Get Healthy, Not Skinny

You might remember one of my New Year's Resolutions was to get healthier.  With my wedding coming up in just 5 months, I want to look and feel great!  Not to mention, I'd love to feel more confident in my bathing suit on the beach this summer.  I found this really great Get Healthy, Not Skinny link up that I think will help hold me accountable for getting healthy.

I've been a little nervous to share my "story" on here, but for the sake of getting healthy, I thought I'd do it.  And maybe there are others out there who can relate.  So here it goes...

First of all, I don't think I'm fat and I'm not intentionally trying to loose weight.  My goal is to get healthier, get in better shape, and get toned.  If I loose a few pounds in the process, great.  If not, that's fine too.  For me, it's more about how I feel, not about what the scale says.

A little background:  Not to sound conceited, but I've always been pretty thin (except when I was a baby...man, did I have some rolls!).  It's just my body type.  I've always been involved in sports and have been playing them since I was in first grade: basketball, softball, cheerleading, volleyball, and track.  When I got to high school, I could only do one sport per season, so I did basketball, cheerleading, and softball (all four years of high school).  I also took a "fitness & wellness" class my junior & senior year of high school, where we got to work out in the gym for the class hour.  All during high school I was working out anywhere from 5-7 days a week and sometimes more than once a day (fitness&wellness class, practices, games, conditioning, etc.).  Since I was working out so much, I didn't pay attention to what I was eating, and I would just eat whatever I wanted.  It didn't matter so much then because I was burning so many calories with my work outs every day.  My senior year of high school I was in the best shape of life.

Cheerleading in the early days. (I'm in the back, first one from the left...I'm a "base")

Varsity Softball Team (I'm sitting on the ground with my hands on my head)

After high school, I went to a local college (no sports teams) and worked.  I played some church basketball during the winter for a couple of years, and some slow-pitch softball during the summers.  However, my exercising was no where near what it was in high school.  And my bad eating habits continued.

Playing slow-pitch softball

After I finished college and moved out on my own, I really started noticing how out of shape I was.  It wasn't  what the scale said, it was how I felt.  I wasn't as fast (running in softball) as I used to be.  And I wasn't as confident with my body like I used to be.  My body wasn't "toned" like before.  The first apartment I lived in provided a gym membership, so I tried to go to the gym once or twice a week.  I did that for a while, but didn't keep up on it like I should have.

Really need to get back to snowboarding as a winter exercise activity!

Fast forward to today.  I'm getting married on June 29.  I want to look and feel great on my wedding.  I have become more aware of what I have been eating.  My fiance and I don't go out to eat as often as we used to.  We are better about cooking meals at home and eating healthier snacks.  We've been going on walks more often (although this cold and snowy winter weather is not helping our outdoor activities).  I joined the Love Your Body Challenge on ToneItUp.com.  I won't lie, I haven't been doing the challenges as I should, but I have found some great, quick, easy, and fun workout routines that I've been trying, and hope to incorporate them more in to my every day routine.

I'm hoping this Get Healthy, Not Skinny link up that Cherish is doing will help motivate me and keep me accountable for getting healthy in time for my wedding day.