Plans for the Future

Below are my health and fitness goals for when I head to college in September 2018! This blog also includes tips for your health and fitness journey!

Go to the gym regularly.

As of right now I am going to a group workout twice a week. It is fairly expensive for me as a student, but I like the accountability. So, I have chosen this gym instead of paying for a cheaper unlimited membership at one of the gyms in my community, because they don't really offer accountability and support. Once I am a full time student I get a free gym membership at the school! So, my plan is to exercise for an hour and a half to two hours a day. Ideally, I would like to do cardio for an hour and weight lifting for another hour.

I would switch it up every day to make sure I am getting each muscle group when lifting weights, and I would alternate from the rower, to the bike, to the treadmill, to the stairs for my cardio! My style of weight lifting is usually with a barbell and not free hand weights. So, most of my workouts would consist of a mixture of different exercises in a ladder form, or are timed! I am not the typical person that does three sets of 10–12 reps per exercise, I like to do higher reps with the same weight on the barbell for each exercise. An example would be... 21–15–9 reps of thrusters and burpees, OR another one is... seven rounds of seven deadlifts, seven squat cleans, seven burpees, seven hang crunches, seven shoulder presses. I often start off my workout with stretching, then a max lift! So a rep scheme looking something like, 1-1-1-1-1-1-1, or 8-6-4-2-1 of a back squat, deadlift, shoulder press, bent row, squat clean, etc. (Only doing 1-2 of these a day).

Another thing that is important to me is pre and post workout shakes! Now not only should you fuel your body with natural and healthy meals all day, but if you are looking to get the most out of your workouts you need to be energized! Right now I use a brand named Shaklee (an all natural supplement) that offers energizers for before a workout to fuel performance, recovery for after a workout to help with muscle healing, and they also offer meal replacement shakes and bars!

Cheap and Healthy Groceries

Since I am a student and will most likely be crunched for money, I want to waste as little as possible when it comes to food! My plans for this are to plan my meals for the week. Once I have a rough idea of what I'll be eating that week I will go out and buy the ingredients that I will need! I will only buy what I need and the portions that I need to save on throwing anything out that may go bad because I didn't eat it in time. If I forget something or want a snack I didn't buy for the week I can always just go out. But, I want to eat as healthy as possible so I don't want to keep any junk with me. I am sure I will crave junk food occasionally and if i'm going to give in i'd rather have to go out and buy it then have it in my house! I'm going to keep all processed food out of my kitchen... So most of my groceries will consist of milk, eggs, fruits, vegetables, fresh and frozen meats, and starches like potatoes and rice. To be ahead of things I will have all my meals planned and if I can, I will prepare my meals in advance so that I don't have to take as much time when I'm hungry and want to eat!

Positive Self Talk

Positive self-talk is important and isn't nearly emphasized enough! I know that it's nearly impossible to just up and say "I'm going to be positive about myself today," but there's always a start, and of course you will have bad days and ones that you feel crappy, but those are the days that you need to emphasize your positive self-talk! I am going to try my best to stick to my workout and nutritions plans, and even when I do get off track I am going to make sure that I am feeding myself positive thoughts to continue on track! I need to remember why I'm making this lifestyle change and tell myself that it's a long process. One's health and fitness journey never has an ending though because there is always something we can improve on as individuals! So, going forward I will push myself to have positive thoughts as much as I can and stop with the negative.