Time To Focus On A Healthier Me

This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and alli® weight loss aid. All opinions are mine alone. #alliInMyLife #Before #CollectiveBias

In the past year I’ve taken hundreds (maybe even thousands) of photos of my children but, looking back at pictures from the past 365 days, I’m in a total of five pictures with my kids. Five. When we were on vacation this year I was taking a photo of my family and a woman asked me if I wanted to get in the picture with them and she’d take it and I heard myself saying “no thanks”. I had a chance to get in the photo and I turned it down. This same scenario has happened dozens of times.

I tend to avoid cameras, not because I don’t want pictures with my kids or the ability to look back at memories, but because I hate how I look when I look at photos of myself. The truth is that I’ve felt like that for a while. Ever since having children I’ve cringed when I’ve seen pictures of myself. I hate what I see when I look in the mirror and that feeling, along with being overweight, affects many aspects of my life. From not being able to go ziplining on vacation to holding myself back from doing things I want to do to not being able to hike with my kids at their Cub Scout camping trip, I need to get healthier before it’s too late. I want to be more active with my boys and be able to keep up with them but most of all I want to feel better about myself.

I realize my body is never going to get back to the way it used to be in college but I do know that I can be a lot healthier than I am now. With school starting soon it’s the perfect time to get started. I need to do this not only for my children but for myself. The first thing I had to do was tell myself that I AM WORTH IT and focus on making myself a priority. The other day I went out and got a haircut and a pedicure and then spent a couple hours shopping for new clothes for myself. I realized that sitting around in yoga pants and oversized t-shirts was never going to make me feel better about myself and just recently bought the first pairs of jean shorts I’ve owned since college. I’m realizing that it’s important to invest in myself.

The second thing I needed to do was set goals for myself. When setting goals, it’s always important to make them realistic. As much as I’d like to say I’m going to only eat fruits and vegetables and I’m going to workout for a couple hours every single day I know that is just not going to happen. If your goals are realistic there is a better chance of meeting them. Another thing to keep in mind when goal-setting is to make them measurable. Goals you can’t measure can never be achieved because you’ll never know when you meet them.

I chose a handful of goals that I thought were important to an overall healthy me (and that were both realistic and measurable):

• Spend at least 15 minutes a day doing something for myself
• Join an exercise class 3 days a week and put them on my calendar
• Drink 5 glasses of water a day
• Make a meal plan with healthy options on it

After I figured out my goals I needed to overcome the “roadblocks” in my way, specifically time and motivation. Lack of time has seemed to be the biggest thing standing in my way. For years I worked full-time during the day, ran my kids around in the afternoon and evening and then blogged late at night. I had kept busier than I ever should have been. My days are open more now which means I can get to the gym during the day when my kids are at school. I’m signing up for a couple exercise classes that I can go to right after I drop the kids off. In the past, when I have had time to exercise and someone to watch the kids it was hard to get motivated to leave the house and get to the gym but this way I’ll already be out so I think that would fix the motivation issue. Also, having it on my calendar as a scheduled event means I’m more likely to go.

The next step was to make a plan for myself because I feel that if it’s not written down and planned for it won’t happen. I’ve come up with a plan that includes exercise, eating healthier, drinking more water and using alli® weight loss aid. I decided to use my planner to track health related things so I’d look at it throughout the day since it was in there along with my schedule and to-do list.

To start I scheduled in time to exercise and to eat. I know that sounds silly but when I get really busy I tend to skip meals and if it’s on my calendar it will remind me to eat. I created spaces to keep track of the water I’m drinking and that I took my alli® weight loss aid pills with my meals three times a day and my nightly multivitamin like recommended. When I drink the water or take my pill I can just shade in the circle next to each.

I also put my daily menu on my calendar sheet. I tend to wait until the last minute to figure out what’s for dinner and then choose something in a box that’s not too healthy. With a little planning I can make sure I have ingredients on hand and prep done for healthier meals. Since meals are so important while taking the alli® weight loss aid I want to have them planned out so I stay in their guidelines of meals that are well-balanced, reduced calorie and have no more than 15 grams of fat per meal. I found a lot of great meal ideas in the alli® Brand Startup Guide online at www.myalli.com. Not only are the meals healthy but they look delicious and filling, too!

I feel great going into the new school year. I have goals in mind, have overcome roadblocks in my way and have a plan in place to get healthier! Here is a “before” photo of me and I’ll post the “after” photo when I do the next update.

You can find alli® weight loss aid at your local Walmart. Find a coupon here.

*Disclaimer: alli® (orlistat 60 mg capsules) is for weight loss in overweight adults, 18 years and older, when used along with a reduced-calorie and low-fat diet. Follow label directions. In studies, most people lost 5-10 pounds over 6 months.