Eat healthy.
Exercise more.
Eat less fat.
Join a gym.
Any of the above sound familiar? It's that time of year again. You know what I'm talking about. The holidays are over and the only reminder left of the season are the cookies that seemed to have made their way to your waistline. It's the same story every year. We make the resolution in January to change our attitude about exercise and healthy eating. Come March, we have fallen off the fitness wagon. May arrives and bathing suit season is on our minds. Back onto the wagon we climb. Some of us may keep our fitness routine going through fall, but we know how work, kids school schedules and sporting events can really screw us up. We put everyone else's needs before ours and before we know it, the holidays are here again and we use them as an excuse to slip back into our old habits.
I like to think I live a healthy lifestyle. I try to eat right and exercise, but sometimes it is nice to have a group of people to reach out to when you hit a bump on your road to a healthy lifestyle or to share a personal victory like when you lose a pound or two. This is why I am so glad I signed up to participate in Cathy Zielske's "Move More Eat Well 2.0" class offered through Big Picture Classes.
If you are not familiar with Cathy and her journey to a healthier lifestyle, go and check out her blog. She is not a personal trainer or licensed nutritionist, but a graphic designer, author and blogger by profession (and a very well-know scrapbooker I might add). Cathy is extremely candid about her ups and downs when it comes to weight loss. And I believe it is because of her honesty that she has built a stong online healthy lifestyle community within her "Move More Eat Well" class.
Those that know me may be wondering why I am participating in this class. Am I overweight? No (although I do have a few pounds to lose after the holidays!). This is not a weight loss class. It is a class for those want to document their journey to healthy living and have the support from those who have the same goal. And if they lose a few pounds in the process, GREAT!
I started working out with a trainer (and three other friends) a little over a year ago. We meet twice a week and the training sessions are great. No two are ever the same. In the beginning, we also had a weight management meeting every other week. Lisa, our totally awesome trainer, is extremely knowledgeable and was constantly giving us ideas of how to stay on track with our weight loss and fitness goals. Unfortunately due to scheduling conflicts of all involved, we had to stop those meetings. I miss them. Being accountable to others and having a support group, I feel, is very helpful when it comes to reaching your healthy lifestyle goals. And that is why I chose to participate in this class. I am looking forward to sharing trials, triumphs, recipes, exercise ideas, etc. with those participating. And I am looking forward to documenting the process.
Every month Cathy will provide class participants prompts and digital templates to help document their journey to being a healthier person. I will be creating my pages using her templates, printing them out and placing them in an album. The very first photo in this post is the printed version of my title page. The photo above is the digital version.
One of the pre-class assignments Cathy had us do was a "Statement of Intention." Mine is above. This will go behind the title page of my album.
The first page of my album is the one you see above. Again, Cathy provides us with the templates and we just drag and drop photos in using Photoshop.
I am really looking forward in documenting this journey and I hope you will follow along! Each Monday I will have a "Move More Monday" post where I will share my MMEW pages, recipes and other healthy lifestyle tips that work for me and just might for you, too!
Here's to a happy and healthy 2013!
