Motivating Music

Another week begins! I am going to start a bit more structure with my blogs moving forward as I work on pointing my blog in the direction I want it to go.

Monday: Slim by the Summer Blog - whatever the group's weekly theme is will be my Monday blog. Once this concludes, it will be more of a weekend recap and my progress thus far.
Friday: Food Frenzy Friday - I want to focus on new recipes, new foods I may have stumbled across in stores to incorporate into my diet.

I haven't set a firm day yet for other posts, but more to come as time progresses. There will be a few special posts in upcoming weeks about the Influenster Sugar and Spice VoxBox I received in the mail this weekend! I will fill you in on what all this means if you haven't heard of Influenster and tell you all about the complimentary products they sent me to try out and review. You can be an Influenster too!

My recap of the past week... I kind of hit a rough patch. As you know from last week, I did not lose much weight from the week prior, so I was thinking that I might see a bigger number of weight loss on the scale this week... That was until I woke up with a bit of a sore neck on Tuesday. That didn't stop me from putting in a good workout, of course. By the time my husband got home from work Tuesday night, I could barely move my neck. This continued Wednesday... Thursday... Friday... And Saturday! No exercise. Thank goodness for Advil, my heating pad, and IcyHot Patches. It was rough but this has happened to me before so I know it wasn't caused by my workouts, but I have an inkling that the workouts combined with lifting my 21-lb daughter could have worked together in causing this.

Nonetheless, I stuck to my 1200 calories daily. And was stunned by the scale. Down 3.8lbs since last Tuesday. The best week weight loss week I have had without working out?!

Over the weekend, I started going through my "skinny" clothes. I'm 7.6lbs away from my first weight loss goal which puts me at my wedding weight (actually, 2lbs less!!) so I thought most if those clothes would fit or just be a little snug. And I was right! It was so exciting to pull those clothes out. A few pairs of jeans still can't be buttoned but a few of them do fit! And well! It was so refreshing. This weekend, I finally realized I was starting to feel like my old self again. Looking in the mirror, happier about what I am seeing... Success!

The Slim by the Summer theme of the week: Music! What are my favorite workout tunes? To be honest, I haven't really touched my workout playlist in nearly 2 years. That's the last time I was using it for running, so anything that is on it is no newer than 2 years old. :)

I do have a few compilations I downloaded from iTunes that I use while I perform my Bikini Body Mommy Circuit Training. The newest is an album from Shape Magazine. It's called "Shape Cardio - Pure Hits Now and Then - Volume 2". It has everything from "Everybody Dance Now" to "Last Friday Night" to "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough". Shape has several albums from several genres of music at different paces, so whether you plan to walk or jog, there are options. I know they have an 80s mix which I also have purchased and enjoy. Shape also has a ton of lists on their website you can reference for suggestions.

Another big music motivator I have used is the "Biggest Loser Sports Anthem" mix. Nothing gets you moving like cardio versions of "We Will Rock You" and "We Are the Champions", amongst many other awesome songs you might hear at a sporting event. Biggest Loser also has a Disco 70s workout mix... Awesome!! In case you haven't figured it out yet, I prefer a lot of the older mixes because those songs are classics, where sometimes I get tired of some of the newer music after awhile.

Stay tuned for my Food Frenzy Friday post! I will be telling you about a skinny pizza I made over the weekend, and a few new yummy snacks I discovered at the grocery store this past week.