Wednesday, February 2, 2011

rant of the day


Hello my beautiful friends, it's Jessica! As of now it seems like I’ll have a lot more time on my hands. So, I decided to use my college “free-time to write! The reason for all of this time is due to not driving nor having a car. To avoid your confusion I’ll explain why I am currently in this situation. Well you see, I am kind of an absent minded person and each road test I’ve taken ended tragically.

The first time I took my road test was kind of embarrassing. Somehow I allowed my nerves to take over my body and I didn’t get on the left lane and turned left… while still on the right lane. Although it was stupid and an automatic fail, I remained positive and told myself “I’ll get it next time!”

Boy, was I wrong…I failed the second time due to my anxiety and nerves. Perhaps I would’ve been less nervous if my inspector wasn’t so haughty and rude. Before I even started the test he sat in the passenger side with such a dirty look on his face. He criticized my driving every step of the way, which made it very distracting for me. I failed because I wasn’t prepared. He actually told my father he was doing us a favor by failing me.

Okay, I will admit the third time I took the test was completely avoidable and I am still sensitive about it. I managed to do everything (including parallel parking) impeccably. I was so confident throughout and started daydreaming of me waiting patiently for my license in the DMV line. While this was happening in my brain, I managed to drive past a stop sign. Oh. My. GOD. My very silent inspector just looked at me and told me to park the car. After a few moments he said, “Well you just need to come back.” Apparently my excellent parallel parking was not enough and not stopping at a sign is just unacceptable.

In case you're wondering, my next road test and hopefully my last is in March. I’ve probably managed to make all the dumb and possibly dangerous mistakes possible, so I just need to go in there and know that it’s only what I’ve been doing for these past 12 months. Whoa, I totally bored you with my life right there. You’re probably thinking, “What does this have to do with health, fashion, or fitness?” It doesn’t. I just wanted to clarify with the world why I am so dependent on everyone for rides. Thank you drivers, I appreciate, and love you all! <3 -Jess

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Commit To Working Out On A Busy Schedule

Hello everyone! So as well all know it is now mid-January and some of you have already given up on your new years resolutions, one popular one being to loose weight. We all do this, year after year, tell ourselves this year will be different and I WILL stick to my diet/weight loss goal. Well I am not going to lie, I've been down this road before and trust me it's very easy to give up on a good goal. It really takes a lot of determination and motivation to really carry through. One thing that it is important to remember is that diets rarely work, in a way they set you up for failure because you give yourself unrealistic limitations on food intake and then whenever your "two week cleanse" or whatever diet you do is over and done with, you go back to your old ways and your diet didn't really benefit you now did it? Anther common mistake with diets is people think they are miracle workers in which you don't need to work out, just eat less, WRONG! If you would really like to succeed in losing weight you have to exercise and you HAVE to eat healthy, no questions about it, and has to become something you adapt to your lifestyle. Before I get off topic let me continue with what this post is all about. One challenge people often face when trying to lose weight is lack of time, this is something I too struggle with and it can become very disheartening. About a year ago I discovered an On Demand feature on my TV called Exercise TV. This channel is literally a Godsend to working people, stay at home mothers, and anyone who has a busy/active lifestyle and still would like to make time to workout. It's great because it features anywhere from 10-60 minute workouts from top trainers that really know what they are talking about, and they are very encouraging. So I would like to tell you a little about my new workout commitment. Last week I started doing the 10 Pound Slimdown with trainer Chris Freytag. It's a fun, fast paced workout system designed to give you results in a month by mixing up 20 minute workouts five times a week. Now I'm not neccessarily looking to lose weight and be skinny because I'm happy with my body, however I just wanna tone up, escpecially in the tummy area ( I'm sure most of you can feel me on that one!) So i'm just gonna stick to this and really see where it takes me by the end of the month! I will definately be posting some updates on here as well!! If you'd like to check out all Excercise TV has to offer check out: http://www.exercisetv.tv/workout-plans/ here you will find down loadable workout plans and much more. Also keep in mind that there are many other great resources for working out on a restricted time schedule. When keeping up with my yoga practice I turn to the internet:
  • Yogatoday.com-On this website they offer a weekly free class, down loadable classes for $3.99 with an account and you also have the option of doing a yearly registration for unlimited classes which will cost you about $89.95.
  • Youtube.com- OK so obviously we all know that today youtube is one of the most commonly used resources/sources of entertainment on the Web. You can use it for practically anything so why not use it to find free yoga/workout videos. I especially enjoy it because it's free, and there are plenty of yoga gurus with videos that you can use for your practice. Yoga Today has a page with a few selections, most are the lite versions of the longer practices which you have to pay for. I also like to visit Tara Stiles' page because she has many quick effective plans and practices, along with Sadie Nardini, among others. All you really have to do is type in yoga and see which videos and instructors work best for your current practice and pace.

 <3 Aria