Just keep swimming, just keep swimming...

Like Dory says, or rather sings, "Just keep swimming, just keep swimming. Just keep swimming swimming swimming. WHAT DO WE DO WE SWIIIIM."

I wasn't planning on exercising at all today, mainly because I got a haircut! I wanted to see what my hair would look like on the second day without washing it, but tonight I felt the urge and desire to go, so I went along with it.

I went to the gym and worked on the elliptical for about 35 minutes. I would jog for 1 minute and 30 seconds then sprint for a minute. I repeated that until I completed 3 miles on the elliptical. Once I came home I turned on blogilates and completed an ab workout!

Going strong three days in a row! Let's see if I can make it four :)

Thank you, Newsies

I ran 4 miles in a little more than 30 minutes today. WHAT??? I totally surprised myself! I was only planning on running about 2.5 miles today, but as I was running I realized that I still had a lot of energy left and so I used it to run some more. Towards the end I was running rather quickly, which felt amazing! I seriously felt like I was flying through the streets.

I owe it all to Mr. Ben Fankhauser and company. If you have not listened to the song "Seize the Day" from the Broadway musical Newsies, you have not lived.

I listened to this song on repeat for the majority of my run. Actually... I've been listening to this song on repeat for the past couple of days. I have barely listened to anything else! It's starting to make its way to being my favorite song in the world. It's so upbeat and their voices are so wonderful and delicious, it makes my soul melt and gets me pumped up!

Anyways, when I came home I tried doing some Pilates. I did about 10 minutes of a few work-out videos, because my body didn't have much energy and strength to complete any of the videos. Oh well! I'm just proud of myself for running 4 miles today!

Long time no....exercise?

Good grief it's been way too long!!

Working out is a weird routine for me. The hardest thing is to motivate myself to work out one day. All it takes is one day and I can work out every day! ...until I take that one day off. Once I take a day off, it becomes a week. Or in this case, two weeks.

I finally got myself to exercise today! You wanna know how? I bought some new gear. My family and I recently went to the outlets and Nike was having their Black Friday sale. SCORE! I bought some athletic leggings and a lightweight running jacket. Now that I can look extra cute when I run, I figured that it was time to start exercising again.

This evening I went to the gym and worked out on the elliptical. I told myself that I was going to run/jog/walk intervals on the machine. Boy did I sweat a lot.. attractive! When I got home I turned on some blogilates and did some pilates at home. I did her "Total Body Bangin' Workout."

I learned that I am extremely out of shape. I want to get back into the habit of working out regularly so that I can "just go run 5 miles" like I used to. Also, I want to build some muscle, especially on my upper body.

One thing that I would like to try out is some zumba! It looks super fun and I heard that it's great exercise. Maybe next time you'll find a post on my first zumba experience!

It's been too long! ...or not long enough...

I haven't been posting for the last few days, because I haven't done any exercise for the last few days! I can feel my body getting sick, so I've decided to not work out because I don't want to add any stress to my body.

Thankfully, I'm feeling better now! I went to the gym with my parents and decided to run on the treadmill again. I didn't want to run a 5K, because I thought that would be too much for my first day back in about a week. I ran 2 miles, 9 minutes each. I was planning on coming back home and doing some Pilates, but I am so tired that I decided not to.

Here's what I ate today!
-eggs, french toast, sausage (brunch)
-salad with chicken, apples, feta cheese, almonds, and raspberry vinaigrette

Back from being under the weather

Hello all!

So the past few days I have been a bit sick. Not terribly sick, but enough to keep me away from working out. That is either a really lame excuse or me trying to help my body fight the bug I have.

Today I started exercising again. I decided to take it easy, mainly because I don't feel like my body is healthy enough to start exercising and because I didn't drink much water today. I gotta drink more water!

Here's what I ate today:
-bowl of cereal
-spaghetti
-spinach salad with apples, almonds, feta cheese, and raspberry vinaigrette. (Super yummy!)

Push it, push it, to the limit, the limit...

This used to be one of my favorite songs when I was a tweenager:

With that said, I definitely pushed myself today! I went to the gym again this evening and decided to run on the treadmill. I decided to run a 5K, which is a little over 3 miles, and then do a Pilates video at home. And that's exactly what I did! I ran the 5K in about 28 minutes, which is 9 minutes a mile! Not bad for someone who hasn't ran over 2 miles in months. I am extremely proud of myself, especially for pushing myself the entire time! There were quite a number of moments where I was fighting myself. The argument in my head would go something like this:

"Wow... I already ran one mile. I think that's enough to keep my heart pumping. I don't rreeeallllyyy need to run anymore."
"Seriously? You told yourself you were going to run 5K, and you're going to do it."
"Yeah, but I haven't ran that much in a while. I should take baby steps. Plus, if I ran a slow 5K, it would take FOREVER."
"Then run it as quickly as you can! The faster you run, the quicker you'll be done."
"I'm tired."
"No, you're not. You're not even out of breath. You are making yourself believe that you're tired!! PULL YOURSELF TOGETHER."

Imagine that times twenty. I probably had arguments like that about twenty times in the course of 28 minutes. At least I didn't stop!

After I finished my run, I cooled down and stretched. I walked back home and opened my computer up to do some Pilates. I focused on my abs this evening. Here I posted one of my favorite ab workouts from Cassie

Thanks for reading!

I DID IT, I DID IT, I DID IT!

It's about time!!! Even though I knew I should start getting back into the routine, I really didn't want to work out today. But after class I told myself if I wanted to eat dinner that I needed to exercise.

When I arrived at home my parents were just leaving the house to go to the gym across the street. I dropped my stuff off, grabbed a few chocolates (for some energy of course), and walked to the weight room with them.

I did half an hour of the elliptical and pushed myself as hard as I could. I didn't want to push myself too hard, because I didn't have much food in my system! Once I finished with cardio, I moved over to the exercise ball where I worked on my crunches and planks. After a good 15 minutes of those, I went to the weight machines and focused on my arms.

Every time I exercise I feel so great! Sometimes I feel my absolute prettiest once I'm done with a work-out. I feel all sweaty and nasty, but so accomplished. I seriously need to remember this feeling so that I can use it as motivation for the next time I take a four-day break!!

I just realized that I never posted yesterday! Don't worry, you didn't miss out on much. I didn't exercise at all and all I ate yesterday was a chicken bake from Costco, half of my dad's Chipotle burrito bowl, and Korean ramen. Delicious....but not nutritious!

Here's what I ate today:
-spaghetti
-peanut butter and jelly sandwich (X2), goldfish
-Korean crackers and chocolate (I'm allowed to have my sweets today)
-chicken marsala, mashed potatoes, and spinach

Day 4 of No Exercising

Oh boy... this isn't good! I told myself that my goal was to work out 5 times a week for an hour each, but so far I've done 0 work outs this week and I'm on my 4th day of not exercising.

I went to Disneyland this evening and got some walking done! But I don't count that as exercise, mainly because it didn't increase my heart rate or make me sweat.

I didn't necessarily eat the most healthy of meals today either:
-spaghetti
-panda express (beef, orange chicken, chow mein)
-blueberry donut

TOMORROW. I'M GETTING BACK INTO THE GROOVE TOMORROW.

Instead of telling you how I didn't exercise, I'm just going to journal what I ate today.

-spaghetti-o's (from Trader Joe's) and a grilled cheese sandwich
-passion tea lemonade from Starbucks
-spaghetti
-goldfish and apple juice (which reminded me of my days in preschool)

I'm really starting to feel it now. I haven't exercised in what is now three days straight and I'm really starting to feel it. My schedule has been so busy these past few days that there hasn't been any time for exercise. It sounds like a lame excuse, but I haven't even been home in the past three days! Ask my mom! Tomorrow looks like another busy day, but I'm planning on walking around a lot tomorrow, so that will have to do.

ANOTHER break day?

Alright. Enough is enough. Tomorrow I am definitely going to get back on track!

I woke up around 12:30 today since I had an extremely long day yesterday and didn't exercise at all today.

Today's eats:
-fried eggs and hash browns
-leftover chicken enchilada
-pizza
-ice cream

Mmmmm. As you can see, today was extremely nutritious.

Yes, yesterday was another break day

Yes, to keep it short and sweet, I did not do any kind of physical exercise yesterday. I was busy all day...literally all day from 6:45 am in the morning to 4:00 am this morning.

Here's what I ate:
-half of an egg and ham sandwich
-chai tea latte from Starbucks (I don't think I'll get it again, mainly because I've been spoiled with real chai)
-chicken pasta from Cheesecake
-couple slices of pasta

I didn't really care about what I ate yesterday, and I'm ok with that! I'll get back into the rhythm soon.

Break Day

Yesterday I was planning on exercising today, but about halfway through today I told myself that I could use a break.

I woke up early (9:00...early for me on a Friday) in order to get to school on time in order to get a permit to register for a certain childhood development class that I need to take next quarter. I got to school around 10:30 and walked to the office where they were issuing permits. The woman behind the desk told me that I was lucky because the class usually fills up around 8:30, only 30 minutes after they opened! This specific class is an observation/field study class, which is located at different school sites around the Los Angeles area and it just so happened that the two remaining preschool sites were in Hollywood and Pasadena. Praise Jesus! I immediately jumped on the class at the preschool in Pasadena.

Anyways, that is just some fun news for today!

I decided not to exercise today mainly because I had a pretty full day and I figured that I could have one off day. I spent the morning and early afternoon at school, remaining afternoon at work, and the evening baby-sitting. I'm glad I gave myself a break today, because I needed it!

Today's eats:
-honey bunches of oats
-half a bagel with cream cheese
-burrito with basically everything in it from Burrito Express
-pasta, salad, carrots

More exercise=more food

Today I discovered, not the for the first time, so I guess I rediscovered that when I exercise more I need to eat A LOT MORE. First let me tell you what I ate today:

-egg
-lentil soup and bread
-Korean ramen
-bowl of cereal (honey bunches of oats) with banana slices
-half a bagel with cream cheese
-slice of raisin toast
-chicken enchilada with peas and carrots
-medium strawberry and banana smoothie with protein boost from Jamba juice

WOW! That is a lot more food than I have been eating recently! I ate Korean ramen for lunch today and thought I would be satisfied until dinner time, but three hours later I was extremely hungry. So hungry that my stomach was growling and my body was shaking! I could barely stand and walk around because I needed food so badly! That's when I downed a bowl of cereal, a bagel slice, and raisin toast.

Ten minutes later I found myself speed walking with Sydney and Katelyn. We ended up speed walking for half a mile and then jogging for half a mile. It was an easy work-out with them today. I practiced my handstands and finally got over my fear of being upside down and having all my weight on my hands and arms. I tried doing a handstand push-up, but I'm not quite there yet!

After dinner I decided to go to the gym with my mother, which is where I got most of my exercise in! I was on the elliptical for a total of 25 minutes, which consisted of: 8 minute warm-up, 15 minutes of intervals (where I was sprinting 1 minute, then walking the next), and 2 minute cool-down. After that I did about 130 crunches on the exercise ball, some weights to work out my arms and back, and some floor ab exercises.

What I'm really excited about is that my body is requiring more energy, which means MORE FOOD!!! Now I remember why I used to enjoy exercising.

At the end of the day you're another day.... sore-er

Yeah yeah yeah. Sore-er isn't a word, but that's how it goes if you're trying to work out everyday!

Today was the most intense work out so far! I went over to my friend's house again to do some more strength training. We started out with a 400-meter warm-up run then worked on our handstands. I was nervous at first because I wasn't able to do one by myself the other day, but today I tried again aaannndddd I DID IT! All. By. Myself. The first time I got up I was so excited that I immediately put my feet back down to celebrate my success with my friends, Sydney and Katelyn. It took me a couple tries to get back up, but once I did, I was able to hold it for a good amount of time. I was so proud of myself!

Then we started the real work-out. We did 15 push-ups, 20 hip thrusters (If you aren't familiar with them, here's the link to a demonstration: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41HBcDMzzSU), and 30 overhead squats with 10 lb. weights. One set contained 15 push-ups, 20 hip thrusters, and 30 overhead squats. We had a timer set to 25 minutes but had to try and complete 5 sets within that time period. I was able to complete 4 sets plus 7 push-ups! My goal is to complete 5 within 25 minutes next time.

After our work-out I went for a quick run. At that point my body was a little shaky from all the exercises we did earlier, so I kept it at a mile.

I'm not a huge fan of posting what I eat throughout the day, but writing it for the public to see helps me stay dedicated to eating a little healthier. Again, I'm not going to cut out all fast food, snacks, and other yummy things, but I am going to eat them in moderation. Without further ado, here's the food I ate today:

-two eggs
-lentil soup with bread and butter
-half a slice of pizza (I might have eaten more, but I wasn't hungry because I was offered pizza right after I ate lunch)
-Korean seaweed soup, rice, fish, and potato salad

If you're reading this, thanks for reading! It means a lot to me! In fact, I have a present for you. Here's a hilarious scene from one of my favorite shows, New Girl

Just gotta take it a step at a time...how about baby steps?

Well, day two is just about to end and I wouldn't say it was the most successful day but I also wouldn't call it a failure. For whatever reason I didn't get very much sleep last night and had an early morning and a busy day! With that said, I was able to watch what I eat and was able to exercise.

Here's what I ate today:
-two eggs
-tuna fish sandwich and baby carrots (again!)
-red quinoa with corn, black beans, onions, cilantro, and sweet chicken sausage

The quinoa was a success! Here's the recipe I used with some modifications of course!

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/quinoa-and-black-beans/

Instead of vegetable broth I used the chicken broth we had in our fridge! Plus I think that the chicken broth would taste better! I also added some chile powder as well as more cayenne pepper to give it more of a kick. And the sweet chicken sausage was just some added protein, which is basically my excuse to just add more meat.

So I'm sure you're dying to know how I worked out today...right? Well, I went for a quick 15-minute run around my neighborhood and then came home for some Pilates! I was planning on going for a 30-minute run, but my mind was so tired from lack of sleep and a busy schedule that my body was feeling it too. I decided that I wasn't going to push myself too hard today, especially since I'm trying to ease back into running.When I got back home from my run, I opened youtube and went straight to my favorite online Pilates instructor, Cassey Ho, the founder of Blogilates. I don't remember how I came across her, but the first video I did with her, about a year ago, she was talking so much it served as a distraction to all the pain she was putting me through. She may talk a lot... a little too much sometimes... but she posts some kick-butt workouts. The one I did today was called "Train Like a Beauty, Look Like a Beast." Since I loooooove Disney and my middle name is Belle, I thought, "This video was made for me." Not. It was so difficult, but hopefully I can push myself so that I can perform better next time!

Well, thanks for tuning in today! :) 

If you want to check out the Pilates video I tried today, here it is!

First day...SUCCESS!

Good evening...readers? I question who I'm writing to, because I'm actually not expecting many to read it! It's not like I publicly announced that I was writing some blog. I figured that by just writing the blog would keep me accountable to eating more healthy and exercising more regularly! So far so good!

Here's what I ate so far today:

1. Scrambled eggs with bell peppers and baby tomatoes (I don't know why I even put baby tomatoes in my scrambled eggs when I don't even like them...it's a good thing I only sliced up three! I ended up just throwing them away.. I know. What a waste. But I did eat one slice!!)

2. Tuna fish sandwich and carrot sticks

I'm hoping to make some kind of mixed berry-plain yogurt-protein powder shake in a little bit! :)

Want to know how I worked out? Of course you do. I ran for about 20 minutes today! It wasn't that long, but I haven't gone running in a month so I'm trying to build up the distance and speed! I did try to push myself a little today since I didn't have a lot of time to run, so I did go a little faster than my usual speed! GO LIZ! After that I went to my friend's backyard and we did some push-ups, lunges, and handstands. It was my first time trying to do handstands against a wall, and it is A LOT harder than I thought! Who knew that carrying your whole body weight on your arms and hands would be difficult? I managed to do one (...with some help)!

So there's day 1!!

Why am I doing this?

Well, here I am. I never thought in my entire life that I would write a blog, but a certain Debbi Lowther has inspired me to write one! (Shout out to Debbi Lowther, author of http://exerciseschmexercise.blogspot.com/)

This blog is to keep me accountable as I work towards a more fit lifestyle! I may be skinny, but I am definitely not toned. I used to work out regularly and I remember feeling great about myself during that time! But then there will be that one day where I refuse to exercise, which then leads to two days...then three days....a week...and then a month. My goal is to work out at least 5 days a week, at least an hour a day!

I'm a lover of food. Every time I think, "I want a flat stomach.. and some toned arms and back.. I can exercise regularly! That'll fix it!" it usually leads to, "Oh wait... I have to change my diet too? NO WAY! What about my tacos and in 'n out??" I'm not planning on changing my diet too drastically where I'm eating oatmeal in the mornings and fish and brown rice for dinner. Instead, I'm going to try and cut down sweets, like candy and dessert...and yes...donuts, and microwave foods (good-bye chicken nuggets, hot pockets, and Costco chicken bakes) to a minimum and focus more on fresh produce and not-as-processed foods.

My friends tell me that I say, "Do it," whenever I try and encourage them to..well..do something, so that's the theme for my blog. I understand that it is Nike's motto; I'm not stealing it from them... I'm just borrowing it. It is and will be my inspiration as I try and work towards a toned body!

Stay tuned!