New Year, New Me

Well the new year is here. New Year's Eve I read an article in a magazine about getting rid of love handles. Actually it was a question that someone wrote in for the Question and Answer part of the magazine. The response that was give was eye opening to me, not because I didn't think of it before, I had it in the back of my mind, but because it was just a reinforcement of my goal, but now it is becoming a more prolonged goal.

This is what he said, "Love handles are often the last to disappear when you're trying to get ripped. Overall training is a must, not just sidebends. Make sure you hit every muscle group twice a week. Getting rid of the last areas of flab is always tricky, but it comes down to diet. You need to eat clean all the time. Eating well most of the time doesn't cut it. Cut out the junk. You can do it, but it requires stricter attention to both your training and eating programs. And please note that once you get rid of the love handles, you'll have to keep to a clean eating regimen. Otherwise they'll return in double-quick time."

It just made me remember that this is a life change, not just "reach my goal and then quit". I have to make sure that I continue what I am doing for the rest of my life. Does that mean that I have to write down my food everyday? Probably. I'm horrible @ making wise decisions when it comes to eating. I am swayed too easily to eat the WRONG thing instead of choosing the healthy choice. Even when I am trying to eat healthy, and I forget to write down my food for a few days, I find that I don't quite lose as much weight as I did when I was strict about writing it down. So I better get used to it.

On Wednesday I did my leg workout. My bro-in-law told me that if I mixed my lifting with cardio it would help me build up my endurance. I started with a 5 minute warm up on the elliptical trainer and then I moved to my first set of squats, then I went back to the elliptical and did that for one minute then went to my second set of squats then back to the elliptical and I continued on with this through my whole workout for each exercise. I felt really good after words, but today is Friday and my legs are still sore. I felt like I got so much more out of my exercise routine that day, oh yeah, I did it on Tuesday also with my upper body workout, and it worked well with that one also. I figure I probably didn't burn twice the calories, but I maybe 1.5 times more than usual because I was keeping my heart rate up the whole way through the workout.

I am going to my in-laws this weekend so it is time to update the measurements and see where I stand for the month. Hopefully we have some good news. If not, then I need to work harder and be more strick in my eating habits.