Those were my daughter’s words when she saw me all dressed up last night for the company holiday party. This was my first holiday party since I left Los Angeles and came to live in this beautiful little town.My daughter’s words melted my heart… I mean, how couldn’t they? I looked like a princess in her eyes.
What my daughter doesn’t know because she’s still too young to understand is that I got to wear a dress that hadn’t fit me in about 4 years, a simple black dress with spaghetti straps and it felt really awesome to wear it again.
Today I am wearing my favorite P90X black t-shirt, you may recall that a few weeks ago I started using dumbbells. Well, I have definitely noticed that my arms are getting shapelier, firmer and with more muscle definition. My t-shirt feels a little tighter around the arms and a lot looser around the stomach, so I know it didn’t shrink.
I will be done with RevAbs soon. As far as my weight goes, I don’t think I need to lose any more. I am exactly where I need to be, now I’m just toning up. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if instead of losing weight I gained a few pounds. The truth is that it wouldn’t even bother me if I did. In case you don’t know this, muscle weighs more than fat, so gaining weight at this point in my fitness journey would probably be great. This is why I always giggle when someone asks me “how much weight did you lose?” Because honestly, it’s not the weight that people need to focus on, but people should focus on how many inches did you lose, what is your body mass index, how do your clothes fit and more importantly, how well do you FEEL? Those are the valid questions to ask. Unfortunately, we are a society that worries too much about weight and not enough about health, if we did, there wouldn’t be so many weird diets out there.
People often ask me, “what’s your diet like?” Well, I eat healthy, nutritious and tasty foods, nothing canned, no preservatives, no sodas, no sugars, nothing greasy or deep fried and no junk food. That’s it. You know what’s funny? Junk food doesn’t even taste good to me anymore and I never, ever, ever eat bland food. My food is yummy.
I know that one of the benefits of having changed our lifestyle is that we feel much better about ourselves. Both Joseph and I are amazed at how different we feel. We have noticed that we normally never use our core muscles correctly, seriously, it’s not normal to use them correctly, we go through life lifting weight using our back muscles but we never use our core muscles, our abs to lift things when this is the correct way of doing it. Another interesting fact is that I have noticed how much straighter I sit, my posture has improved tremendously. We both are aware of all these benefits, but what we often forget though is that we have a little girl who is watching us workout, take care of our health, of our meals, without even making a big deal out of it. She doesn’t see me worrying about “Oh, I need to do the cabbage diet” or “I need to take this diet pill” the only thing that her eyes see are “mommy and daddy are working out” she often asks “oh, can I do that too?” We say “of course!” and she joins in the fun, often climbing on us, giggling, playing with us and just having FUN! What a different experience it is for her than it was for me growing up.
My daughter is the reason I changed my lifestyle because I really want to be around for a long, long time and although I may not have control over the future, I can be responsible for my health and fitness. She’s my inspiration and my inspiration fuels my motivation. It’s not easy to stay motivated when you’re not inspired. My daughter called me a princess but in reality, she’s our little princess and our inspiration.