Week Four: Julianna

Starting weight: 152
Weigh-in weight: 151

Although I haven’t seen the numbers fall that much on the scale this month, I can say that I’ve seen a lot of changes in my physique.

I finally found a workout routine that works perfectly with my schedule, not to mention that I have more time to do homework now. Every Tuesday and Thursday, I peel myself out of bed at 7 a.m. in order to get to the gym by 9 a.m. (I live in St. Albert). I am usually done by 10:45 a.m., and then by 11:00 a.m. I am doing homework on campus. There’s no way that when I signed up for my 2 p.m. Tuesday and Thursday design class at the beginning of the year that I thought I would ever wake up before 10:30 in the morning on those days. It’s incredible, the things I’ll do to get in shape.

Anyways, I’m glad that I’m doing this, because I seem to have a lot more energy during the day now, and I’ve started to see the effects with my muscles being a little more toned. Also, after a bit of digging, I believe I can feel what I’d like to call a steel wall: yes, that would be my abs.

To be honest, I haven’t been doing all that great lately with my eating plan, or at least not as well as I would like. My weakness has mainly been the lack of sleep causing me to crave the dreaded sugar binges. If I had managed to cut out said binges in the last few weeks I am certain that I would now be squeezing into a smaller pair of jeans.

If I must blame one thing for my recent lack of self-control, I would choose to blame my friends’ comments that have been going straight to my head. What I mean by this is that some people have been asking, “Why would you be doing a program to lose weight?” as well as “Why are you watching what you eat, you’re looking skinny to me?” While these comments can be extremely flattering (yes indeed, thank you friends!), they also tend to weaken my resolve to eat only healthy foods. That being said, I know all too well how difficult it is for me to simply maintain my current weight. This requires making sacrifices and also being conscious of and vigilant about my eating habits.

With a new month starting, I believe that I need to set some bigger and better goals, mostly in the eating department. I have a friend who recently informed me that in efforts to lose weight a mere 20% is due to exercise and 80% is due to the way you eat. I certainly haven’t been following that rule of thumb in the past few weeks. Therefore, my challenge this month will be to maintain my workout plan (going to the gym twice; Aquasize once; and Bikram once each week) and to incorporate an eating plan into my routine that doesn’t include additional food groups (aka chocolate).