Let's try this again...shall we?

 

 

Hello beautiful readers! Sorry that it has taken me so long to update, but I am here now & hope to be returning and writing on a weekly basis :)

 

Let me start off by wishing all of you HAPPY 2013! I'm a bit late, but oh well.

 

 

I had a wonderful holiday and break from work and really took the time to catch up on some me time and relax. It also gave me the opportunity to look at the year ahead and what I really want for myself. Lucky for me, being a Tone It Up girl, K&K had us all covered with a wonderful challenge to kick off 2013!

 

What I love about these ladies is that they create challenges that not only focus on fitness and nutrition, but on how to better yourself as a whole. Seeing as one of my main goals for this year is to gain back my confidence and focus on self-love, this challenge is absolutely perfect. A large part of that is kicking my butt in both the gym and the kitchen, but it is SO much more. It is looking in the mirror and loving myself. It is finding what makes my heart happy and putting my all into that. It is loving and adoring everyone around me. It is focusing on all my blessings and never forgetting the good in my life.


A year from now, this will be me...

A started off this challenge really strong. On Monday, an old injury flared up and I had to listen to my body and take it easy for a couple of days. A bit of history on said injury - When I was 13, I had a gymnastics incident...basically I attempted a back flip and landed on my head/neck. I was taken to the hospital, put in a neck brace and found out just how lucky I was to have no damage to my spinal cord. Because of this injury though, I have 2 pinched discs in my neck and 1 in my lower back. I have also lost the curve in my lower spine and the curve in my neck has actually started to bend the other way. Last but not least, I have early signs of arthritis in my spine...at 23. Boo!

I used to let this injury be an excuse to hold me back from exercise. Now I am learning to work with it and listen to my body. The flair up earlier this week reminded me that I need to take care of myself and really listen to my body. My body does amazing things for me and I need to treat it as such!


I also started another challenge on Monday - Tina Reale's Best Body Bootcamp. You can read more about it in the link, but I absolutely love the concept! Lots of new and challenging exercises for me to try and it also focuses on setting and achieving personal goals every week. It is an 8-week fitness challenge that just so happens to align quite nicely with the Tone It Up one :)


Another goal of mine for 2013 is to fall in love with running. I did my first registered race near the end of 2012 and I really want to keep that going! I will be running my first 10k at the end of April and decided to join a 10k clinic, not only for the motivation and guidance, but also for the tips and tricks! It starts on February 5th and I couldn't be more excited!


I am going to end this post here...and head back to work ;) I love getting as much motivation and inspiration as possible, so if you would like to follow me on my journey, I post daily on Twitter and Instagram :) 



Bye for now!! xo