Need to shed a few pounds? Have the goal to weight this summer? Need some resources to help you get there?
My daughter, Teacup, is now 9 months old and yes, I still have that baby weight in tow…in more than one area. For those of you who have read my story you know that losing weight with my first daughter proved to be no easy feat. This second daughter has given my weight a similar challenge such that I knew until I started to wean her my weight loss would probably be to no avail. Well, the months are ticking by and the time has come to take some action. My hope–to be able to get a really good report from the scales at my next annual exam.
As such, I’ve searched for and found a few tips/resources that are becoming helpful in my journey and may be to yours as well. If you have any other tips or resources you think would be helpful, please feel free to let us know in the comments.
1. I used to like running but have been hard pressed to find the time or the rest to get out there many mornings. As such I had to start completely over in my training. To help me along the way, I found this Couch to 5k app that is FREE and works great!
I really like it because I can just grab my iPod, run out the door, and the app will tell me the rest. In addition, I can listen to my own music while the app tells me what to do.
2. On days I’m not using the C25K app I’m using this interval training podcast put together by Fitness Magazine and Motion Traxx.
While it is mostly canned techno music, the podcast alters the tempos of the music to give you a good interval workout that you can either walk/run or jog/run too. Its thirty minutes and again, I like it because I can just pick up my iPod and go. It’s also a nice change of pace from the C25K because it allows me to speed walk instead of run the whole time which gives my body another form of cardio to enjoy during the week.
3. One of my goals during this weight loss journey is to drink 10+ glasses of water daily. Knowing that I can easily get distracted with two little ones at my feet, I placed several rubberbands by my refrigerator. Each time I go to the fridge to fill up my water bottle (which holds 3 cups) I place a rubberband on the bottle. At the end of the day I can add up the number of rubberbands on my bottle and multiply it by three to know how much water I drank. The next morning when I fill up for the first time I then remove the rubberbands and start over.
Place a rubberband around your water bottle each time you fill it up. |
Note: For those who may not be home most of the time to fill up I’ve also seen where people move a rubberband from the top of the bottle to the bottom of the bottle each time they fill up.
4. Create a time budget. What does a time budget have to do with exercise you may ask? Well until I created a time budget I never fully realized how much time I DID have available to workout. For more information on time budgets, check out the article on Money Saving Mom’s website written by one of my favorite bloggers, Amy Andrews.
5. Join Sparkpeople. It’s free. It has tons and tons of resources. You can easily track your fitness, nutrition, and weight goals. There’s even an a couple of apps for it so you can enter your info online OR via an app. Of all the online trackers I’ve tried, for the cost or not, this is definitely one of the best I have found. And, I their Spark Recipe database has some really great recipes too.