Monthly Goals - October

I know I say this every month.. but oh my goodness it is OCTOBER. It seems like just yesterday it was New Year's 2013. And here we are, not too long before the end of the year. 

So, since it is now October.. time for some monthly goals to keep me on track! But first, how did I do in October?

September Recap

• Blog more here. FAIL. I got a new job, and life has been crazy. I know, excuses, excuses.
• Attend every boot camp. This is Monday (Lower Body / Cardio), Tuesday (Upper Body / Cardio), and Thursday (Abs / Core / Cardio). Try and take my cousin's advice and do arms again on Friday. SUCCESS. I missed my first class tonight because of a meeting at my new job.. I was late a few times, but when I got there I busted my ass for sure! Plus my new job is very active, so I am hoping it will even out.
• No more soda. No excuses. It is not nutritious. It is not good for my teeth or my health. JUST STOP DRINKING IT. I had to get tough love a bit, right there. I was channeling Dakota. (Not sure who Dakota is? Read about him here) FAIL. I love soda. It's hard. I do try and drink a lot of water, though.
• Eat better. I am not sure if I want to go back to counting calories because it is not something I am fond of, but I need to just straight up not eat crap food. I will not eat food that makes me feel guilty. How about that? SUCCESS. Doing better. Trying to cook for myself more. Making healthier choices.
• Lose 10 pounds. I am interested in what I can with the boot camp working out as hard as I do and eating better. I will be doing the best I can, that's for damn sure.SUCCESS. (to me) I only lost 3 lbs. in September (As of September 26th, a month from when I started boot camp) BUT I lost 8% body fat. I can tell a big difference in my body. I am going to focus more on that number rather than my weight, because obviously I gained muscle. 

First picture of me here. First full length shot of me that I have made public in a while.



Can you see the difference between that and this, from June?

I can. That is for damn sure.

Anyways.

Goals for October!

• Try to cook at home 5 of 7 nights/week. Trying to go back to what I said here, and making my goal quanitifiable. And "Eating better" to me can mean making better fast food choices, and that's not what I want.
• Lose 5% Body Fat. I know last month I lost 8%, but I don't know if I can again. 
• Post Twice A Week. This is a lofty goal, but I love blogging. I need it in my life to be accountable. I would say I don't have the time, but I do. I just like to spend it being lazy. But in October, my goal is to post 2 times every week. Meaningful content.
• Continue going to boot camp. I have missed one this month because of work. The problem is with my new job, I work until 6, and boot camp starts at 6. I might have to go to the ones at the gym.. But I love my trainers. So I am trying to do my best to get there around 6:10 if I can.

What are your goals for October?

How to Set Goals Like A Boss

When I worked at my last job, I took a work experience class, so that I could work and go to school at the same time. I learned how to make a kick-ass resume, but I also learned about the importance of goals. (Well, in that class they were called MLOs, or Measurable Learning Objectives). Your goals are the starting point, your progress checker, and your finish line. If you don't set good goals, how will you know when you are headed in the right direction?

Our MLOs had to have a time frame, what specifically is to be completed or learned, how it will be completed or learned, and how your goal is measured.

Have a Time Frame

I try to use this standard whenever I make myself new goals. I like to do the monthly goals link up, so my time frame is built in. You may have monthly, quarterly, and yearly goals. They say the most successful people also have 5 year goals, 10 year goals. Honestly, I don't have that skill yet. Need to work on that.

Be As Specific As Possible

I try and make my goals as specific as possible. My goal used to be "I want to lose weight" but now it is more like "I want to lose x number of pounds" or "I want to be able to run a lap without stopping". If you leave your goal open ended like that, you are going to weasel your way out. Tough love, baby. I know this from personal experience. For example, if your goal was "I want to lose weight" and at the end of the year, you lost two pounds, but didn't gain any self-confidence, or happiness, and possibly feel even worse than you did at the beginning, is that really a win?

Looking back at September's goals (I need to do another check in.. ) I didn't follow my standards as closely as possible. "Blog More Here" is not a good goal. Maybe that's why I'm failing at it? I mean, I am blogging more than before, but am I blogging as much as I want to? No.

"Eat better" is also not a good goal. How am I going to eat better? Am I going to go low-fat, low-carb, paleo.. am I going to eat 1200 calories a day?  I should've been more clear.

Have A Plan

Now that you know what you want to do, how are you going to do it? One of my goals this month was to lose 10 pounds. Every day that number seems farther and farther off than what's happening, but that's beside the point. My goal was to lose weight, and I had a plan of going to my boot camp classes and eating better food.  If you have a goal, you need to back it up with a plan.

Make Your Goals Measurable

Your goals need to be something that can be measured. Losing a certain number of pounds, "eating better" is not. Eating strictly Paleo is. Blogging "more" on this blog is measurable, but it could've been made even better by saying "I want to blog on Finding the Inner Skinny 3 days / week". But that goes along with being specific. 

and the one I've learned most recently..

Write a blog.

Write your struggles, your triumphs, and goals for the world to see. Bare your soul. It makes you accountable, and it also gets you some new friends. I loved my old blog, because it focused on what I love, design. But many of my bloggy friends just didn't connect with it. It was very niche-y. Here, everyone relates with my struggle, thanks to a obesity epidemic and a country obsessed with getting fit and strong. (I love this new trend!) I love the connections I have with my readers now. It just more cements in my goals in my head. Every time I almost break, I think, do I really want to go on my blog and tell them I failed? I am very competitive and I do not want to fail you guys. I have, don't get me wrong, but I have failed much less than I would have if I didn't have you guys. Thanks for that.

My favorite post on goal setting is by Nerd Fitness. Steve relates everything to Nerdy stuff. I love it. He goes in deeper than I did on How to NOT Suck at Goal Setting. 

Skinny Vs. Fit

So.. my blog name is Finding the Inner Skinny. But I have a confession to make.
I don't want to just be skinny. Honestly, I suck at naming things (seriously.. my kids will probably be something boring like John or Michael..) and Finding the Inner Fit was already a blog's name. 

I want to be fit.

I want to do a regular push-up and not have my knees on the ground.
I want to run and not run out of breath.
I want to have energy.
I want to be able to out-run Dakota. (It has always bugged me, even when I was thin. What did I tell you? I'm competitive!)
I want to wear a bikini and not feel frumpy or fat or any other ugly word.
I want to show off parts of my body that I never have before.
I want to feel healthy.
I don't want high blood pressure.

Some of these are shallow. I realize that.
But some are for my health. I am too young for high blood pressure. It is hereditary, and my dad has high blood pressure. But that doesn't mean I have to at 22 years old. 

I don't want to lose weight at the expense of being strong.
I don't want to be thin and weak.

I want to be fit.

September Goals Check In #1

Well, my loves. We are already a week into September. Can you believe it? I can't. I can't believe it is even September. The year is three quarters of the way done!

I have decided that if I am going to stick to my goals this month, I need to be accountable. And the best way I know how to stay accountable? Write it out on the internet, for the whole world to see.

Source

Here's a little progress report about how things have been going.

• Blog more here. About my struggles, what I am eating, how I am working out, etc. etc. TAKE PICTURES. Because I am totally failing at the pictures thing.  So far, so good. I am blogging more, right? And I am trying to make it good content. Feedback!
• Attend every boot camp. This is Monday (Lower Body / Cardio), Tuesday (Upper Body / Cardio), and Thursday (Abs / Core / Cardio). Try and take my cousin's advice and do arms again on Friday. Haven't missed one yet. Actually looking forward to tomorrow's class. It is so nice to walk away, sweaty as all hell, knowing that I just kicked old Jessica's ass. 
• No more soda. No excuses. It is not nutritious. It is not good for my teeth or my health. JUST STOP DRINKING IT. I had to get tough love a bit, right there. I was channeling Dakota. (Not sure who Dakota is? Read about him here) Have had a couple. So.. fail. 
• Eat better. I am not sure if I want to go back to counting calories because it is not something I am fond of, but I need to just straight up not eat crap food. I will not eat food that makes me feel guilty. How about that? I have been trying..but I am still giving into my urges too much. I am going to take the coming week and try and not eat out at all.. no soda.. just clean food. 
• Lose 10 pounds. I am interested in what I can with the boot camp working out as hard as I do and eating better. I will be doing the best I can, that's for damn sure. I have lost about a pound so far. I am putting this as success.. but I have to keep it up. This will get better as I get better with my food intake as well.

Well, there you have it folks. I am a positive person, so I will say I am heading in the right direction, but really I have a long ways to go. But, every time I get up and go workout, or choose water over soda, or make any healthy choice, it is still better than the old me and millions of other people. So I'm going to be positive.

But I will be cracking down this week on my food and soda!

How are your goals going?

The Struggle is Real

It's no secret that I am overweight. It's also not a secret that I am not very fit (at the moment, I'm working on it.) What you might not know is that I have never had to work very hard for the body I had. When I was thin, I walked to school every day, my mom made dinner every night. Things naturally fell into place. I took one weight training class in high school and didn't really try. I didn't know the struggle that I do now. It's not that I know how to exercise and just don't, I never really learned. It was never important to me.

I have never been into sports or exercise, other than swimming, and I didn't do it competitively because my mom thought I wasn't competitive enough. She was probably right. But now, I am into it. I actually was a little sad on Monday that I didn't have boot camp class because of Labor Day. 

Last night we did, however. And it kicked my ass yet again. But this time I got worn out more easily, which is to say it will get worse before it gets better. My body did not want to do what I was trying to get it to do. I just concentrated on one spot on the horizon and told that part of my brain to shut up. And that I was going for it. 

That's my advice to you today, don't listen to that voice in your head. It doesn't even know what its talking about. 

September Goals

It's no secret I have fallen off the wagon a bit. Okay, a lot. But I am getting back on track, God help me. I am trying to eat better (but there is a lot of room for improvement, get me?) I am working out 3 days a week (except this week, we have Labor Day off) and it kicked my ass last week. I hope this week it will be a bit easier. I hope after the pain I went through last week that I am a bit stronger and have a bit more endurance.

Regardless of the pain, I do feel a lot better. After Thursday, which was Abs / Core / Cardio day, I woke up and my whole mid-section felt tighter. Firmer. Like I had lost like five inches. I hadn't (if only that was how it worked) but it felt like it. Ever feel that?

This is totally off-topic, but I bought my first sports bras the other day. They are like the best thing in the universe. I wish sports bras and yoga pants were acceptable clothing everywhere. Congress, are you listening?! Why didn't I take advantage of this awesomeness sooner?!?!

Anyways, I decided that one way to get me to blog is to make goals. That way I know in my mind, I have goals I need to beat. I am wayy too competitive for my own good. I think that is part of the reason why I get so wore out at boot camp, because there is no way in hell I am going to be last. Don't get me wrong, weight loss is not a competition, and I shouldn't compare myself to others at different places in their journey, but I will be damned if I am last. But if I make goals, I get competitive with myself and have to win.

September Goals

• Blog more here. About my struggles, what I am eating, how I am working out, etc. etc. TAKE PICTURES. Because I am totally failing at the pictures thing.
• Attend every boot camp. This is Monday (Lower Body / Cardio), Tuesday (Upper Body / Cardio), and Thursday (Abs / Core / Cardio). Try and take my cousin's advice and do arms again on Friday. 
• No more soda. No excuses. It is not nutritious. It is not good for my teeth or my health. JUST STOP DRINKING IT. I had to get tough love a bit, right there. I was channeling Dakota. (Not sure who Dakota is? Read about him here)
• Eat better. I am not sure if I want to go back to counting calories because it is not something I am fond of, but I need to just straight up not eat crap food. I will not eat food that makes me feel guilty. How about that? 
• Lose 10 pounds. I am interested in what I can with the boot camp working out as hard as I do and eating better. I will be doing the best I can, that's for damn sure.

Are you setting goals for yourself for September?

Linking up with :

Many a moon has passed....

... since I have blogged. Either here or on my other blog.
I don't know what happened.

Well, I got caught up in personal stuff that I think I am finally starting to accept. I lost my best friend. Some of it is my fault, but I won't go into details about that here. I was heartbroken. I was supposed to go back to my old job, and they made the offer to me, and I was waiting on the contract, and then they changed their minds. It felt like I got fired all over again. In the midst of all this, I didn't want to blog. I wanted to escape by myself for a while. And I did. And I spent a lot of time with Dakota. After almost five years together, the time I spend with him is still the best time I spend. Hands down, barre none. Anyway, I was my own personal pity party for a while. I stopped working out, I ate bad, started drinking soda again, and just in general wanted to hiding from my blogging world.

But now, I have joined a boot camp class here in my town that is 3 days a week. I have two days down so far. And by golly, I am still sore. I am excited because I feel like when I work out on my own, I don't exactly push myself to my limits. I get tired and I stop. We've all been there haven't we? I was never a fit person, even when I was thin. This working out stuff, and trying, this is new to me. I have stopped drinking soda, stopped eating so bad, and starting to care again. Things that happen in life are to make you stronger. I lost a person that I loved dearly, but I can't sit here and cry every day, I have to get back up and show the world that I may be down, but I will still kick ass the best I can.

And that will include blogging more, I know you've missed me.
<3

Day Four, Falling Off the Wagon

So I know I haven't posted in a week. I knew it would happen. I am very bad at following through. But I believe the key to success in anything is getting back up when you fall down.

And I don't even have a good excuse. My cousin is in town from out of state and I just have been spending a lot of time with her. But, that said, because I haven't been blogging doesn't mean I haven't been drinking water and making healthy choices. I have made a few bad ones, but for the most part, I try and make good choices. I just try and remember how guilty I feel when I eat bad. And it effects how I feel physically, too. When I eat good, I feel good. It is so simple, and makes so much sense, but I never attributed how crappy I felt to what I was eating, drinking, and doing.

But today I am back on the horse. I am going to exercise, drink water, and live better.

Today, it started with this:

I started a new Zombies, Run! 5k Training account so that I could start over. And I did. The first mission, which is like a background story mission (and I never did previously) didn't involve any running instructions (tomorrow will) but I did run a little. And I mean a little. But I got out there and moved.

Which is a lot better than I have been doing lately.

It feels good to try again.

And we are getting a treadmill,so I can actually push myself when it comes to speed. I feel like I can't when I am out running or whatever. I don't want to kill myself or anything, but I just want to push myself.

I am so excited.

And also, I am starting to track my calories again. It is time consuming and sometimes frightening, but I felt like it did really help put things in persepective. OH and I actually measured my cereal this morning. Mind blowing how much I was really eating. I put the 3/4 scoop (the serving size listed) in the cereal container so that I don't forget. How smart am I?

Today's Reason To Be Fit is very fitting:

Vice Busting Diet, Day Three - Morning Questions

Hello, loves! Welcome to Day 3! I am amazed I have kept up with blogging this long. Seriously. If you knew me, I am not very good at follow through. But I am tired of being overweight. And if baring my soul for all of the internets helps, it helps.

What has been keeping me going is this phrase, right here:

Source

Life is hard. Losing my job was here. And despite what I originally thought, my life didn't fall apart. Dakota and I have kept our home. I am too pessimistic sometimes. I look at myself being over 100 lbs overweight and say to myself, I will never lose this weight. But the truth is, I have already lost 16 lbs. I didn't tell you this before, but my starting weight was 280. Even in falling off the wagon, I have hovered around the weight I am now. I just have to take action to get more weight off.

My point is, it may be hard to look at a goal of losing 150 pounds, but I've already lost almost 20. That's about 10% I've lost already! It's a start! I just have to keep going.

AM Affirmation: I believe in my ability to improve my health, my attitude and my life. I am worthy of the best that life has to offer and today I have the opportunity to get closer to realizing my dreams and goals.

* Identify and write down your one biggest food or beverage ‘vice’ that is most contributing to your weight, that is keeping you from reaching your health and fitness goals. : Candy Bar

How often during the day do you consume it, and how much? 3 Avg./week

Write down what healthy food you will use as a replacement: fruit, like apples or bananas.

Do I feel I am missing something?  No, I only go to candy because it is convienient. I will try and make fruit more accessible to me.

My actions for today, that are going to become habits:

1. Carrying a water bottle and drinking from it often throughout each day.
2. Eliminating my #1 vice and replacing it with a health substitute.

Have a great day, loves. I will be back to answer questions tonight.
For now, I make breakfast! :)

Vice Busting Diet, Day Two

Good morning, loves!
Welcome to Day 2!

Today is again about water. Water is very important for your body, considering our bodies are like 75% water.

Now, I will be the first to admit that I was never good about drinking water. When I was a kid, my mom limited our sodas to one per day (usually dinner). When I grew up, I started drinking soda more and more. I loved it.

But now, after I have been off and on drinking only water (I usually have a glass of milk with breakfast and dinner.. I love milk)  I go to drink a soda and it feels wrong on my tongue. Like, too slippery or something. Except fountain sodas. They are still good. But I MUST SAY NO! I usually am pretty good. I no longer want to drink my calories.

Here is about how much water you should be drinking:

Your body weight (in pounds) ÷ 2 = targeted ounces of water per day.

It's a lot, right?! Well, at my current weight at 264 (I'm not going to weigh myself until the book tells me to.. no matter how much I want to!) that means I need to drink 132 ounces a day! Wow! Well, I have probably 32 under my belt so far for the day. Only 100 left to go! I'm going to try and build up to that. And drink water all day long, rather than wait until I'm dehydrated!

AM Affirmation: I believe in my ability to improve my health, my attitude and my life. I am worthy of the best that life has to offer and today I have the opportunity to get closer to realizing my dreams and goals.



Today’s Actions:

Current weight:264 lbs.

This is me today: (Well, a few weeks ago,, on our vacation)

This is a picture of the life I want!

dream life by jessiekay77 featuring short skirts

This isn't just about my weight. This is the life I want. I want to be able to have a nice savings account. I want to be Dakota's wife and have a family. I cannot wait to be his wife. I want a kick-ass career that I will be confident in myself, and love what I do. Oh, and make money at it. I want to wear short skirts and not feel self conscious. I want to have a love of exercise. The journal says that tomorrow we will take steps toward this life.. I know someday that this will be my life. I just think that losing weight will help my self confidence to get there..

Evening Questions.. because I'm late.


Write down what was positive about today.
I bench pressed today with Dakota. It was fun. He made me laugh. And my arms are sore. So I would say that's a win, yes?

What one or two things can I do tomorrow to make it a more positive day?
Get up and exercise in the morning!

PM Affirmation: I am thankful for today and the chance that I had to improve my life. I forgive
myself for any shortcomings I may have had, and I look forward to the opportunity that tomorrow
brings to take action toward my goals!

Have a great night, loves. Stay awesome.

Vice Busting Diet, Day One - Evening Questions

Good evening, loves! This post is going up a little later than I would've liked, but sometimes life gets in the way. I was hoping to get some exercise in tonight, but instead I visited with my mom and watched our shows (Switched at Birth was weird this week) and then came home and got everything (finally, everything ) out of our old house. That might count for something, especially since I walked everything back and forth.

So here are my evening questions for tonight.

PM Affirmation: I am thankful for today and the chance that I had to improve my life. I forgive myself for any shortcomings I may have had, and I look forward to the opportunity that tomorrow brings to take action toward my goals!

Write down what was positive about today. 
Today, I had a fizz stick, left over from the detox diet, so I figured, what the hell. I tried it and I really did seem like I could focus better. I am normally very ADD, but after I drank the fizz stick (you mix it with a bottle of water) I could hone in on what I was trying to do so much better. I got a lot done.

Also, my morning walk was nice. 6 AM is nice this time of year. I walked through the sprinklers at the park twice. It was nice to cool off a bit.

What one or two things can I do tomorrow to make it a more positive day? 
I might try and drink another fizz stick (I have a few more) and use it to exercise, like I've done other people do. I wonder if it will make a difference.

I will also plan my dinner better tomorrow, considering I still haven't had dinner. I'll figure something out.

I hope you all had a wonderful day!
See you back here tomorrow for Day 2!

Vice Busting Diet, Day One - Morning Questions

I mentioned yesterday that on this blog I am going to be going through the Vice Busting Diet, which I have started a few times, but never actually made it through all 12 weeks of the book.

That's going to change today.

The whole thing about the Vice Busting Diet, is that you bust your vices, one bad habit at a time. Sounds do able, right? After a few days, the book tells you to work out as well. I already walked this morning, so I'm ahead. I think the hardest thing about this book is to go as slow as it says. But, I think my problem with diets and changing my lifestyle thus far has been that I have thrown myself in too hard, and gotten discouraged when nothing happened after a week or two.  So I am going to try and follow the book the best I can.. except for working out. I will be trying to, at the very least, go for a walk every day.

The Vice Busting Diet Journal has affirmations that you are supposed to say to yourself to help yourself along in this journey. I will be posting these here as well as my answers to the journal questions.

AM Affirmation: I believe in my ability to improve my health, my attitude and my life. I am worthy of the best that life has to offer and today I have the opportunity to get closer to realizing my dreams and goals.

Journal Questions:

List 10 adjectives that you feel describe yourself as you are now:

1. Overweight
2. Unhappy with myself
3. Lazy
4. Tired
5. Sad
6. Talented
7. Confident
8. Ambitious
9. Friendly
10. Reliable

How do these words make me feel when I read them?

They certainly make me sad. But they also make me realize that I described negative words for my body and my body image, but positive words for ME... so I guess that's something, right?

Now write ten adjectives that you would use to positively describe YOU!

1. Confident
2. Ambitious
3. Friendly
4. Reliable
5. Talented
6. Dedicated
7. Determined
8. Loyal
9. Loveable
10. Intelligent

How do these words make you feel when you read them?

Much better. I feel kinda like I'm tooting my own horn with these words, but they make me happy to read them. I feel like this is much more about me. As the journal says, "your body does not have to be a reflection of the person YOU are". And that is very true. That's something that I will work hard to remember.

Do I believe that this plan will work for me? 

Yes! I think so!

What do I feel will make this plan work?

I think that if I can get myself to journal here every day (twice a day, for AM and PM questions), keep track of my food, drink water, and exercise, it will work. I just can't give up. I have to keep going. And ultimately, I believe these steps will lead to my weight loss. And feeling better overall.

Have a great day, loves.

I will be back to answer more questions tonight.

Please note that I am in no way affiliated with Julia Havey or the Vice Busting Diet, this is just a way for me to journal in way that I feel will be helpful to me. 

My Weight Loss Story Begins Today

Hello, loves! Welcome to my new blog, Finding The Inner Skinny. My name is Jessica, and I also blog at Jessie Kay Graphics and Design. But I have been wanting to make a new blog for a while, one to concentrate on my weight loss. I was going to make it anonymous. But I changed my mind when I decided that I want to connect with other people trying to lose weight like me. And I couldn't do that if you didn't know me.

This blog will be a work in progress for a while, but I hope to post here regularly. I hope you will stick around. This blog will chronicle my weight loss journey, my journey to lose 134 pounds (as of today). It will be a long journey. But it will be worth it.

Now, a little bit about me. My current weight is 264.4 lbs.  I am embarrassed to post that. But it is the truth. Over the past few years, I have managed to somehow put on 100 pounds. Well, not just somehow. I know how. By eating badly, not exercising, and just not really paying attention. In high school, I weighed 130 pounds, give or take. That's where I want to be again. To feel better. To look better. To be a better version of myself. The thing is, back then, I didn't ever have to try. I had never been overweight. I was blessed with a mother that cooked the majority of nights. I walked to school. I was thin, and I didn't even have to try. I'm definitely going to have to try now.

A weight I would like to get back to.. Circa 2009

Alas, I know that this weight loss will not come without changes. Starting tomorrow, I will be following the Vice Busting Diet book and posting my answers to the journal questions here. I have already been trying to eat better (read: no fast food, smaller portions) and I haven't been drinking anything but water. Tomorrow, I will start an exercise regimen, probably consisting of Zombies, Run 5k (which I had previously wrote about, but never finished, sadly.) and starting a regimen of weight lifting. I don't want to overload myself and end up giving up, but that is the point of this blog. To keep me going. To keep me accountable. To make you guys my support system.

I will try and end every post with a Reason To Be Fit. Why? Because I love them. And some of them cut to the bone. Like this one, in particular. Straight to the heart, tumblr, straight to the heart.

I hope you will stick with me while I try and figure all of this out. It's going to be a fun journey, and a long one. I hope you stick around.

Stay Fabulous.