This Thursday, I am very thankful for my campers.

Today at camp, a little blonde girl said to me: "I just want you to know, you're my favorite counselor. And I really like the bows you wear in your hair every day." Isn't that cute?! Comments like these make me so happy about the career path I've chosen. Even the little ones who giggle at a corny joke I've made, or the ones who silently hold my hand on the walk out to the playground show an unspoken appreciation through their tiny expressions of thanks.

It's a special thing to be able to work with children on a daily basis. Though sometimes I may want to rip my hair out because of the crazy chaos that comes with managing 35 five-year-olds, overall, it's a truly amazing and fun experience every single day. I'm so thankful for each child I've been able to work with at camp, and for my future students, because I already know that they are going to be so wonderful and lovable :)

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Health updates: I still haven't weighed myself since camp started and my lifestyle became significantly more active. I am a bit nervous because I've kinda been using the excuse "I'm burning a lot more calories than usual" to make some questionable diet choices. Not anymore!

I've been taking the lazy way out by eating whatever is convenient instead of taking the time to prepare healthy dinners for myself. I plan to go to the grocery store tomorrow and replenish my supply of healthy ingredients and snacks. That always helps motivate me to eat healthily, because I'm reminded of all of the awesome, tasty, nutritional stuff I can eat!

And, of course, it's important to remind myself: Treat your body with respect. Show yourself the love you deserve. You work hard exercising and staying active, so don't ruin it with unhealthy food!

 

Have a fantastic Thursday!

-Ellen

Today I'm thankful for my awesome job! The last three weeks have been pretty fun, just sitting in a circle with the other counselors and planning out awesome, messy, crazy, and hilarious activities to do with our 5-6 year-old campers :) It's been fun getting to know my fellow counselors and I cannot wait for the real fun to start next week when camp begins! I'm sure I'll have plenty of wacky stories to tell about campers, games, and laughs that will happen over the next eight weeks, so stay tuned for those :)

 

This is a camp photo from last year. A group of thirty kids made me into a human sundae with whipped cream and various other toppings. I was picking oats (yes, oats) out of my hair for three days!

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Health Update: Didn't weigh in today. Because I'm nervous. After many laborious hours of research I'm still puzzled as to what's up with my lack of weight loss. That's the frustrating thing about this whole process: Nothing is concrete or proven. Everyone has a different theory about how to lose weight and an opinion on what's right or wrong. There are no definite answers or specific formulas because every body is different.

I thought maybe I wasn't doing enough cardio, so, as I mentioned yesterday, I upped it to 40-50 minutes per day (Well, this includes strength and abs, as well) from my old 25-35 minutes a day. We'll see if this helps.

I've also read articles about the "starvation mode" theory that states: If you work out, you need to eat more than 1200 calories a day. Otherwise your body will think it's starving and store the fat instead of burning it. I'm not sure if I believe in this theory, but, if it's true, that could be what's happening to me. Though on days when I exercise I tend to eat more like 1300 calories, leaving "wiggle room" of 200 or so calories in case I overestimated my exercise or underestimated my food. (On the My Fitness Pal app, that's the green number that shows how many cals you have left to consume that day.)

If anyone has any encouraging words or advice, please feel free to comment!

Have a great Thursday :)
-Ellen

Hi! I'm very sleepy, so I'm just gunna write a quick post because I don't want to skip any days :)

Today, I am thankful for my family. And I don't just mean my immediate relatives. I'm thankful for my families away from home. Cathedral family, SH family, sorority family, and Josh's family, too. They are all so wonderful and it's great to have so many places where I feel at home :)

Health updates: Today was an off day. I didn't exercise and I ate red velvet cake. But I'm happy, and I had a great day, and if I gain back half a pound or something, so be it. I know I've been saying tons of crazy stuff on this blog and experimenting with exercises and diets like a madwoman, so I wanna apologize if you've been looking to me for a steady stream of reliable advice. Because I'm just a girl trying to lose a few with no knowledge or experience about fitness. Just so you know.

I started this blog anticipating that it would be a summer thing. Drop 15-20 pounds and then come back to school refreshed, then just maintain it as long as I can, probably gain everything back, and not diet again til something important like my wedding one day. But I didn't realize that weight loss is not a dependable or formulaic process. I may be one of those people who just has a hard time losing weight. Maybe I won't lose 20 pounds this summer. Maybe I'll lose, like, 6. But even if that happens, I really do want to continue being healthy until I reach my goal.

But, the way to do this is not by limiting myself so much that I feel down and bored and uninspired. So I'm not going to do anything crazy. I'm just going to live, and be active, and enjoy life, and be conscious of my health choices.

Recommended reading: If you're like me, and you're trying to eat healthy and you're exercising and drinking water, yet not dropping any pounds, read this article and it may help you out:
Why You Aren't Losing Weight

Have a tremendous Thursday :)
-Ellen

Thankful Thursday: Food & Fitness

This evening as I was making my almost-nightly visit to the Health & Fitness section of Pinterest, a thought struck me: How lucky are we to have to worry about something like fitness?

If you think about it, fitness is a complete and utter #firstworldprob. Millions of people don't know where their next meal is coming from or how they are going to make ends meet. Meanwhile, countless young women--like me--are stressed about counting calories and doing enough crunches every day to get as skinny as possible. It's sickly ironic that while so many struggle to find enough sustenance to live, most Americans are fretting about overeating because of the abundance of food in our society. How many people in this world would do anything to be fat?

I've heard a proverb that goes "If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else's, we'd quickly grab ours back." This statement is really hitting home for me. If the problem that keeps me up at night is worrying about how I'd look in a bikini, I'm pretty sure that makes me one of the luckiest people in the world. And that's something to be thankful for.

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Health update: Had a great day! Treated myself to some spaghetti from Noodles & Co. at lunchtime and had some fun bonding time with my fellow camp counselors :) Had my first protein shake and loved it, and also created an amazing frozen strawberry/white chocolate smoothie for a late afternoon snack! My workout today was a P90X video that was waaaay too hard for me. Luckily I was able to modify some of the moves and still burned a ton of calories.

Today I'm officially 3 pounds down which I'm feeling great about. My goal was to lose about 1.5 pounds per week, which is exactly what I've done! If you wanna see updates on my weight loss, you can check the right sidebar or the My Story page :)

 Smoothie: 1 cup frozen strawberries + 1 container Yoplait lite strawberry white chocolate yogurt

Dinner: Rosemary flatbread with grilled chicken and feta, 1 cup broccoli with salt and pepper

Ellen: Um, pure unadulterated sexiness? Clearly. #werkthatupdo

Have a great evening and remember to be thankful today!
- Ellen ♥

Thankful Thursday: Support System

I am so lucky and I have so, so many things to be thankful for! Today, I just wanna say how thankful I am for my healthy lifestyle "support group." I'm not the only one trying to get healthy this summer. In fact, a lot of my close friends are making big changes as well.

Esha, Briana, Nikki, Sydney, and my other friends on their own weight-loss journeys: Thanks so much for reading my blog and constantly motivating me to keep going! When I see your comments on my blog or exercise posts on My Fitness Pal I'm so inspired and I get that extra push to do my best. Also, it's great to be able to vent to you guys when I'm having difficulties or doubts about being healthy. Wishing you all the best of luck on your health journeys. Keep it up!!!

Also thanks to all of my other friends who aren't necessarily trying to lose weight, but are still there for me and support me!

What are you thankful for this Thursday?
-Ellen ♥