Drop those pounds! Motivation and inspiration

Sometimes I need external inspiration and motivation to keep me on track to achieving my goals. MSN Fitness and Health featured the story of Caroline, she has lost 124 pounds and has kept it of for over four years! I don't have quite as much to lose, so it can't be nearly as hard. She looks fantastic, and I know I can too! Check out her plan for change.

Forced Networking at WomCom

Tonight was the Women in Communications annual Matrix awards. Let's start by saying I only half wanted to go. There were a few women I was really looking forward to seeing but mostly I wanted to sleep after the long day at the florist.

I got there and the only people I knew where fairly busy so I set off to mingle and network. I spent some time at the bar (while wishing I was at the barre), forcing conversations and I can't honestly tell you what I said and I know even less about what they said. It isn't that I wasn't interested or that there was nothing to be gained from meeting them, it's that I was too dang tired to care.

After some sitting and some downtime of casually talking to women I do know, I was ready to try again. This time I struck up some really great conversations and I am fairly certain only pleasant, mildly intelligent things flowed out of my mouth. I will know more next week when I find out if any of these women respond to my emails.

If you are looking for funny networking stories, I am too tired to provide but I highly recommend one from Steve Crescenzo. All have to say is, I was very tempted to use my cell phone to call my wallet.

Weight loss Wednesdays: exhausted

Oh the joys of Wednesday, a day when we come to terms with what happened over the last 7 days. I have been keeping up on the healthy eating...except for the baby shower, and the birthday party. I really ate like crap, delicious crap, those days, but the working out was spot on as you can see by reading some older posts.

Time to really focus on eating right. Fitness Magazine has a diet tool that lets you create a diet by selecting meals from their list and then generates a shopping list of all the foods you'll need. I am going to give it a shot next week. If you try it, let me know, and I, of course, will do the same.

Dance started back up again yesterday and I was thrilled to be back in class. The energy you get from a class working toward a common goal is incredible. More on that later. Good luck this week!

Standing is hard, is fit worth it?

The standing will kill you. Looking for a way to keep fit during the day? Get a job where you stand and walk around, standing is hard work. This week I have been helping at out the flower shop my mother works at. They are a large wholesale florist, shipping to every chain and specialty grocer in the area and even states away.

The running around: in the cooler out of the cooler, wrapping bouquets, stripping thorns, loading racks of buckets, hauling 10 bouquets at a time and hosting them overhead; it is is madness. My body is tired just thinking about my day. As long as you can resist the cupcakes they bring in to snack on, a physical job like this is bound to help shed some pounds.

The downside: working with your hands makes you have ugly hands.

Keeping Active at the Green Street Fair

With dance on a week long hiatus I had to find something else to fill my fitness needs while stimulating my mind, (let's face it, mindless elliptical work is not fun) so off to the green street fair we went. We got to walk all around the fair trying out green products and tasting organic foods.

While strolling through the Whole Foods zone we picked up some "green" bathroom cleaner, Naturally Clean Life Mildew for $5. Hopefully it smells significantly less terrible and does as good a job as my current not so green, mostly toxic, mildew remover.

We logged 1.5 miles while spending an enjoyable and educational day together. It is important to remember that living a healthy lifestyle isn't always about hitting the gym and protein bars only to wreck it with days of sleeping in and eating out. It's about living an active life, putting good things in your body and using products that are not harmful to be around. Dusting a little more probably wouldn't hurt me either, the thought of mites...gross!

Refresh tea, refreshing indeed

During the whole caffeine drought I became a huge fan of Refresh tea from Tazo. It's invigoratingly minty and delivers a nice refreshing lift any time of day while staving off the need for snacks. I was buying it at Starbucks but decided it best to head to Kroger's and buy a box for the house.

I am a big fan of tea, any suggestions on types to try?

Stop diabetes, prevent heart attacks and erectile dysfunction while defeating depression: ahh Exercise

Oh the many things exercise is capable of. There's an article today in the Times that highlights the many health benefits, both physical and emotional, of exercise. Whether it's lowering the risk of heart attack, stroke, depression, hypertension, diabetes (notice the top stories link diabetes to increased risks for heart attacks and depression), obesity, dementia, osteoporosis, gallstones, diverticulitis, falls, erectile dysfunction, peripheral vascular disease and 12 kinds of cancer, physical activity can seemingly do it all!

Exercise may just be the elixir of life as it is even known to help with ailments like rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease, congestive heart failure and osteoarthritis.

If you know someone who is battling illness or struggling with weight I think the article will help encourage them to take exercise seriously, it sure motivates me.

I tried yesterday's "look hot in jeans" workout and it was mildly awesome, short (about 17 minutes), and just the right amount of difficulty. I recommend playing some Bon Jovi in the background. I plan to add some cardio later, perhaps with the dog again. If you tried the jeans workout, let me know what you thought of it.