Spring is in the air

Springtime is here, and it even actually feels like it too this year! It makes me want to change and renew right along with nature. I know I sound like a hippie tree hugger sometimes, but spring is my favorite time of year! I just love the way the air smells and everything coming back to life after a long cold winter! Nothing beats it!
That said I’d like to use this time of year to reaffirm my current goals and begin to flirt with some new ones as well.
I am in the process of coming up with a power work out regimen to power through the last 15 (or so) pounds I have to lose. I plan to continue regular physical activity after I’ve lost the weight, but I just want to get it off as soon as possible! Shorts season is right around the corner. This would be my ideal work out day
Pilates before work
Brisk 30-45 minute walk during my lunch
Tae Bo after work
Weights in the evening
This routine would be a 5 day a week routine. Then Saturday would be an outdoor activity with Nevaeh along with a set of my weight training as well (my arm flab is very stubborn!!!)
For food I’ve been relying on lean cuisine’s to help for calorie and portion control, but I would really like to start establishing some good solid long term eating habits with fresh fruits and veggies that don’t come out of a box. Whether I like it or not, lean cuisine’s is not a healthy long term eating plan.
While on the subject of healthy eating, the last few weeks I’ve slowly become more and more aware of the unhealthy way American’s eat. Even the foods we think are healthy are not good for our bodies as many contain preservatives and chemicals that our bodies don’t know what to do with. A lot of the foods we eat contain little or no actual real food. It really is scary once you start actually looking at the ingredients you’re consuming with processed foods.
The produce section used to be easy access to nice healthy natural food, but the reality is, even the produce section can be misleading and unhealthy. Corporate farming has comes to this: The need to mass-produce to such an extent as to jeopardize the health of American’s at large. Everything from vegetable (genetically altered seeds) to the pesticides used to the hormones that our beef, pork and poultry are being injected with. People wonder why American’s are so unhealthy. Why so much obesity, cancer, diabetes. The answers may be simpler than we think.
I thought I was doing a favor to my daughter and my own health by cutting out fast food, junk food and minimizing fried food from our diet. Unfortunately I’m starting to get the picture that I’ve not done nearly enough. The simplest thing you can think of such as a bowl of cereal (Cheerios even!!! The stuff we think is good for us!!) contain things that are unnatural and potentially harmful.
What we need is a complete and total paradigm shift. It can be very overwhelming to rethink everything we think we know about food, or to change such a basic yet major habit of all of our every day lives. However, in my personal opinion, and in the words of Alicia Silverstone, it’s definite a consideration worth ‘flirting with’. Small changes can make a big difference. It’s kind of like recycling. You may not think that you, one little person, taking the time in separating your plastic, glass, aluminum and paper from the rest of your trash, or starting a compost pile doesn’t make much of a difference. I mean, you are only one person, right? All it takes is millions of ‘one person’s" to change the world!!!
Look at that, a lecture in food and recycling! Put that in your pipe and smoke it!
Anywho, I myself do not feel like being overwhelmed. I am going to focus on one thing at a time until I’ve mastered it, then move onto the next thing. Right now that one thing is my health (not a diet, a lifestyle change) and my financials. Okay, I lied, there are two things =D