Image by Shay Cochrane

This time last year I was hoping to lose a little bit of weight. Usually I go through cycles throughout the year where my weight is a little higher or a little lower depending on the season. However, I noticed that I didn’t lose a few pounds like I normally do during the summer, so my winter weight was a little higher than I prefer. I didn’t really know what to do about it, because my metabolism normally keeps things in check “enough.”

Then we went to Burlington for Whit’s birthday, and I gained 3-4 pounds in one weekend. Oops. We ate pretty well, hah. I tried to eat healthier, but I wasn’t fully committed to only eating clean, natural foods, and I wasn’t used to heavy exercise due to the past couple years of trying to not strain my body.

This summer I exercised a lot (swimming! biking! hiking!), and re-focused my eating habits. We were still eating out all the time though, and having more frequent alcoholic drinks, and I ended up the same as where I started, though I felt a little better. It was a shock that my metabolism didn’t keep up with my changing habits like it always has. I feel SO OLD now that I have to take action to keep myself in check – and I know that is super normal but I’ve been very fortunate so far in life.

Being a full time grad student didn’t make it easy to prepare healthy meals or have time to exercise, let alone all the other normal habits a person should make part of her life. With four weeks of winter break ahead of me, I decided to really re-think my health, and start healthy habits. Some of it is about losing weight (I’m higher than I’ve ever been, and in the upper range for normal weight for my height and age) – I want to feel good about myself when I look in the mirror. I also don’t want to huff and puff when I ride my bike or do light exercise, and most importantly, I want to know that I’m taking care of my body – especially the nutrition (or lack thereof) that I’m putting inside it.

So, six days ago I started the Arbonne 30 Days to Fit, along with Jillian Michael’s 30 Day Shred. I’m excited to see how it goes! I *hope* to have enough time and motivation to not only keep up with the program, but post recipes and tips and how I’m doing here on the blog. I’ll also share before and after pictures if there is enough of a difference that you could tell which one is which! Hah.

Are you doing anything to maintain or improve your health? New Year’s Resolutions, goals, or just general practices? I’d love to hear!