After months of research, planning, and preparing, today is the day I begin my CurvySexy Fitness journey. I created this plan under several premises that I found to be true in my decades of being overweight:
1. Everyone has their own health goals. Not everyone wants to be stick thin or rock solid. Some girls, myself included, love their curves and want to be healthier while maintaining or enhancing those curves.
2. Just because we may not want to run a marathon (or maybe we do, the choice is ours) or fit into the "standard" expectation of a healthy weight doesn't mean we don't want to feel strong, sexy, and healthy.
3. Crash diets and weight-loss fads aren't going to get us there. What we need is a lifestyle change - a series of steps and good habits that we can build upon slowly to create the results and life that we want for ourselves. And we still want to have fun while we do it.
4. It's not just about diet and exercise. It's about happiness, life satisfaction, that buzz of excitement that comes from feeling sexy in your own skin, and being the version of yourself that you most want to be - not what someone else wants for you.
In order to do this we need to decide who that person is. When we close our eyes and imagine ourselves at our best, what do we look like? For me, that girl is curvy, sexy, confident, and kind. She's an amazing English professor and a published writer. Or maybe she's helping others become who they want to be. She has a style of her own - classically edgy with a romantic flair. She lives life to the fullest, and she is in touch with her sexuality.
Who is it that you want to be?
In an effort at total transparency, I start this journey weighing in at 289.4 lbs on a 5'4" body. My body, currently, has limitations. I used to be a dancer, I once trained to run a 5k in its entirety, and I once lost 100 lbs in five months, but it has been a long time since I have made a serious effort. Because of this, I lack the flexibility, stamina, and lung capacity that I once had. But I am sure I'm not alone in this journey, and so we start small and work our way there one step at a time. And today is the first day, the first step. We'll keep it simple.
Today's goals:
1. Breathe - First thing when we get out of bed this morning, do 5 deep inhalations/exhalations. I'm talking about the kind we often see at the beginning of most exercise videos where they circle their arms up over their heads on the inhale and back down on the exhale. We want to feel our bodies stretch and wake up as we breathe.
2. Hydrate - Drink 8 glass of water, plus one glass for every 25 lbs we want to lose. For those of us who dislike drinking water or need a little variety, this can be enhanced in the following ways: add 2 tbsp of no-sugar added cranberry or pomegranate juice, add a squeeze or two of lemon or lime, add fruit infusions, add green tea, or add a partial packet of our favorite flavor of Emergen-C.
3. Exercise - Do 20 minutes of yoga. Find a favorite 20 minute yoga video on YouTube that matches our skill and ability level, and do it either to wake up in the morning or to relax before bed. For beginners or for people who have a low fitness level like myself, I recommend Yoga for Complete Beginners.
Also, begin body awareness in terms of how we carry ourselves. Work on posture and strengthening our cores by drawing in the stomach and abs and pulling our belly buttons in toward our spines. Imagine we are trying to button a tight pair of jeans. This not only pulls the muscles in but also lifts them. The goal is to eventually get to a place where we are doing this all the time without thinking. Until then, practice awareness and drawing them in and up as often as we remember.
4. Nutrition - Begin by making healthier choices in our food. Try to avoid heavily processed or fast food. Try to incorporate vegetables and fruits and lean proteins. Try to limit carbs to whole grain and to breakfast and lunch only. This morning I had steel-cut oatmeal with peanut butter, a splash of milk, and cinnamon, as well as a mandarin orange for breakfast.
Also, consider taking a woman's multi-vitamin, an omega-3 like fish or flax seed oil, and extra Vitamin-D.
I hope my blog inspires you to start your own journey to find and make your best self. I will be posting here every day for the first week, and then checking in at least weekly thereafter. Please leave comments or questions below, and I will happily respond.
Get CurvySexy,
Christine
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