My Belly Workout Cheat Sheet....It Doesn't Have To Hurt

My tummy is an area of great concern that needs load of work and energy. 
But sometimes, ok...most times I just don't feel up to doing sit-ups, the plank is about the only tummy exercise I enjoy and do religiously. 

Maybe you are like me and find nothing enticing about the exercises available for this area. 
But thank God for #Google and #YouTube, we can still get a good #Bellyfat Blasting workout while having fun. There are many free dance workouts online that will make maximum use of your abs.

My personal favourite are those that include:

The body roll

The waist roll and

Hip ticks
and especially dance steps with South American influence because of the core and hip movements

With these you can feel the abs at work as you dance.

As a result I have just about every workout by Keaira Lashae.

Her workouts are effective, fun, sexy and give me an edge of awareness I didn't possess before. 

Besides her I do the Zumba Fitness videos done by a South American group.

I mean do I need to explain the HOT factor in these? Colombia, Venezuela, Cuba, Brazil. Sweat and sizzle all the way....

Zumba Fitness Flat Abs Workout by dm_521194add32eb

This is how I'm working at whittling my waistline without stressing about back breaking tummy exercises....getting sexy doesn't have to hurt all the time..... thank you Jesus.

On an almost unrelated note:
A former rugby player with abs to die for told me recently that he doesn't do any ab exercises. He recommended that I suck and clench in my tummy for any standing to sitting activity, especially when working out.

Everytime he sees me working out the first thing he says is:

Navel to spine...clench. :) :) :)

Oh and by the way, to download the videos I use a free online program.
I love this software, not only because it's free but especially because in all the years I've used it, its been nothing short of reliable. I also love that it is so user friendly.

Get your copy of Freemake right here: FREEMAKE VIDEO DOWNLOADER. 

Disclosure:
I am not being compensated for the mention of these individuals or product. I am just sharing things that are working for me. I hope they will work for you too.

If you have a interesting and fun ways to work them abs, I'd love to hear about them.

Any thoughts on this post are welcome. Thanks for dropping in.

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Wishing Thin...Getting Fat

One of the most debilitating things when it comes to health and fitness goals is a bad or misled mindset.

As a "powerless" fat person I kept wishing and wishing for thinness as if wishing by itself would bring about the necessary results. I think sometimes I thought that having a mindset that aspires to be thin sort of excused my current condition.
If I wanted it and it wasn't happening despite my good intention then it wasn't my fault. (Stupid but there you have it).

A lot of damage had been done by the time I realized that this way of thinking leads to no good. 

Source: Unknown

First of all I should not have been aspiring for thinness, there is nothing attractive about being thin when you are not genetically engineered to be. 

Secondly you can be thin but that does not necessarily guarantee health.

What I should have aspired for is: 

• Health for my body, mind and soul to function optimally.
• Fitness for physical dexterity so that I can engage in daily activities, especially with my family, in comfort. (That it requires reduction to a healthy weigh that compliments my shape and composition is a given).

No doubt most of us with weight challenges are consumed with daydreams of thin-ness and one day fitting into the tiniest and sexiest dress we can find.

I remember saying the same thing was my goal when I started my journey 6 months ago...but somewhere along the way things changed.

When I started getting an awareness of what my body could do and what it means to be healthy, I realised that wishing myself thin is not in my best interest.

Working with my body to get the best of its unique shape is what's important.

That's what I'm doing now:

Getting fit and healthy and doing my best to avoid lifestyle related diseases and discomfort is at the top of the list.

I don't have the best diet plan, I wish I ate more vegetables than I get in.... but I think it passes for healthy.

• No simple carbs (discounting the brownie at the coffee table at church on Synday - just cant help myself).
• No refined sugar (again - ignore the brownie)
• and since last July I've gone vegetarian... I just feel better healthwise,
• Lots of exercise ( I workout 6 days a week at home and the gym - 80% resistance training which is what I enjoy)
• and when I started I was counting calories I will not lie but now I would say my calorie intake is now between 1000 - 1300 a day, no more, especially on my rest day.

That's seems to be keeping on the right track, 

I am more concerned about living with a healthy body than I am about my digits. Although knowing kilos lost in one most visible means of keeping track of progress.
Getting more muscle mass than fat is definitely my biggest goal. I enjoy feeling strong, it's my drug of choice.

How about you:

What's keeping you at your unhappy place healthwise?
Or what has been the best thing for you so far about your health and fitness journey?

Thanks for dropping in. I hope you will take a moment to comment and maybe share this post to. Let's spread the message of healthy living. 

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#Weightloss Milestone in my Little Red Dress and March #SquatChallenge

Last August, a month before I decided to embark on my #weightloss journey one of my best friends gave me a red dress as a gift. I looked at it then and just knew it wouldn't fit. She almost took it back in fact when she realised the problem but I kept saying to her, it will fit...it will.

Last Sunday when I sent her this picture:

She was as shocked as can be. As was I.

I just had not expected that I really would lose enough weight to fit into it even though I wanted to with all my heart.

But this just shows me that there is nothing that this body cannot do if only I can only deal with my mind.

It took 5 and a half months but I did it.

This month I further helped my weightloss by taking on a squat challenge and boy am I happy I did that.

You see I tried this dress on at the end of February and just did not like the way it sat even with a jacket on. But look at the difference after three weeks of adding squats to my daily exercise routine. and to think that this month I spent three weeks out of gym as well.

Last Sunday I could actually wear it without having to hide my protruding hips. WHOOP WHOOP! It was the best wedding anniversary present I could have given myself....I'm not sure if hubby felt the same *hidesface* hahaha. But I know he's enjoying the change.

Today is the last day of my squat challenge as seen below... 265 squats done today (I've always just added 10 more in case....of my wayward mouth).

It is hard, it is painful but I am celebrating the halfway mark of my weight loss goal with hips and a butt I am starting to like. 

I cannot recommend squats enough y'all!

Especially for the pear shaped like myself. 

Going forward: 

100 squats in the morning and 50 in the evening.

I'll also do the challenge ever 3 months.

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Missing the #gym but meeting the hurdles.

Just finished today's workout at home. 

Because of some family reasons I haven't been able to attend gym this month which completely messed up my training schedule.

But it's been refreshing to see how much further I can push myself and make things work. I want this, and no matter what, working out must keep going.

So instead of despairing I decided to plan workouts for home.

This has always intimidated me and I didn't think I could do it. But here I am, two thirds of the way through the month still training.

I do miss the gym though, I don't push as hard at home as I do there. It's just so much easier to move on to something else and talk myself out if things.

I think the bit of weight I've lost so far I can probably attribute to being extremely strict with my food, no cheating at all, rather than how hard I've been working out.

But still, I don't miss a day.

I'm hoping things will get sorted soon because I do miss having a full range of weight lifting and resistance equipment at hand and most of all I miss my Pilates and spinning classes. And not to mention, consorting with like minds.

Till then though, I remain committed to fighting the fat fight as best I can.

There is a war to win......and I take no prisoners here.

..

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The Tipping Point of Flab Gone Wild

Hi, I'm Wendy Ewurum: blogger, mom and wife....

This new blog of mine is a symbol of a new and magnificent lifestyle change I've gone through.

But like everything else in life, this change I now call good now did not come easy.  

Convincing myself to do something about fat situation didn't take:

• waking up puking from migranes and sitting with my head on the porcelain throne for most of the day 
•  nor the cracking knees, and backaches or me looking fat, frumpy and feeling 60 in my clothes.

My tipping point came in two parts:

Wakeup call 1

Early 2014 I had an opportunity to interview a well known and influential speaker from the UK, Dr. Ro of Dr. Ro TV when he was visiting. The interview, unbeknown to me, would be on camera.

It was while looking at this picture and watching that interview that I realised just how out of control my weight problem was. I had never seen myself through other people's eyes and it was a shocker. But even more disturbing was that I didn't recognise myself. I felt like I was looking at someone else, not the Wendy I had in mind. I was depressed for days after that and I was not even at my biggest weight yet at 114 or so. No one has ever seen that interview as fantastic as it was.

Wakeup call 2

The second event that really shook me was about 8 months later. My best friend's long term boyfriend didn't know me. I hadn't seen him in about a year and I had to explain to him who I was. This is someone who has known me for the better part of 10 years. But at that moment a look of horror came over his face when he looked at me. I could see he just couldn't reconcile the Wendy he knew with the person that was standing in front of him and worse, we were both so embarrassed because he was trying valiantly to hide what he was thinking and it wasn't working.

I felt so bad and humiliated I never told even my friend but all through that day this encounter ate at me.

Reflection

Dammit I wanted to be able to
take a full length photo and not
cringe to the point of cropping it.

At this point I realised that I had been living in denial.

I kept secretly wishing that my weight would just sort itself out, kept saying that as long as something fit in my wardrobe then I was not that bad.

Never mind that the things I could barely to squeeze into were size 46/24.

It also dawned on me that if this is how other people see me, then is it really that far fetched to think that maybe my husband also doesn't like what he sees but just doesn't say it?

I have to say that at this point nothing was about how good I'd feel being healthier, or what it would do for me. All I wanted was not to disgust people. I wanted to be proud of how I looked. I wanted to be able to take photographs that made me smile.

Time for Action:

That was August and that month I tried to start taking walks but I found it too easy to talk myself out of them. I then signed up for the gym but still could not work up the energy.

During the month of August I got 5 severe migranes, but I didn't know this is what it was at this point. So I thought perhaps I'm becoming diabetic and it definitely had something to do with my sugar consumption which was just extraordinarily high. I just craved the stuff.

The odd thing is that I has stopped eating meat in July but as soon as that happened my weight increased by another 3 kilos because my carb intake increased.

Taking all that happened into account I knew the time had come to do something.

I either had to wake up and recognize things for what they were or accept that my weight would keep ballooning, the hatred I felt for myself would keep escalating and my medical bill would keep growing with everything else.

Be it fear, vanity or ego, whatever it was, it saw me taking a small drive to the gym  that first week of September. 

And that is all she wrote.

My starting weight was 119kgs (05 September 2014)

I am now standing at 100kgs  (17 March 2015)

My first goal weight is 80kgs ... 

I say first goal weight because its my strongest memory of when I really felt good about myself., more than 15 years ago. Maybe once I get there I will have other goals.

At this point it's more than just about the weight and being smaller. I am loving eating clean and working out....

I love the way I feel inside and out.

As much as I am not there yet, my outlook on life has already changed. I feel more confident, emotionally stable and happier, no matter what life throws at me.

I'm starting this blog because I don't want to forget all the things i'm experiencing and learning along the way. I would also like to spread the good news that stem from living a life committed to clean eating and exercise.

Maybe one of my beautiful readers will also find that thing that gives them a light bulb moment about their health condition. Maybe it will inspire someone to take the first step on this journey.

I plan to lose this weight one last time, the right way and then for the rest of my life work on perfecting this body to its healthiest and fittest form. 

I have found that the pursuit of good health has no expiration date, it is a life long commitment.

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