In need of a healthy lifestyle.....

Like lots of brides, I spent hours and hours the months leading up to our wedding to get in shape...I wanted to lose weight, get fit, be tan and overall just look good in my wedding dress (as well as a bikini!) With a wedding as motivation, I was able to pull off a 20 pound weight loss from the time I got serious about losing weight, until the wedding. It honestly felt GREAT to run an hour/hour and a half 5 days a week and I loved eating healthy meats, veggies and fruits. I could see and feel a difference and was proud of what I accomplished. That is until the honeymoon came around......

We stayed at the Sandals Resort in the Bahamas and for those who don't know, the price you pay to stay there includes all of the food and drink you can intake. It was great not worry about how much each drink cost and the bar tab you normally would be racking up, but it also made me not think twice about that slice of carrot cake each night after dinner! Once we got back from the honeymoon, I promised myself I would get back in shape. However the next two weekends were filled with an awesome bachelorette party for my wonderful friend Rebecca and followed by her gorgeous wedding! I told myself that it was no sense in starting a diet until after Rebec's wedding because I knew I was gonna cheat on those weekends. So I waited and then had all intentions of starting after that.

After Rebecca's wedding, I moved some of my stuff back to "the island" where I live now. My husband was here and we were living in a small house waiting for the air to be put in our soon to be permanent home. I was mentally ready to start back eating healthy...that was until I started to cook one day and realized the oven did not work....and one of the stove burners had no low button (only high)....and another one of those burners was not functioning. So with that as an excuse, I said I'd wait til we moved in our real house-it wouldn't be much longer and everything worked great in there and I'd be all set. Well, the move kept taking a little bit longer than we expected (doesn't it always?) We finally got the okay at the end of June and packed up all of my husband's stuff, and some of mine, and moved in.

By that time, July had rolled around, and a little thing called panic over the bar exam started to set in. The thought of spending an hour working out or 30 minutes-to an hour cooking did nothing but stress me out. That hour or two could be spent studying-no need wasting that time by doing otherwise! So a month of Totino's pizzas, bacon cheeseburgers and fries from our local burger joint, and just a general bad month of eating followed. It seemed the closer I got to the bar, the more Cokes I consumed and the quicker any good eating habit I once had, deteriorated.

Well, now the bar is over. And I have officially moved out of Baton Rouge and into our home outside of our tiny little town. I'm trying to settle into life in the country and the prospect of actually not having to go to classes this fall. So I decided what better time than to get the motivation to ACTUALLY start a diet and exercise routine this time? And I have.

Yesterday marks the beginning of my 30-day challenge. I've decided that for 30 days straight, I will do SOME form of exercise EVERYDAY-running, lifting weights, elliptical machines-whatever it takes to get a workout in. My wonderful husband has been great too and promised that he would try and keep up with me. So far we're two for two in the workout department and Payton even got to get in on the workout this morning! At the end, when I'm successful (see, I'm already thinking positive!), I'll reward myself with something fabulous. I haven't decided what they may be yet but I'd really love a hot little pair of red pumps. I've been wanting some for awhile and have had no excuse to buy them-this may just be that excuse I was looking for =) So here's to the new start on a healthy lifestyle-and hoping it stays that way!