Happy Sunday Everyone!

Not only is it a great Sunday morning, but it is also Memorial Day weekend. So, Charlotte, Colt, and I are heading over to our neighbor Joe's house in a little bit for a barebeque with some our neighbors.

Usually, holiday parties are tricky. Typically I'm on some diet, and I don't want to eat a bunch of junk food. But, now that I'm vegan, there are a whole new set of problems. When you think of cooking out on the grill, you typically think of meat... lots and lots of meat. And the sides are usually full of dairy products.

Luckily, Joe knows all about our eating habits, so he made sure to buy some veggie burgers and a few other vegan things for us! We are bringing our favorite black bean burgers for everyone and I just made some really great chocolate chip, banana cookies. So, hopefully this holiday party will be much more guilt free than normal.

In other news, I've been doing a great new exercise routine, that I just have to talk about.

I've been doing HIIT for a while now, but I've always used the little method. Well, out of curiosity, I decided to try the Tabata method, and I love it!

Basically, you do 20 seconds of really high intensity exercise, followed by ten seconds of rest. You do this four times, and the whole workout takes only 4 minutes.

Sounds crazy right?

I was skeptical too, but after adding this into my daily workout routine, I'm already five pounds down.

Now, let me start off by saying that this isn't all I do. But, I do it every morning as soon as I wake up. It raises my heart rate enough that it wakes me up, and helps my body burn more calories for hours afterwards. (Some sources say up to 36 hours.) I should also say that, by "high intensity" I mean, really high. You have to  work so hard that by the end of the 20 second interval, you feel like your heart is going to burst.

Some athletes do only this... four minutes a day and that's it. A quick Google search brings up tons of research and testimonials about Tabata. I'm so glad I found it!

Aside from that, I've been doing a lot of HIIT on the elliptical, and I have been doing a weight routine which I'm going to do for two weeks, to see what kind of changes I see.

So far, I've increased my weight to 30 pounds, and I've been improving my count every day!

I feel really good, and I'm gaining confidence every day!

Happy Memorial Day!

I planned on coming here to post my weekly workouts... but if feel like that's getting old.

Is that getting old?

I'm also tired, so tomorrow I might reevaluate my decision to half-ass this post... or maybe not.

It is just that there are so many things that I want to write about on this blog. I want to talk about body image, fat-shaming, and all of the other issues that I've faced on this journey. But it seems like all I do lately is post about my workouts, which kept me accountable for awhile, but these days most of my workouts are looking pretty similar.

If I'm not doing a fitness class, I'm usually doing some combination of strength training, cardio, HIIT, and circuit training. Which is great, and my workout is different every single day. But, I don't think it is necessary to post a play by play.

So, I've decided (just now, in my head), that I'm going to start posting about the things that I want to talk about. And, if I have a super good workout, I will post about it in detail, which will be more beneficial than just saying I did HIIT for the day.

Anyway, I'm tired... so that's all I have to say.

Goodnight!

I just realized that it has been close to two weeks since my last post.

I had originally planned to write an update while in Ohio, but it was a crazy, hectic, trip and I just really didn't think about it.

I made some crazy realizations while home. First of all, I realized that it is no use planning my diet and exercise while in Ohio. It just never works out the way I want it to.

More importantly, I realized that eating Non-Vegan foods does not agree with my body.

The first night home, my mom excitedly told me that she had been marinating steaks since the day before. So, I hesitantly decided it would be okay to eat one. I also added a little butter to my baked potato, and had a glass of milk with my dessert (blueberry pie).

Let's just say, woke up at 2 am, and spent the next thirty minutes with my head in the toilet.

So not worth it!

I ate an abundance of sugar while at home too. Between Colt's birthday party, and my early birthday celebration, there was enough cake to feed a third world country.

Needless to say I felt pretty gross.

Exercise was pretty lacking too. I had planned some pretty tough workouts, as an attempt to offset the bad eating I knew I might do. In reality the only real exercise that I got was a couple of walks with my mom.

So, I bet you can guess that the scale wasn't happy.

But, I didn't gain too much, and I already have more than half of it off. (Water weight)

So, even though I wish I could have been healthier, it didn't turn out too badly.

We came home on Tuesday evening, so Wednesday I was ready to get back in the gym.  I didn't have my own workout plan ready so I opted to go to a basic step class, and I added a set or risers to make the workout a little more intense.

Thursday, I did a really effective CrossFit workout. It was five rounds of 100 jump ropes ,and 15 overhead squats. My legs and abs are still really sore.

This morning I'm getting ready to head to the gym to take a Kickboxing boot camp class, and if I'm not too tired I will do Pilates afterwards.

I'm really excited to see where I can take my body this month. Going home was a great reminder of how far I've come! I got such a positive response from my family and friends, so I want to make sure I look and feel even better when I go home in July!