Feel Good Friday

Good afternoon, Ladies! :P

Check out this story today.  We all have NO EXCUSES that we can't challenge!

http://athleta.m.delivery.net/w/webView?cid=12866811656&mid=1101635052&pid=5064&vid=13689&ee=c2FyYWguYS53ZWlnaHRAaG90bWFpbC5jb20_&si=&mv=H&bv=H&oc=H&sc=&k=11gPti

I hope you ladies all have a phenomenal weekend planned!  Take care!

Feel Good Friday

Good morning, fabulous ladies!

For the side challenge, send me your active date/girls night out idea sometime today!  I'll post and do the prize tomorrow morning :)  So far I have them from Jen R., Amy, Kim, and Leslie.

This weekend Abrey, Meghan, Amy, & I are running a team marathon relay- good luck us :)

Today's feel good post is about success stories.  Reading other people's success stories can really motivate us in our own weight loss journeys.  "Wow, they lost SO MUCH weight and yes, it was hard, but they did it.  Yes, it took them a long time, but they did it.  I too can challenge my excuses."  I love it. 

Please search online and find a success story that you really like, then comment with the link to it for all of us to see (we did this last session, too, but I can't get enough of it, so do it again :) ).  Here's a ton of them from Women's Health in a slide show.  I really like this one and this one.  Stuck?  You can look through Women's Health, Fitness, Shape, Runner's World, Bicycling, Prevention, and probably a million others. 

From this article, 20 Weight Loss Motivation Tips, check out #7 regarding success stories, "People who lose weight are not super-human.  They just decided to go for it and then never gave up!"  Reading these success stories remind you of that.  Re-dedicate yourself to have a fantastic and healthy weekend, girls!

Tuesday's Motivation

Good {albeit late} Morning, Winter Beauties!  I'm a bit slap happy today :)  It is so motivating and inspiring to read real people's success stories!  It helps us to realize that it DOES take a long time but that it's DOABLE and that people like US (or better yet people with even more excuses than us) can make their DREAM bodies happen!  SO, here's the charge for the day: search online and share a link for your favorite success story that you come accross, one that particularly motivated you or sang your song.  There should be zillions out there (but if you get stuck, you can check out Fitness Magazine, Shape Magazine, Runners World Magazine, Women's Health, Weight Watchers, Biggest Loser, etc. )  I can't wait to see them all and to be motivated to kick even MORE butt this week!!!

Here's my favorite :)  Lisa Delaney in Runner's World  I think I had to pick a runner b/c I am passionate about that and running not only helps the pounds come off, it heals and transforms people.  The successes and progress are so much easier to quantify and measure than other workouts, too, so I think you're proud of yourself earlier on in the weight loss than journey other strategies.   I just LOVED her success story.  I loved how she turned around her thought processes from a diet being all about things you "CAN'T" do to being all about finish-lines everywhere in your life.  

"I still experience those rock-star moments, every time I make it through a 5 a. m. six-miler when I'd rather be in bed, or finish a hard set of intervals on the treadmill at the Y. There may be no cheering crowds, no medals, no booming baritone announcement. But the finish-line feeling lives on, in my head and in my heart."

Reflection Friday

"I do not think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday." -Abraham Lincoln

It's our last weekend of this challenge!  Based on Amy C.'s comment earlier this week about how her thought processes have changed when she thinks more now about what she's going to eat, I'd love to hear all of your reflections on how your body and your mind have changed over the last almost 6 weeks.  How is the new you different from the old you?  What have you changed about the way you think about healthy living?

Check out this article about changing our thought processes to effectively lose weight and keep it off: The Weight Loss Solution: Think Thin.

What do you like or not like about this article? Anything you can pick out that applies to your situation specifically?

I liked these especially:

• "When [they] reach a plateau or lose motivation, ... welcome the opportunity to ... be honest with themselves about the areas in which they can do better. Since hurdles and dwindling motivation are certain to happen both at camp and at home, teens learn creative ways to reconnect with their goals and experiment with new weight loss strategies." 
• "Negative affirmations can be replaced with a new, encouraging internal dialogue such as “It won’t be easy, but I can do it.”"
• "Thoughts lead to emotions, and emotions lead to actions...By changing the thought processes, we can control the bingeing and emotional eating. That is the process of lifestyle change." 
• But the best of all is ths one: "Long-term weight loss is as much about thinking thin as it is about looking thin." 

So what do you think it means to "think thin?"

Make it a phenomenal weekend, you thin hottie you :)

Motivational Tuesday

So from last week, from the post that listed 20 motivational weight loss tips, it said that reading success stories will help you stay motivated and realize how accomplish-able (like how I made that word up? :P ) your goals really are. If they can do it, you can do it, right? Check out these success stories:
You Lose, You Win
This one was one of my favorite before & after pics- check out those guns! Wow!

What I gather from reading a bunch of these is that they sometimes took a REALLY LONG TIME but the women did NOT give up. Hitting our goals probably won't be on our ideal time frame, determination and hard work can get you there. Slow results add up. These stories are great. Love them! Did you find anything helpful or motivational in them? Kristin, share your success story with us! I can post pics if you have them ;)