Fitness is a journey, not a destination

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1lb a week is still 52lbs a year.

“30 Day Full Body Killer Workout”

I’ve watched PLENTY of videos, read TONS of articles, and visited a BUNCH of blogs. I’ve compiled some tips that have helped me on my journey; I hope they help you as well. 

-Use chop sticks (when & if you can). The idea behind this is tip that eating with chop sticks makes you eat slower. The slower you eat, the more time your body has to begin the digestion process AND it becomes easier for you to tell if you’re full or not. When you’re scarfing down your 4 plates - even if they aren’t high in fat & are your healthy foods, you’re just eating on a probably already full stomach. *another way to eat slower that doesn’t involve chop sticks is to eat snacks with your non-dominant hand.

- Lemon & cucumber water. This one really doesn’t need much explanation - so many fitness bloggers and youtubers have sworn on this cleanse. Living at college it can be difficult, but my school does have fruit infused water sometimes which is great. If you’re living at school and your dining halls don’t offer infused water, here’s a tip - the lemons are most likely by the tea & the cucumbers are at the salad bar; it’s all about searching. Also, drink ice water as soon as you wake up and wait 5-10 minutes before eating; it boosts your metabolism.

- Smaller plates & bowls –> BLUE. Now this tip is all about our dear friend, Portion Control. If you decrease the size of your plate/the surface you’re eating off of, your body will be like “hey, that’s a whole plate of food, when the plate is empty, I’ll be full.” I included “BLUE” in this tip because it’s scientifically proven that the color blue suppresses appetite, making you eat less. Whereas red has the opposite effect - it makes you hungrier. (Why do you think McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Burger King, & Chik-fil-a all have red in their logo?)

- Wear your gym clothes & sneakers around the house. This one sounds weird but when I’m wearing my workout clothes & sneakers, I tend to be less lazy and more productive. It’s sounds insane, I know, but it works! Try it for a few days - you’ll probably spend less time in front of the TV and more time on your feet. Whether you’re cleaning around the house, going for a walk, or doing meal prep, anything is better than being plopped in front of the TV with a bag of chips.

- Green tea before bed. I’ve been doing this for the last 2weeks and it’s great. Green tea is proven to boost your metabolism, calm your nerves, and it prevents to flu and cold by 60%.  I recommend drinking your hot tea about an hour - two hours before you go to bed. Also, try to stop eating food 3-4hrs before bed.

- Eat healthiest part of meal first. This goes without much explanation but let’s say you’ve just finished a great High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) workout and you’ve gotten lunch. On your plate, you have your protein, a salad, & a small serving of carbs. The first thing you’re going to want to eat is not going to be the carbs - no matter how good that pasta looks. This is because if you eat your healthy portion first and happen to get full before finishing your entire meal, you’ve avoided the unhealthy portion. If you ate the unhealthy portion first and got full, you just missed out on the protein and nutrients your body needs after a HIIT workout. Also, when eating salads, try to get your dressings and sauces on the side.

Lots of people want a bigger butt. I mean who can blame them? There’s a lot of misinformation out there though that is keeping people from actually getting a bigger butt. Have you seen one of these before? 

That’s not going to do it for you. Too many repetitions and not enough rest means you are likely to see very little improvement to your backside. Let alone this one that I have seen lately. 

There is no need for anybody to do 1000 squats in a single workout unless you like not being able to walk for the next two days. With 1000 squats you aren’t training for size, you are training for endurance, and you might be a masochist.

This workout gives you exactly what you need to stimulate muscle hypertrophy which is the biological process which will make the muscles in your butt bigger. Doing exercises in these rep ranges with an appropriate level of rest consistently will help you to get a bigger butt as quickly as possible. The biggest key is to make sure that you constantly keep increasing the difficulty of the exercises by adding more resistance. If you can do 13 reps you need to increase the weight. If you can only do 8 reps at the weight you are at. Perfect! Stay at that weight until it becomes easy enough to do more than 12 reps and then repeat the process again. 

I’m so so sick of it.

You are. You are loved. You are beautiful. And you are wanted.

You are not hated. You really aren’t perfect. You are not just a social casualty.