My Fitness Journey & Tips to Stay Motivated

It has been a great year for getting in shape! I have so much to motivate me and keep me going. The main thing--apart from being a very healthy me--is my trip to Hawaii this summer! It's my first time going there, and to my understanding, I will spend a lot of my time half-naked, soo...I need to look good half-naked.

Anyway, I put a lot of focus into cardio nowadays. From my experience, it's the best way (for me at least) to lose fat. That and eating right. I've spent the last 2-3 years on Weight Watchers, and it's taught me how to be mindful of portion size and calorie intake. And it works! It's now pretty much second nature to me so I'm fine doing it on my own. Toning is still a big part of my workouts as well, but my main priority is to lose fat in order to show the muscle. ;)

I can honestly say that the most challenging part of working out is remaining motivated to work out. I'm sure I'm not alone on that one! And what I've really gained out of all this is the mindset to keep pushing. I believe it when they say you work your mentality more than you work your body! Here are some things that have really helped me along the way:

• Work out in a public area. I purposely do not work out at home anymore. I have some equipment and videos, and could very well have a good workout at home, but here's my problem: I see Shawn T. (for those that don't know, he's the guy from the "Insanity" videos), and I see my couch. And the couch looks muuuuch more appealing. Lol! I know a lot of people that do great working out at home, but my house is too much of a distraction for me so it helps when I'm out and about. Plus, if I run around my neighborhood instead of running on a treadmill, the only way to get home is to run/walk back, so it motivates me to keep going!
• Workout with other people. Finding good, equally-motivated-if-not-more, people to work out with was THE BEST thing I could've done. I cannot workout by myself. I'll quit too soon. (Yeah--I'm working on that. Another mentality challenge.) I'm so lucky to have people to workout with, run with, to coach me...Sometimes it takes someone else telling you what to do to keep you moving. It also helps if those same people partake in the same healthy eating habits as you do. (Yes, I'm talking about you, Kristy. Weight Watchers Queen.)
• Commit to doing something you never done before. I donated $50 to participate in the Mud Run. Oh, trust me, I was gonna get my monies worth! The no-turning-back-now mentality will click in and you'll be working out/training like never before!
• Make other small commitments to improve your health or appearance. Working out and eating right aren't the only ways to look and feel beautiful. Studies show that taking care of your overall appearance will boost your mood and can serve as easy self-motivation. For instance, when I started taking better care of my skin, even wearing makeup a little bit more, or dressing up a little bit more, I felt more of the need to take care of the whole package! That motivated me to not just look great in clothes, but also in my own skin, which led to more efficient workouts and more conscious eating habits.

I'm proud to say that my focus on cardio is really paying off. My cholesterol is back to normal. My blood pressure is back to normal. I've participated in two 5k's since May--something I NEVER thought I would ever do! (Always been a sprinter, never a distance runner.) I feel better, look better, and the scale is loving me a little bit more. ;)

More posts on my workouts and meals to come! Until then...off to the gym.

Dad's 50th Birthday

The day has come when my oh-so-young father has turned 50. FIFTY. Over. The. Hill. It's hard for me to believe that my parents are getting older. Probably because the older they get, the younger they act! Lol...I'm not lying when I tell you they partied hard until 3 in the morning. I mean...clubs (here in the DMV) don't even stay open that late...

I helped with the food table of course, and decided to keep it simple. My dad on the other hand, transformed his unfinished basement into a sah-weeeeet karaoke bar! Enjoy the pics:

I am big quote person so I love when I can incorporate a good quote or two as part of the decorations! I used two here. One was on the picture timeline hanging above the food table: "I may be over the hill but the climb was terrific." And the other I thought captured my dad perfectly! "50 is fine when you look 39" Both I found on good ol' Pinterest. :)

Cake credit: Follow Jen @allcakedupdc on Instagram! She is amazing and the chocolate-mocha cake tasted so so good! It was the FIRST time the cake was completely finished by the time the party was over. We normally always have leftovers! Anyway, I couldn't have been happier with the finished product. I've ordered from bakeries who didn't even make their cakes this clean, and they charged me double than what she did! Hit her up if you're looking for a cake in the DMV area. You can thank me later! ;)

The basement was covered with colorful plastic table cloths. Amazing how much that can transform a room! The red and blue walls kinda reminded me of the big top ;)

It wouldn't be one of my dad's parties if he didn't have his friends do something crazy--like participate in a balut eating contest! For those that do not know what the filipino delicacy, "Balut", is, please feel free to see the exact definition here. Warning: Don't freak out! ;)

Judging from the Facebook pictures (that I refuse to share for good reason)...I think everybody had a good time! ;)

Happy 50th Birthday, Dad!

(I clearly get my coolness from him.)

How to Become Beautiful

Let me guess what you’re thinking…"Conceited much?…" It’s okay, you can be honest. :) But this post isn’t about me talking about myself—I’m not about to go publish my own rendition of “Selfish.” ;) But I will talk a little bit about why everyone should become beautiful and how to do it.

This past weekend, I was privileged enough to attend an inspiring and empowering brunch for women. It was called the “I AM ME Brunch,” and it was hosted by a young female entrepreneur, Kristin “Krissy” Sutton, who aspires to combine her love for fashion with her expertise in the mental health profession, and ultimately reinvent Retail Therapy. The event brought women of all ages and backgrounds together to network with each other, become inspired, learn more about Krissy, her efforts and her brand…and eat. (Had to throw that in there. Food was bomb.) But the highlight of the event was the guest speaker—Christy Jones—a certified relationship and life coach. And that day, she decided to talk to us about being beautiful.

The unfortunate truth is only 2% of all women believe that they’re beautiful. Most women do not, and often want to change something about themselves. 2%!!!! I sat there, eyes wide, and listened her talk about that statistic, then I thought, sure, I think I’m beautiful, but there are definitely some things I want to change about myself.

She talked about life. She talked about love. Then she brought up something that really got me thinking. She asked us when did life break our hearts?

Kind of a loaded question right? When we think about heartbreak we think of relationships. Crying over old flames. But she was aiming to get something out of us that was much deeper than surface pain. What was the real reason we are hurt? Why do we keep our guard up in certain situations? Or with certain people? What is the real reason for why we don’t believe in ourselves?

For example, her answer was her weight. She was told at a very young age that she was not skinny. Nobody directly said “you’re fat” and they didn’t say anything in a mean way, but it was enough for her to create a lie in her head: Because she wasn’t skinny, she wasn’t beautiful.

Throughout her life, she struggled with her weight, and exhausted every effort to slim down in order to feel beautiful. She explained how her vision was tainted because everything she did was now evaluated through this “filter” that was created because of this lie. In other words, she would always look for evidence to support the lie: “I didn’t get that job because I was fat. He didn’t like me because he thinks I’m fat. I can’t ever do this or do that because of my weight.”

The idea that was coming to my mind was this: We as humans are relationship-oriented people. We look for relationships with other people and among things. When we make decisions, we want them to be justified. So when something happens to us that is out of our control, we automatically try to find ways to justify why it happened—even if that reason is a complete lie. And often it stems from a past experience that has affected us in a negative way, whether we realize it or not. Here’s how she summed it up:

• We are born with a heart of truth
• Then life breaks our heart
• Disappointment sets in
• A lie is sown
• We look for evidence to support the lie

We need to stop that. So she then went into how to leave the life of pain:

1. Confront the pain. Deliberately stand against it and decide to no longer let it affect you.
2. Uncover the lie. Go deep into your subconscious and find out what is the root of your pain. What keeps talking you out of your confidence and telling you that you don’t deserve success and happiness?
3. Heal your heart. Give yourself time to heal and focus on living a life without that lie in it.
4. Identify your value and self-worth. Learn what makes you beautiful and remind yourself of it.
5. Say yes to yourself. Let go of the negativity. Instead of succumbing to reasons why you can’t, create reasons for why you can.

Krissy’s brand, KayKode, was created around the thought that we literally wear our emotions on our sleeves. She takes into the account the proven fact that what you wear affects your mood, and strives to create pieces that boost confidence and promote healthy living. In her career, she has provided therapeutic services to patients with various mental illnesses, and she hopes to use those same skills to provide clients with personal consultations and create wearable pieces—Retail Therapy. Her “Kode of Ethics” are well-being, strength, empathy, growth, authenticity, and advocacy. It became very clear to me that her overall theme here is to help women see, feel (and wear!) their beauty—help them to become beautiful.

Furthermore, when I say "beautiful" I'm referring to more than just appearances. Become a beautiful mind, a beautiful artist, a beautiful friend, a more beautiful person. The key is to build your confidence to feel like a more beautiful you.

At the end of the day, the answer is very simple. To become beautiful, you have to tell yourself that you are beautiful. There is no one else on this Earth that can convince you except yourself. Believe it. Own it. Wear it. Werk it. ;p You are you, and I Am Me, and we are truly beautiful.

Event Planner, Shamese Campbell, of Concepts with Character (Instagram: @cwc_eventdesign) & Krissy of KayKode (Instagram: @kaykode_)

KayKode
www.KayKode.com

Event Design

Concepts with Character

www.cwceventdesign.com

Guest Speaker

Christy Little Jones
Certified Relationship and Life Coach

Twitter: @ChristyInspires

Vinny's "aVINgers" Themed 5th Birthday Party!

Hello loves! May is such a busy month for me. For whatever reason, so many people in my life were born in May! Including my son, Vincent. He turned 5 this year, and requested an Avengers themed birthday party! I couldn't have been more thrilled to throw it for him. Being that the new Avengers movie came out on May 1, Avengers stuff was so easy to find! Pics of the party and party details are below:

Theme
Even though "Avengers" is a theme in itself, I always try to customize my parties in some way, and normally it's playing with words. This year, since it's for Vinny, the theme was "aVINgers," and Vinny was "The inVINsible Man!"

Since the new movie came out so close to his birthday, I thought it would be nice to set up the party like a movie theater. My original plans were to watch the Avengers movie (old one) outside, but it was scheduled to rain that day and we were having trouble getting creative with outdoor seating/blankets, so I decided to keep it indoors.

I do ALL my parties on a very tight budget by the way, so I try to create everything myself first before I buy/rent it. Most of what you'll see are things I created or manipulated, or common things that are used in a different way. I'm not going to say that I will never splurge, because I do think certain celebrations deserve a good splurge, ;)...but I still want the party to look good and for all the guests to have fun, so my main focus is always on the details and what my guests would like to see and do.

Enjoy the pics!

Credit to my cousin, Ashaela for creating Vinny' s superhero self! She is an amazing artist and I'm so thankful she helped me with this project because I would've NEVER been able to create that!! Thanks girl. :)

Also thanks to my dad for carving out the cityscape silhouette FREEHAND WITH AN XACTO KNIFE!! I'm so lucky to have such amazing artists in my family.

It's amazing all the things you can do with cheap plastic tablecloths! I used plastic tablecloths and ornament hook command strips to hang all of the backdrops. They stayed up through the entire party and day before (which is when I set it up)! I've tried TONS of ways to hang backdrops and this is one of my favorite methods.

 I had yellow and red pillows that I wanted to throw onto the couch (I used them during Vinny's 2nd Birthday Party, you can see them here), but I couldn't find them and didn't feel like purchasing new ones, so I just did without. They would've looked great though! I bought them from IKEA--you can find so many good things to use for parties at IKEA!! It's also where the clamp-spotlights on the table came from.

 

 DIY Photo Booth
My parent's house has a "butler's pantry" -- or, the floorplan's way of describing a cute hallway between the kitchen and the dining room. ;) It came in handy for my DIY photobooth! I used two blue plastic tablecloths to hang the backdrop (I doubled up so you couldn't see through it), a banner I had from a previous party (I purchased from Target), and tons of props--superhero masks, glasses, hats and headbands, etc. I wanted to hang a curtain in the doorway to the photobooth, but thought of it too late and couldn't find a tension rod. People were taking pictures with their cameras/camera phones, and I also had my polaroid camera on hand so even the adults could take home a party favor!

 

FOOD GALORE!!
We had tons of food, but here are my three kid-birthday-party-food staples:
Lumpia (filipino eggrolls) - The kids LOVE it.
Pancit (filipino dish) - Noodles for long life.
Muffin Meatloaf - Everybody loves this meatloaf! I constantly get asked for the recipe so here it is: Skinny Kitchen BBQ Muffin Meatloaf

Can't forget about the cake! I made the cake using colored cake mix (I found at Wal-Mart). I bought three layers in red, blue and yellow. I used white icing for the base color of the cake, and blue and red m&ms to create Captain America's shield.

Games
So for games this year, I admit I was slacking. I wanted to do ALOT more than what I originally had planned, but I had quite a few kids/parents let me know they weren't going to make it, so I admit, I got a littled discouraged and didn't do all the games I wanted to do. But we did get to do pin the heart on Iron Man, and all the kids got prizes. Our winner (above) got two prizes, of course. :) I really wanted to create a Hulk Smash game (found on pinterest) for the kids, but didn't get a chance to make the box for it. Maybe next time. ;)

Hope you all enjoyed, and a big thank you to all those who came and those that sent him gifts and birthday wishes! Vinny had a great time and fell right to sleep once everyone left. Until the next event...for now, I need a nap. :)