get dark. It won't be long before it stays dark later and we can walk longer! Or, we just have to start out earlier!

There are benches along the way at every mile, so we know we only made it a mile. I wear a pedometer every day so that I can keep track of the steps I take, so the next time we go, we'll have to make sure we go at least 1 1/2 miles so that we actually go 3 miles by the time we turn around and head back.

The dog was very tired after the walk! She's gained a bit of weight over the winter and needs the exercise. I have a feeling we'll be making this trek often! We all need it! lol!

Bev