2 years out surgery, 1-1/2 for maintenance. Yaay.

:}

You are a sexy, sassy little thing! Great job Brandi!

Hugs!

PotKettleBlack!

Muwah, mimi!

You have done amazing and I especially appreciate the behavioral and spiritual changes you have made. I see you as a huge success because you have truly changed your relationship with yourself, your body, exercise and with food.

To me this is something you can't see in pictures really, but when I see your pictures, I can see the love and care you have put into your body.

You have loved it, and it glows and shows the love you have put into it. To me this makes you a huge success, and those pictures are just further evidence of the healthiness of your mind. Bravo!

:}  Its funny you see the love, cuz that is exactly what it is.  My deal with me from the beginning was to treat myself with loving kindness.

Loving someone often means giving them what they NEED, not so much the what they WANT.  If it can be both, then that ROCKS, but NEED trumps want.   I saw so many people who got to number goal/size goal and had no respect for the work they had put into themselves, and I really want to know I did *all I could for me this time!!*

For health, longevity, my body NEEDS purposeful movement, as a woman with ever declining estrogen, which affects my bones, and muscles, I NEED to create more muscle, or even just retain what I have, and create a support system for my poor bones!! 

When I tell me I dont wanna, I tell me I understand - but that wasnt ever the question - cuz there wasnt one.  The statement was "I love you, and you NEED this."

*Muwah* babysproutling. 

I hope soon the squeeze on you lightens up and it gets easier to breathe.

Thank you beautiful lady. I feel the same way about the food I eat.. I choose my food based on what I need and not what I want.. as a form of love. The hard part is when I consider something generally healthy and good for me (like nuts) but want to eat too much of them because I both need and want them.

It's those types of food which are most difficult for me to manage, because I don't have the boundaries for them that I have for foods I consider "BAD" for me in any quantities, but figuring out how much of a good thing is a bad thing can be tricky. Thanks to Frisco I just measure.. just have to do it now.

I've been MIA for a while, dealing with hubby and his surgery/recovery thing, but I wanted to let you know that you are an inspiration, especially with the way you have sculpted your body.  I wish I could motivate myself to lift the way you do!  I'm now going on 6 months of no exercise because of my knee surgery, and need to get back to it(although I'm facing a third surgery on the same knee).  What lifting program do follow?  I bought this book call New Weighlifting Rules for Women, read it, but haven't started it!  I'd love any advice.
 

Honestly a huge part of my motivation was the fact that plastics were not in my realistic future and it broke my heart to see folks work so hard to get down to where they called goal, and then switch their laser focus on ripping themselves to shreds because now they were thinner, but their body was - well you know, a body that had just lost ****pots of weight and muscle. 

Anyway SORRY ABOUT YOUR KNEE..booo!!

I created a lifting program for me when I first started that I am glad to link you to, or send you a sheet of if you want to PM me.

I just recently finshed 3 months of ChaLEAN Extreme lifting which I LOVED, especially because its 30 minutes max from when I push play until I walk away.  ( I have attention span issues :})

And now, I am looking at a program by Rachel Cosgrove which is 2 lifting days, 2 "metabolic exercise" days (kinda reminds me of soft core Tabata stuff - its calesthenics really) and then just doing the zumba cuz I love it.

After this, I might cycle back to the first lifting bit I did only do it superslow, heavy as I can max out at 8 or 10 reps, 1 set per exercise.

The Rachel Cosgrove lady, she is the wife of one of the New Rules fellas, Alywn Cosgrove. 

I lifted before on one of my health sprees, but it just hurt so much before and I never SAW anything different - when you see stuff change, its definitely a motivator.

So, its cliche but its only cuz its true - the best thing to do is the thing you will do consistently!!  For me that means effective and not pushing my attention span to its absolute limits, because I KNOW me, and I can find excuses why I dont have 30 minutes to do something AT HOME.  I SURE cant follow an hour, hour and a half program, especially when I have to add another 30+ minutes plus to even GET THERE!!  :}

And because it strains my arms/hands/wrists, I have to have something I can do after work, so sometimes that is early in the day, or sometimes it ends up being late in the evening if I have had more labor intensive work and it takes longer to get my lines in.

Take care of your knee babygirl!! 

Thank you!  Please PM your routine.  I have to start somewhere and I hate lifting.  I hated all forms of exercise, grew to love most, but still hate lifting.  I just won't do it on my own, only when I had a trainer, and he was the worst excuse for one I ever met.  So if it's something that's short and sweet, I will give it a try!  Maybe you can help me stay accountable :)

Its a done deal babyface!!  :}