Glad everyone is doing soo good!!! Send some of that motivation this way!!!! Ive been doing horrible!!!! Ive been doing ok with food but not great I have made a few snack choices when noone is around and i havent been loging!! I cant seem to get myself back to working out!!! Its making me a little depressed!!! I declare tomorrow a start over day and I am gonna get this done!! I am going to Texas at the beginning on July and I have to get a bading suit!!! I hate the way they look on me now I want to feel confident next to my size 0 sister in law!! lol I dont wanna be that small but I want to feel good in my own skin!!!!!! ok here we go!! Starting over nothing to drink but water eating the right foods and stop snacking on stuff and eating so much salt!!!!!!! I must get up and workout everyday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ok Need yall to hold me to this!!!!!

Hey all you beautiful Brides! How is it going? We are almost a week into June!

So I just sent a magazine off to print and now I have 16 days before I get on a plane and head to Spain (we are having a destination wedding) and in 3 weeks today we are getting married. The heat is on!

Last night I sat down and put together a pretty hard core "last chance personal challenge" including both a food list and my workouts. I really like the food list. It makes it easy when I have not planned my meals to have a look and find something that I can eat that is high protein and good for me. I try to plan my meals out everyday but sometimes life happens and that does not work.

I don't eat meat so protein is always hard for me. I really struggle with getting my numbers up. But I am going to really give it my all the next to weeks and really to cut carbs / carb-cycle.

I wonder how much weight I can loose in 16 days with 95% dedication? I wanted to say 100% but I know that I will fall of a day or eat something that is not great or just not have time one day. So since I do not want to beat myself up, I have said that I need to stick with it to 95%

Todays workout is done. So now I just need to keep an eye on my food.

Happy Wednesday!
Joanna

Hi All! I am so excited for everyone getting married this summer/fall!

I hope for June to be a momentum month to really springboard me into a fat loss July and August for my early September wedding (although my one and only real dress fitting is on August 11th so I actually have to be in ideal shape by then).

I hope to lose 15-20 lbs of fat by the first week in August and put on 3-5 lbs of muscle through clean eating and weight training with some HIIT cardio and low-intensity, high-duration exercise. Ultimately I would like to lose 7 lbs by the end of the month.

I thought I'd share my favorite healthy dinner recipe with everyone. I could honestly eat this every night for dinner:

Greek-ish Turkey Burgers

Ingredients
1 pound lean ground turkey or beef -at least 90 percent lean (I usually use Jennie-O 93/7 lean)
1/2 cup coarsely chopped pitted green olives (2 ounces)
1/2 cup finely chopped onion
2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
Cooking spray

Directions
Combine the turkey, olives, onion, parsley, cumin, and pepper in a mixing bowl and mix until well incorporated. Shape into 4 burgers.

Spray a grill pan with cooking spray and preheat over a medium-high heat or prepare an outdoor grill. Cook for about 5 minutes on each side, until cooked through (usually takes longer if cooking stove-top)

---> a MUST: Serve with Cedar brand cucumber garlic tzatziki sauce. So delicious and lowcalorie/high protein (made with greek yogurt).. We also serve with store-bough tabouleh.

Serve with roasted asparagus (lightly spray EVOO over asparagus spears and dust/top with your favorite spices/herbs or with fresh squeezed lemon juice ( I usually use a dash of salt, pepper, and a salt-free italian blend)

Serving size 1 burger
- Per Serving (approx- might be slighly higher carbs because I add in onion): Calories 145; Total Fat 4 g; (Sat Fat 0 g, Mono Fat 1.5 g, Poly Fat 0.5 g) ; Protein 28 g; Carb 1.5 g; Fiber 0 g; Cholesterol 45 mg; Sodium 305 mg
-Excellent source of: Protein, Niacin, Vitamin B12, Vitamin K, Manganese, Selenium, Zinc
-Good source of: Fiber, Iron

Jessica- Thanks for that input! Didnt know that so even when I am crunched for time I can workout for 10 mins! Maybe that will be a good way to get me back on track is by doing 10 mins and working my way back up to an hour!!

Hello Beautiful Brides! I am on my 3rd day of crossfit this week! it is super fun and a crazy workout. For the person who asked what crossfit is here is a basic description

CrossFit describes its strength and conditioning program as “constantly varied, high intensity, functional movement,"[3] with the stated goal of improving fitness (and therefore general physical preparedness), which it defines as "work capacity across broad time and modal domains."[4] Workouts are typically short—20 minutes or less—and intense, demanding all-out physical exertion. They combine movements such as sprinting, rowing, jumping rope, climbing rope, weightlifting, and carrying odd objects; they use barbells, dumbbells, gymnastics rings, pull-up bars, kettlebells, medicine balls, and many bodyweight exercises.[5][6][7] These elements are mixed in numerous combinations to form prescribed "Workouts of the Day" or "WODs". Hour-long classes at affiliated gyms, or "boxes," typically include a warm-up, a skill development segment, the high-intensity WOD, and a period of individual or group stretching. Performance on each WOD is often scored and/or ranked to encourage competition and to track individual progress. Some affiliates offer additional classes, such as Olympic weightlifting, which are not centered around a WOD.[8]

It is lengthy but gets the best idea for everyone. I can already feel that my body is tightening up from it! I have also started eating more paleo/primal as much as I can. It is challenging cutting out bread and crackers and I am slowly cutting those things out. I am convinced doing both of these things will get me in killer shape by September.

The weekends are where I tend to falter and eat more unhealthy or eat out or drink alcohol. I just try to keep it to a minimum because cutting it out completely makes me super sad. I hope everyone is having a great day

Hi everyone! Congrats on all the progress folks are seeing. Good work!

So glad it's Friday (obviously). Anyway, here's my Friday update!

CW: 184.5
Pounds lost this week: 1 lb.

Good: This was a decent week. I am really busy with work, but I still managed to get some workouts in and I stayed within my calorie goal on most days. I *really* didn't want to go to the gym yesterday, but I made myself go anyway, which was a personal victory. I also ran a 5K last Saturday and felt strong running the whole thing.

Not-so-good: I only did 3 out of my 5 goal workouts this week. I'm definitely going to focus on more exercise this coming week. Also, although I stayed within or close to my goal calories each day, I ate too many carbs and not enough protein. I need to make sure I get to the grocery store this weekend.

I'm hoping to have a (mostly) healthy weekend. I have a BBQ to attend tomorrow afternoon and I'm going to focus on not going overboard with snacks and drinks. I also want to go for a longer run sometime this weekend... maybe five miles? We'll see!

My other fitness goal is to get more serious about weight training. I'm a slacker in that department.

Hope everyone is having a great Friday so far.

I was kidnapped by my crazy girlfriends for my surprise bachelorette party this past weekend. I think I burned 8000 calories laughing. Cant remember the last time I laughed so hard. That being said I did not stick to my plan over the weekend even if i did not eat bad I still had stuff that I am avoiding at the moment.... like lots of wine and champagne. So today I am back on it even if I am a little tiered.

Before they kidnapped me I had weighed in 2 pounds lighter than I did the saturday prior. So that is good. I want to see 2 pounds less this coming saturday as well. The way I am going to do it is high protein low carb.

So anyone have any specific goals for this week that they would like to share? And if so how you plan to reach them?

Our wedding is now 16 days away. we leave for spain in 10. No excuses Joanna. No excuses.

Lets rock this week!

It's Friday update time for me, too! I can't believe how quickly June is flying by.

I didn't lose any weight this week (sigh). I mostly stayed close to my calorie goal, but I didn't get as much working out in as I would have liked, so I'm going to work on that next week. I've been feeling tired and down lately, which I think is tied to sleep deprivation. Must get more sleep!

Good: Kept near my calorie goal. Didn't overeat at work lunches. Went for a couple of good runs. Cut back on sugar.

Bad: Too much sodium and carbs. Not enough working out.

I'm trying not to get too frustrated. I keep reminding myself that even though I'm heavier than I was a few years ago, I'm definitely in better physical shape.

Anyway, congrats on all the hard work, ladies! Hope you all have something fun planned for the weekend. I'm going to a friend's bachelorette party on Saturday night, which I'm really excited about. Should be fun!