Thursday, March 31, 2011

Setting Goals

One thing that has always motivated me in life is setting personal goals. A year ago I decided that I was getting married on January 1, 2011 and I was not going to have wedding pictures of me being fat. I mentioned in my previous post that my daughter, Alicia made me feel guilty about not working out with her. I had a whole barrel of excuses, she wasn't buying any of them. I finally decided to get serious and set goals.

One thing I really love about the Beachbody workout programs is that they help you establish the goals. Slim in 6 is a 6 week program, Insanity is a 60 day program, P90X is a 90 day program and ChaLEAN Extreme is a 120 day program. You decide what your goal is and when you would like to accomplish it by and then select a program that fits your goals. You can automatically schedule your complete Beachbody® workout program in WOWY SuperGym. Each day when you log in to WOWY it will tell you which workout to complete within your selected program.It doesn't get much easier than that.

When I finally decided to get serious about losing weight, one of the first things I did was to take pictures and measurements. After months of dabbling with the many different workout programs I finally decided to do P90X with my daughter. We took our before pictures and committed to working out daily. After the first 30 days I have to admit I was ready to give up. I was not losing any weight, I was gaining. Everyone kept saying I was building muscle and muscle weighed more than fat. I wanted to believe that, but it wasn't until I took my next set of pictures and measurements that I believed it. My measurements were changing and I was seeing visible results. This encouraged me to stick with it and to keep "pushing play". Tony Horton became my next best friend. I found myself picking up on his catchy phrases like "do you best and forget the rest". When I say I completed the P90X program, I have to clarify that I did my best and forgot the rest. It is an extremely hard workout regiment, but I did the best I could each day and just kept pushing forward. I am so glad that I stuck with it and reached one of my goals.

I got married on January 1, 2011 and lost the 20 pounds that I had set out to lose. I had gone from a size 14 to a size 8. When I purchased my wedding dress and tried it on for the first time they told me it could be let out in size if necessary. There was no way that was happening, I was going to lose the 20 pounds so I could fit in the dress and I did it.

What goals have you set in your personal life? What motivates you to reach your goals?

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Who is Sally Vrooman?

This is my first official Blog. Who would have ever guessed I would be blogging? I've always said I want to write a book, but I could never figure out what to write about. Maybe blogging will inspire me. I plan to use this blog as a personal journal to track my fitness journey. I should have started blogging over a year ago because that is when I started my fitness journey.

Let me start by telling you a little bit about who I am. I am a 52 year old woman that has had three children. With each child I gained 10 pounds that I never lost. I remember when I was 19 years old and in college, I weighed 99 pounds. This memory stays with me because I was on a college swim team and each morning we would weigh in. I was always under 100 pounds and so proud of it. Being on a swim team and working out four hours a day, it was easy to stay slender and physically fit. After college I got married and started to raise my family. I was a stay at home mom for many years, doing child care in my home. Being at home I wore sweat pants and t-shirts every day. I never really worried about my weight, just accepted that gaining weight was a fact of life. Over the years I gradually went from a size 3 to a size 14.

I tried to work on my weight but never put my heart in to it. I purchased all types of workout equipment; Gazelle, BlowFlex, AbCruncher, Wii Fit, and more. I guess I thought if I bought the equipment the weight would magically come off. It became a joke in the family, what had Mom bought now? In January 2010 I decided to sign up to be a Beachbody Coach so I could receive a 25% discount on workout DVD programs. As a Coach I had the opportunity to buy a starter kit that included several workout programs. A friend and coworker had been talking about Beachbody and Shakeology on her Facebook for months and she was losing weight and looking good. I finally asked her to tell me more about Shakeology and the next thing you know I'm signing up. I thought if she can look that good, so can I.

I have to be honest, at first my heart wasn't really in it. I had the workout DVDs and I would put a DVD in, try a couple of workouts but never stuck to any program. Do you see a pattern in my life? I was drinking the Shakeology and enjoying how it made me feel. My daughter had started the P90X program and was pushing play everyday. I kept making excuses and she finally made me feel guilty, so I decided to do it with her. Together we did P90X and both of us were losing weight. Imagine that! After P90X we both did the Insanity 60 Day program. We thought P90X was crazy hard, but Insanity is Insane! We were both officially addicted to working out and well on our way to reaching our fitness goals.

I will continue to blog and share about my fitness journey. Hopefully you will follow me and come back for more. I would love to hear from my readers. Have you struggled to lose weight? Have you fell victim to the exercise equipment gadgets over the years like me? Have you tried exercise DVD's? Gym memberships? What has worked for you?