Tweet

This week I was trying to examine why on earth I am having doubts about having kids.
I mean we had already discussed it all and decided that the time is now and that we’re ready emotionally ( while we really weren’t ready before… at all) and that we want kids.

Then why all of a sudden I am having doubts and fears?

Well, fears are understandable…
Unless you turn off your thinking cap, I don’t think anyone who’s never had kids can safely say “Hell yeah it’s gonna be easy and I’m looking forward to it”. That’s not a realistic expectation. And some women find out that the hard way. The most important thing of this whole journey for me has been preparedness: mental, emotional, financial, physical.

If you think about it, those who just decide they want kids, toss birth control and get pregnant are doing it the right way from the stand point of not over thinking it ( though I am sure they could improve from the preparedness stand point). Not too much time to think, analyze, decide if they REALLY want it, or if it’s just a whim and they don’t realize how hard it can be. Because once you’re pregnant, there’s no way back. You love the child growing inside of you more than anything.

So what I’m concerned with are the doubts.
I’ve always been a kid lover, like insane lover. I enjoy being with kids, I prefer a kid’s company to an adult. I’ve always known I will be having kids, but the time had to be right. I never had a NEED to have kids though. Like, you know, where i just HAVE TO have a baby right now. It was more of a logical thing: I want to have children, I want to give them all I have, I want to do attachment parenting, love them to death, teach them all I have to teach. Not having kids was never an option. Everyone knows kid-less couples are miserable. Or are they?

Recently I read an article talking about how it turns out that based on multiple different studies, people without kids are HAPPIER than people with kids. And that parents really have a lot of unhappiness they don’t like display ( for obvious reasons) and that the “reward of parenting” isn’t a reward at all, like most like to believe.

That sort of took me back! I always thought that for my happiness I need to have kids, and now they’re telling me that I will be more miserable when I have them. I mean I love my life, the way it is now, what I do, my hobbies, my family. Why would I want to change that, ruin that?

So all that got mixed in my head into this mush of thoughts and feelings and doubts… and I keep thinking and discussing it with hubby. I am a super analytical person, very logical and straight forward. I am sure that can be seen in my approach to pregnancy and parenthood. If you have read my blog from the beginning, you know the amount of preparation I’ve gone through to make sure everything is as perfect as it can be, before we start TTCing.
So it’s completely normal for me to logically analyze whether life with a baby is better than life without. I have my doubts, concerns and fears, but at the same time I try to keep it in my head that they say that it changes so much when you get pregnant, have a baby. That’s it’s no longer a decision, it just is….

And i think I believe that, because when I think …like really think and imagine having a kid that I love more than anything, and being pregnant, I can see that glimmer of all-consuming love and happiness.

So I guess it’s natural to be a little bit scared. I mean, anyone going into their first pregnancy without any kind of fear is a fool, because they must not realize the importance and grandeur of creating a life. It’s natural to worry about lifestyles changing, never having time, financial matters. I always see mothers with 2-3 kids and they look exhausted, they smile at you and pretend they’re ok, but I see how fed up their are with diapers and bottles and constant 24/7 attention. So I want to be prepared for that, I want to know what I’m signing up for. I want to do this because I’ve debated the positives and negatives and decided that former outweigh the latter. I want to go into this knowing with certainty that I am ready and I will take it whether it’s good or bad. Because if I know now with my logical mind, then when I’m finally pregnant, then there’ll be no doubts whatsoever.

See, what I figured out is that my feelings are being muddied up by the wait. We thought we were going to start TTCing in November, so we started preparing in August, but things took a lot longer than we thought, specifically my maternity coverage and my wisdom teeth, so in November, we counted out three months and were going to start by Feb ( surely the insurance would come through by then). And now, it’s March, finally the insurance is through ( supposedly), and now we have to wait the 30 day waiting period, plus skipping April, puts us at May, which is about 30 days away ( wow, actually sooner than I thought). I have ALL this time to think and to doubt it all… But then I force myself to imagine that the insurance is a go, and we can start trying tomorrow, and I have this awesome excitement inside of me…cautious and scared excitement, but an excitement nevertheless. Like, OMG, we’re really doing it and how cool is it!!!!

So there we have it , friends. It’s the darn wait, since August, that has been freaking me out all along. The wait! Because when you put me right up to it, I am excited!

{oh and also I am reading countless pregnancy books… yes, already, i want to know what to expect and what to prepare for…. and they’re freaking me out with all the complications and such. Just yesterday i finished a chapter on stillbirth. Yikes!}

So now a few days after I’ve written this post, after talking to moms, getting their feedback ( THANK YOU!), i feel more confident about what to expect and that it is truly what I want.
{hubby also helped me out a bit. While he’s not a kid person and doesn’t display crazy excitement like most men don’t, when i was doubting it all, he was there to tell me that it’s what he wants too. Which is always nice}

{the baby in the pictures is my friend’s baby}

Tweet

RULES:


1. If you haven’t yet, join the challenge here:
GET FIT and GET HEALTHY
2. Every Saturday come back to The Art of Making a Baby and ShutterMama to read the tips on how to be fitter, healthier and more confident.
3. Weekly write a post about your progress, following the questionnaire below, take a self-portrait (optional) and link up with us.
4. Don’t forget to grab the GET FIT challenge button on the sidebar and display it proudly on your blog or GET FIT post.
5.  Link your post with Selfie Saturdays if you took your week’s self-portrait.

WHOLE GRAINS!

Haven’t been we bombarded enough with whole grain this, whole grain that? But do we ALL understand why whole grains are so important? What makes them so much better than the tasty refined grains?

I have been eating exclusively whole grains for about a year now. And I have to tell you it makes a huge difference. Of course, there are times that I have to eat refined grains, like in cookies, or on very rare occasions when we go out and the restaurant doesn’t offer a whole grain option, but I tend to avoid it. Just like I made healthy eating my lifestyle, no meat – my mantra, I made whole grain is the only option for me when it comes to breads, pastas and rice.

The reason for the switch beyond numerous health benefits was obvious. If I am going to eat healthy and take care of my body, I should NOT eat anything that is a waste from the nutritional standpoint. Anything that has empty calories is off limits for me. That includes sugared drinks, most deserts and sweets ( I do have some on occasion), pasta, rice, bread (all made from refined grains).
It started as a weight loss supplement for me and my husband {why would we ever eat so many calories and not reap the benefits of nutrients?}, but ended up being a healthy food choice.

The fact is: Eating whole grains instead of refined grains lowers the risk of many chronic diseases. While benefits are most pronounced for those consuming at least 3 servings daily, some studies show reduced risks from as little as one serving daily. Here’s what we’re looking at:

The benefits of whole grains most documented by repeated studies include:

stroke risk reduced 30-36%
type 2 diabetes risk reduced 21-30%
heart disease risk reduced 25-28%
better weight maintenance

Other benefits indicated by recent studies include:

reduced risk of asthma
healthier carotid arteries
reduction of inflammatory disease risk
lower risk of colorectal cancer
healthier blood pressure levels
less gum disease and tooth loss

Whole grains work in different ways to make you healthier, but here’s the main reason: FIBER!
Besides having a higher nutritional value, including more protein ( and if you’re a vegetarian, you could use some extra), more iron, whole grains have a significantly more fiber.
And fiber is really a magical ingredient.

See, daily our body is bombarded by hormones reacting to things, like emotional stress, physical stress, changing blood sugar levels throughout the day, different levels of available energy… But fiber can at least help your body defend against a few of those. Food that is high in fiber ( that’s fruits, vegetables and whole grains) controls and keeps your blood sugar level steady. If you’re overweight and have what is called “pre-diabetes” ( you might not even know it), eating more foods high in fiber will help you body control your insulin, so that you don’t develop full on Type 2 diabetes in a few years like most pre-diabetics do. You might think “Oh I am fine! I’m not diabetic”! But you can only say that if you’ve been tested recently ( in the past year) In fact, 40% of school kids are pre-diabetics, a disease that used to plague mostly middle-aged folk.

Aside from evening out our blood sugar level, fiber keeps you full faster and longer. By eating foods high in fiber, you’ll eat less and won’t come back to check out what new showed up in the refrigerator in the last hour, thus helping you lose weight. Get full fast and Stay full longer- isn’t that what most people want?

Fiber reduces the risks of heart attacks and high blood pressure (cardiovascular diseases), obesity and diabetes (metabolic disorders), intestinal problems (constipation, diverticulosis, diverticulitis, gallstones, appendicitis, hemorrhoids, polyps, and colon cancer), varicose veins and blood clots (deep vein thrombosis). (notice the similarities between whole grains and fiber benefits?)

Now, finally, FIBER is THE BEST cure from constipation! I know,right, who wants to talk about constipation?
But I guarantee that half of you have a problem with it, and the other half just doesn’t realize they have a problem.
Did you, guys, know that you’re supposed to go after EVERY MEAL within a few hours? Crazy, huh? But it’s true!
If you go number 2 less than once a day, you have a problem. If you go once a day, you could still do better.

Listen, it’s not like I want to go poop every couple of meals, BUT that IS the right way that our body is supposed to work. And guess, what after eating perfectly for about 6 months, it is how my body and my husband’s body started working.
I know this is kind of gross to talk about it, but it’s really important, because easy and consistent bowel movement is the reason behind all those lowered risks of diseases I listed earlier. If you read my post about eating meat, you might remember that colon is where all the toxins gather from our food. It’s the most toxic place in our body. Colon cancer is 4th most common type of cancer. The goal of our intestine (colon) is to move those toxins and waste through our body as fast as possible. Well, what do you think happens when you don’t eat enough fiber, all that “stuff” sits there for days and let’s juts say that’s not good. I wrote about it in detail in my post about how meat is killing us, so go read if you’re interested.

So it’s in your best interest to be mostly eating foods high in fiber. Why would you EVER have a refined grain product if you can get a ton more nutrition, protein, fiber in the same amount of calories?

I was eating lunch today and thinking about writing this post, looking through my lose it, seeing how much fiber I’ve been eating over the weeks The number is always about 30 grams daily, which is excellent considering an average American get about half the recommended amount of 25 grams.
-”Hm, I thought, it’s not like I am consciously trying to eat more fiber!”
And then it dawned on me: the amount of daily fiber intake is THE BEST indication of how well a person is eating in general. Think about it, fiber is ONLY in fruits, vegetables and whole grains. You can’t get fiber in bad stuff, you can’t get fiber in meats or dairy. Which makes fiber the best measurement for how much of the healthy foods a person is getting. If they get more than 25 grams of fiber, they are most likely eating extremely healthy ( healthy doesn’t equal the right amount of calories, though).

So I’d like to give you an assignment for this week: If you’re using loseit.com or any other calorie and nutrient counting programs, look up day by day how much fiber you have gotten for the past two weeks. Also review the total weekly amount divided by 7, to give you an average. If you’re above 25 grams, GREAT JOB! If you have been consistently under 25 grams, you know what you need to work on.

Keep in mind, you can get TOO much fiber (usually over 40 grams).

If you’re just starting to eat a diet high in fiber, keep in mind that it’s going to take a few weeks to get the benefits going when it comes to your intestines. Start slowly, increasing your fiber intake day by day and you shouldn’t incur any side effects of jumping onto a fiber wagon suddenly, like constipation, gas and bloating

So I encourage you to substitute ALL your grains with whole grains. The sooner you adopt the change, the easier it’s going to be for you to teach your kids to eat properly. If whole grains is all you eat at home, that’s all your kids will eat. Keep increasing the amount of vegetarian meals you cook at home, as well as vegetables and fruits you snack on. Remember, vegetables don’t have to be a side, like our culture seems to think. Vegetables make an amazing meal on their own.

{P.S. I would love to know how much fiber you currently eat and whether there’s room for improvement or if you’re meeting the daily recommended amount}

Now, my entry for week 8

1.  Height: 5’11″, weight: 131. lb  

2. Your  fitness challenge(s) for this week: I am preparing for a future pregnancy so  my work outs are intended for improving my strength and my muscles, rather than weight loss: 30 minutes of pilates every other day + 30 minutes of cardio ( rollerblading, running, swimming or treadmill) every other day. Special exercises designed for pregnancy to increase flexibility (daily) + Kegels (twice daily). A total of about an hour of physical activity a day.

3. Your health challenge(s) for this week: My eating habits are close to perfect,  however I could improve on my water intake. My goal will be 8 glasses of water daily + continue eating the way I do now.

• Fitness: I guess I did good. It’s so hard for me to be happy about achievements until I performed perfectly
• Water: It was on and off. I kept forgetting to refill my KleenKanteen
• Food: Perfection. That’s one area where I can never do wrong. I just don’t want to eat bad stuff. I make myself have some cookies after a meal, so that I could at least fill up my daily calories so that i’d gain some weight already.
   

5. Failures and slip-ups: I did good this week. I can’t say I excelled at exercise. I was tired all week for some reason, probably lack of sleep, and was very unhappy about having to work out. I did though. I might have missed 1 day out of the week, and I guess that’s good. It’s just hard to feel about something you did in spite of fatigue instead of giving it 100%. Today’s workout felt really good though.

6. Weekly challenge wisdom: The worst thing is the anticipation of a workout. Once you’re done, the buzz all over your body is unbelievable and you wonder why you ever dreaded it.

 
7. Advice to fellow GET FIT members:  Push yourself more than you think you can. Your body will thank you! I pushed myself in today’s work out and felt like I’m on clouds, compared to the other workouts during the week, where I grudgingly got through them doing them half-assed.

8. Self Portrait: I AM BEAUTIFUL {self-love challenge}

____________________________________________________________

<center><a href="http://www.shutter-mama.com/search/label/Get%20Fit/"><img border="0" src="http://i788.photobucket.com/albums/yy169/sonyamarie89/getfit.jpg" /></a><br /> <a href="http://prebabyblog.com/category/getfit/"><img border="0" src="http://prebabyblog.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/gethealthybanner.jpg" /></a></center>

_____________________________________________________________

LINK UP

Tweet

Supposedly it’s going to get fixed.
I’m tlaking about the health insurance bull.
But I am not holding my breath.
With people like that, you never know …until the fat lady sings…or however it goes.
So about Monday I will be calling into Membership and Billing and verifying that my maternity Benefit is in fact starting March 1st…retroactive…
So there, bitches! (not you..the Blue Cross bitches)

In the meantime I am starting to doubt the whole baby thing again… haha. Has anyone experienced that? Those of you who planned pregnancy extensively ( as in before tossing birth control)? I’m like a yo-yo on the subject. I want a baby to play with but I don’t want the hassle… It’s really getting on my nerves.

And is it smart to just go ahead with it “hoping” that I am full of it? But on the other hand, will I ever WANT WANT a baby, with everything that I love doing and all the hobbies and work? I think maybe by 50 :)

So anyways, if anyone has some insight, it’d be highly appreciated.

And just so that we’re clear, this whole subject of “should I? Shouldn’t I?” or “Do i want? Don’t I?” is going to come up more… I am sure I won’t be done here and will need more of your bloggy moral support.

So consider yourseves warned!

On another note, I just took a few super pretty selfies, with trees and sun and light and flares. Can’t wait to post, but right now I am wasting time on the internet waiting for hubby to get out of the shitter and go work out with me. {heh! My hubby will get a kick out of this last sentence! NOT}

Tweet

We don’t really EVER go out on St Patrick’s. I mean, we don’t drink, don’t eat in restaurants ( the whole fresh eating vegetarian thing), so what’ the point.
But this time I felt i wanted to get out and take some pictures. Naples is such a beautiful town, it’s hard not to. It’s a shame I got too tired and decided to leave the camera in the car when we went to the place with all the partying going on.

Believe it or not, I had trouble  finding a green shirt. I had 1 (!!!) in the whole closet.

Hubby talking business. We’re never off the job, I’m telling ya.

Ok, so his pose is totally goofy, but it’s better than the face on the non-goofy picture LOL
And I got honked at in that picture by some old dudes haha

One of the most beautiful post sunset pictures I’ve ever taken. To be fair I did a lot of post-processing on them. To see the original, click here

Another selfie. I love being able to take pictures of the both of us, wherever we go. It’s such good memory.

Got totally stared at and smiled laughed at making this shot. It was crooked and sort of out of focus, but oh well!We’re young and careless only once!

SEE GORGEOUS PHOTOS OF THE SUNSET THAT DAY

_________________________________________________

Tweet

You guys will NOT believe this SHIT!

So I am all pumped about my new health insurance policy with maternity option being issued effective March 1st, so that we can start trying in May (03.01 + 30 days before conception= April, which would put me at due date over New Year’s Eve, so May was the plan)….

I spend hours thinking about receiving policy documents in the mail so that I can review all the benefits and marvel at how good it is ( yeah I am weird that way)…

Today, I wake up early to get in some last minutes studying for my exam, drive to the exam site, take 25 minutes out of the allowed 1 hour 30 minutes to pass it, drive home singing The All American Rejects, and check the mail to see the package from Blue Cross and Blue Shield with my new policy documents…

I skip back to the house, tear the envelope open and dig in….

After about 10 minutes of looking through it, I am starting to get worried because I do not see the MATERNITY benefit ANYWHERE on there. I start to panic. I call BCBS membership services, who cheerfully inform me that I am IN FACT CORRECT and there IS NOT a maternity benefit on the policy.

I AM FURIOUS!!!!!! I am so angry the words can’t describe it!

I spent 6(!!!) MONTHS , literally 6 months working on this policy, following up, making corrections, dealing with my somewhat incompetent agent, signing, mailing, faxing, etc.

And now I am informed that it’s not freaking there!

I’ve spent the last 5 hours of what should have been a good day on the phone with BCBS trying to figure this out.
I get different answers from different people within different departments.

I am too tired at this point to be able to recap what I am being told by all these people and I doubt you’d care.

Tomorrow a supervisor is supposed to look into it even further, but for now I am bummed. Majorly Utterly Bummed.

I am tired of pushing this whole baby making business month by month…not because I can’t wait to have babies. To be honest  I just simply want to get it over with. Get pregnant and THEN deal with whether I think babies is a good idea. Because if I am forced to think about it too much longer, I might decide against it :) LOL {ok, for those really dumb ones on thebump.com- THAT WAS SARCASM)

And I simply don’t believe in unplanned pregnancies.  Turning off your brain and logic and just getting pregnant is not my cup of tea. There’s too many things that can be done better if they’re planned properly when it comes to pregnancy and babies. To simply ignore that is silly.

To read more about my extensive preparation for pregnancy, click here

Tweet

Starting with most recent events:
Below: pool time with friends and their babies.

Our seasonal neighbors left this week. I am going to miss them a lot. I had the kid’s climb into my fort. They were so amazed! I see them begging their parents to build them one.
Two photos below: time out with some internet friends from Flickr. I LOVE LOVE LOVE meeting long time internet friends in real life.

St Patty’s day: Green overload.

Beautiful Third Street South on St Patty’s Day. That’s why I love Naples…. There is so much beauty to be found any time of the day and night.

Awesome epiphany that my hubby’s clothes doesn’t fit any more. He has lost 30 pounds in the last 4 months and we’re “forced” to buy him all new clothes.

Super cute sunset on the beach in Naples

And that’s my week in photos. For once it was exciting enough! We gotta get out more :) lol

Tweet

<center><a href="http://www.shutter-mama.com/search/label/Get%20Fit/"><img border="0" src="http://i788.photobucket.com/albums/yy169/sonyamarie89/getfit.jpg" /></a><br /> <a href="http://prebabyblog.com/category/getfit/"><img border="0" src="http://prebabyblog.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/gethealthybanner.jpg" /></a></center>

+++++

Tweet

No blogging. One Day. For Japan

Tweet

How are you guys doing on your fitness/food goals this week?

I am happy to be doing much better. The weather is gorgeous, sun gives me a TON of energy!

I am getting ready to go do pilates and I jsut thought I’d check in and see how you all are doing.

On a different note, my new policy with maternity coverage should be arriving in the mail in a few days. I cannot wait to read it ( yeah I am a nerd that way) and make sure everything is in order and what it all covers.

I’ve been busy this whole week studying for my {re-}licensing classes and exams we are being forced to take again along with new CE credit in the future because the state decided to switch to a new system, thus making us re-do all the work we did when we first got licensed 6 years ago.
Yesterday I passed one of the classroom exams, have 2 more online ones, and another classroom one. Don’t need to wish me luck, cuz honestly this is bullshit that they’re making us retake it all. We’ve been in the business for too long to need luck or to worry about the outcome.

I am so busy but my heart aches to go to the beach. I am hoping I can get hubby to go hang out at the Third Street South, which is covered with blooms right now…listen to live bands, and watch the sunset on the beach…. Would be nice, wouldn’t it?

Tweet

Oh wow! Week 6 of Get Fit, Get Healthy, Get Confident Challenge! That’s a month and a half!
Most of you who started with us on Day 1 should be down by at least 3-4 pounds. If you aren’t, then you need to go over your fitness and food goals and make sure they are ambitious enough and you’re not eating more calories than you can burn off.

RULES:

1. If you haven’t yet, join the challenge here: GET FIT and GET HEALTHY
2. Every Saturday come back to The Art of Making a Baby and ShutterMama to read the tips on how to be fitter, healthier and more confident.
3. Weekly write a post about your progress, following the questionnaire below, take a self-portrait (optional) and link up with us.
4. Don’t forget to grab the GET FIT challenge button on the sidebar and display it proudly on your blog or GET FIT post.
5.  Link your post with Selfie Saturdays if you took your week’s self-portrait.

I will keep it very short today. It is 2:30 am and I am trying to get this post out before Saturday.

One thing I’d like to touch on very quickly is the importance of support when it comes to weight loss and fitness. If you don’t have a fitness buddy who is just a excited about the project as you are, make sure your family is on board with you. Your significant other might be in a decent enough shape, but he could definitely benefit from improved eating habits.

 Did you know that people that regularly consume fewer calories live a few years longer than those whose calorie intake is higher?

Explain to your family why it is important for you and for them to lead a healthier lifestyle. It might not sink in right away for them, but it’s important that they support you.

For this very reason I would like to start keeping a list of every participant currently using LoseIt.com (read last week’s post about counting calories) and twitter to log their progress and calories. It is  great support and motivation to see your fellow get fit members log their exercise and food intake daily, lose weight, comment to keep each other going during the work week, in between the check ins here.
Also, twittering when you’re about to commit a food crime or skip your exercise for the day will keep you on track and possibly save you from that piece of cake.

You can’t underestimate SUPPORT!

So if you have a LoseIt.com account and/or Twitter and would like to share and help others as well as get support from bloggers, email me (contact {at} prebabyblog {dot} com) or comment to this post with your Loseit email address and /or twitter name.

I will compile a list of participants and post it next week to make sure we all add each other as friends.  I would really love to have all of us there supporting each other.

I will start:
Loseit.com email address:contact {at} prebabyblog {dot} com
Twitter: girl_on_e

Comment below or email me @ (contact {at} prebabyblog {dot} com) 

 ++++++++++++

Now, my entry for week 6

1.  Height: 5’11?, weight: 131.6 lb  {-3lb, not good, need to get back to 133-135lbs}

2. Your  fitness challenge(s) for this week:  30 minutes of pilates every other day + 30 minutes of cardio ( rollerblading, running, swimming or treadmill) every other day. Special exercises designed for pregnancy to increase flexibility (daily) + Kegels (twice daily). A total of about an hour of physical activity a day.

3. Your health challenge(s) for this week: My eating habits are close to perfect,  however I could improve on my water intake. My goal will be 8 glasses of water daily + continue eating the way I do now.

• Fitness: Ok, I have to admit! This is the first week that I have really disappointed myself. During the previous two weeks, I was recovering from the wisdom teeth surgery and really didn’t had a choice but to take it easy. However this week, I felt good enough to exercise, but I do not feel I lived up to my goals.
• Water: Thanks to my new Clean Kanteen bottle, I have been getting plenty of water. It makes it so easy to drink.
• Food: I did really good with food this week. Being back on LoseIt.com is giving me the motivation to be really strict with my intake as far as nutrition goes. I have been trying to gain weight since the surgery and that meant eating over 200o calories a day which is tough for me since I eat mostly low calorie foods like veggies and fruits. However I did really good, got plenty of protein despite being a vegetarian and balanced my meals greatly.

5. Failures and slip-ups: I realized I let myself be weak. I got too used to being sick and not having to put in the effort. I did pilates only once and did 30 to an hour of cardio 3 times during the week. Which means I missed 3 days of work out for no real reason. I feel I really failed myself this week. But that is also  giving me motivation to be better, to be perfect next week. There are no more excuses! The pain from the surgery is almost non-existent and I can do my weekly pilates and cardio exercises no problem. It’s hard to make yourself work out when there isn’t a real tangible reason, like weight loss, to support it. But I need to keep reminding myself that it is about a healthy lifestyle.

I think the water intake also took a hit 1 or 2 days out of this week- again something to improve on.

6. Weekly challenge wisdom:  Self-control! It’s easier to have it when you’re 100% aware of what you’re doing. Keeping track of what you eat and how much you exercise is a great tool to use when you need to further motivate or restrict yourself.

 
7. Advice to fellow GET FIT members:  Make failures a reason for successes! Nothing happens in an instant. You will stumble and forget why you’re doing this. But the week will go by and there will be another week to make it better, to make it perfect. That’s how you develop habits, good healthy habits. You keep at it for as long as it takes… As long as it takes to start enjoying exercise. As long as it takes to stop cravings sweets. As long as it takes to acquire a taste for seemingly bland vegetables. Because you know what? Eventually…. You WILL!

8. Self Potrait: Clones

———————————————————————–