My Workout Motivations

We all know that it's tough to keep motivation for working out, but ultimately it's in our best interest to keep our hearts and bodies healthy.  I've already written a post on my weight loss posted February 2010.  This particular posting is dedicated to how I maintained my weight loss.

Honestly,  It's great to have someone around you who can say "When was the last time you went to the gym?"  It will keep you going.  It's great to have someone you can go to the gym with or take some sort of active class with.  I signed up for a 5k race that was held this past April.  This forced me to get in the gym more often and to run outdoors to build my endurance and to work for a quicker time.  Setting goals is key.  If you have nothing that you are working towards, it's much harder to quit. Remember baby steps are key.  Don't try and set a huge goal and expect to reach it in a day. It will only make you lose motivation that much quicker.  Majority of the fight in motivating yourself for a workout is mental!  Once you can overcome your mental obstacles, the physical part comes right along.

Having natural hair has made it easier to just get up and workout when i'm wearing a wash and go, but when I'm not, it is more difficult to convince myself to get up and hit the gym.  However, the healthier you are in your body, your hair will be that more healthy, so let's get it going!  Just be sure to rinse that sweat out of your hair.

So my advice is to set a goal that you have to work towards, whether that means signing up for a 5K, buying a beautiful dress that's a size too small, buying new workout gear, buying nothing but water to drink, signing up for a dance class that has a recital at the end, and etc.

Currently,  Ive been going to the gym and had not set a goal for it, which made it harder for me to stay motivated, but as of recently,  I long to see more muscle definition, not necessarily weight loss.  I want to be in the best shape that I can be and be a more disciplined person in every facet of my life, and from what I hear, working out is one of the best ways to do that.

Hope this helps!

Wii Fit and EA Sports

OK. So the Wii Fit I have had for a while and would use it occasionally to exercise with. The exercises they had me to do on their required a lot of balancing and making sure you hold your center of gravity in whatever exercise you do. However, as we all know, exercise can get very boring doing the same things over and over again, AND, it's so easy to cheat yourself when no one is watching.

However, my younger sister bought a game for the Wii Fit by EA sports, and I tell you, that game is awesome. It like a cross between Wii Sports and Wii Fit but has much more variety. It has a boxing portion on it that requires you to hit the "boxing bag". It teaches you how to hit under-handed, over-handed, and over-head in tennis. It has you to run, do a lot of resistance exercises. It comes with a resistance band as well.

You can choose the different exercise routines that you want to do. They all have time limits and listed next to them are the amount of calories that you would burn if you are doing the exercises out at full capacity. Anyways, the game is great, you have fun, AND burn bunches of calories at the same time. The next day or so you may wake up sore, but that's a good thing. No pain, No gain, right?

I recommend this game to anyone who is unable to make it to the gym as often as they like. I wouldnt say completely substitute it for the gym, BUT, it is a great supplement to it.

Comfortably Me

I've decided to start this blog to speak about my journey of being comfortable simply being me. Alot of us are unhealthy with the way we look on the outside and it begins to overshadow what we feel about ourselves on the inside. I've decided that instead of me being unhappy with how I look and feel about my outer appearance, I could do something about it. Finding your personal "style" can be somewhat difficult if you dont know where to start. Well, experimentation is key. Over the years I have tried many styles of which none of them really fit me. But I have been told that I have this sexy/classy/diva style thing going, and honestly I love to just feel pretty. However, I've been in law school for a little over 2.5 years and my style has suffered enormously. Partly because of laziness and the other part because I've lost 25 pounds. None of the clothes I used to wear fit me anymore. It's been difficult because I was so used to upholding this standard of how I dressed and being in school has left me unable to afford much of what I used to accomplish via my outer appearance. And im going to go to the store today, find some cute and affordable clothing and begin my journey back to me.





HAIR!!!!! Not to mention, I am transitioning from relaxed to natural hair, for the second time around. Sometimes my hair just does not want to cooperate, and putting heat into it constantly is simply not an option. Im going to take the next couple a months and attempt to go heat free by doing twist-outs, braid outs and etc. I havent relaxed my hair since October 2008, which is about 16 months ago.




Exercise- Whew, I've been doing a lot of that lately. Im just a little over 4'11" but im not quite 5'. When I came to law school I averaged between 128 and 130. Now I maintain a weight of 106 to about 109. I lost the weight due to stress from school and I was sick for a short while. I will not recommend for anyone to lose weight in that fashion. I was very lazy about exercise and my body for a while, why? Because it simply was not fun for me. However, fun should not be so much of a factor when we should be taking care of ourselves and our bodies. We only get one. It is our temple. What we do for it now will affect us later in life, and maybe even sooner than we think. The picture at the top was taken in 2005, the picture below is a more recent picture.




My purpose- I want to devote this blog to my journey in staying mentally, and physically healthy throughout my law school career (though it's the end of it), and life after law school. I will keep you updated on my transition to natural hair as well. We all have busy lives in some form or fashion but it is important to feel comfortable in our skin as well as maintain great health for our mental and physical bodies.

I am not licensed in psychology, medicine, nutrition or the like, I am simply speaking from experience and from the things that I do and will do to accomplish my goals. Anyhow, stay tuned for more, I am excited, and I hope that you will enjoy and gain great insight from this blog.

I also have another blog here at caoimhesessence@blogspot.com. (it's moreso a journal, insightful, everyday life type of blog) You can join me there for spiritual advise/opinions, to vent, to read poetry (I can be a little creative). Just follow me!

Until we meet again, may His peace be with you!

Caoimhe