Back in skinny jeans

Inspiring Fit Week: Jay wants to drop 70 lbs and even uses a Wii for workouts

Blog: My Cup Runneth Over
Tracking: Jay
Niche: 70 pounds to drop (30 gone so far)
Health goal: To finally see my abs and have tons more energy to do more in life.
Jay's story:

I started working from home in June of 2007. Sitting in front of the PC 8hrs a day getting up to go to the bathroom or the fridge every so often.

My body was showing it, and one day my wife asked me, "Why don't you do something else during the day, exercise go outside." I shrugged it off. One day bored out of my mind I turned on FIT TV and met Gilad Janklowicz and that changed everything. So, how is my blog helping me reach my goal... 

Inspiring Fit Week: Sarah sheds 24 lbs so far and is going Vegan

Blog: Eat to Live
Tracking: Sarah aka Veggie Nerd
Niche: Going Vegan after years of eating take out, frozen entrees, processed foods and way too many Twizzlers!
Health goal: To reach a healthy weight for my height/age (I’m almost there) and to go totally Vegan by January 2009.
Veggie Nerd's story:

When I was an undergrad, my best friend was a Vegetarian. I thought it was a pretty cool lifestyle, so I stopped eating meat, too. Once I hit grad school, I struggled to keep up with the lifestyle because living on campus my dinner choices were peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, a bowl of cereal or the salad bar. I finally gave up half way through my program and started eating meat again.

My weight fluxed for the next five years. In March 2007, I finally had enough! I started eating healthier, smaller portions and kept track of my food intake. At the end of December 2007, I reached a 20-pound loss milestone. Shortly there after, I decided to go back to being a Vegetarian.

What being vegetarian has done for me…

Quote on "Why me?"

It's here "What others are doing to get fit" week! You can be inspired and also enter to win 1 of 2 cool prizes!

We've got some really amazing and inspiring stories to help keep you on track during "What Others Are Doing To Get Fit" week.

To make this week really fun, you have a chance to win 1 of 2 cool prizes. The first prize is one Insignia KIX 1GB mp3 player courtesy of our pals at Best Buy. If you want to know more about the KIX, you can read my review. The second prize is one $25 eGift certificate from Sephora.com courtesy of yours truly. Nothing like a little pampering to highlight the goods you got!

The details...

Inspiring Fit Week: Mamacita Chilena drops 50 lbs and gets her athletic groove back

Blog: The Skinny in Chile
Tracking: Mamacita Chilena
Niche: Athletic but overweight
Health goal: To run a marathon sometime within the next two years. It might sound like a far away deadline, but I live in Chile, and I want to run a marathon in the U.S. but don't know when I'll be back.

Mamacita Chilena's story:

From a young age I was always chubby.  For a greater part of my life, I was first, blissfully unaware, and then, aware, but didn't care because I valued myself for other reasons beyond appearance.  I played soccer from the age of 6. I was team MVP as a senior in high school, and I was on the cheer team (fantastic stunter and tumbler aka pyramid and gymnastics). 

In spite of playing sports my whole life, I had always eaten horrible amounts of junk food and had an overweight BMI.  But, I never defined myself as overweight.  I defined myself as an athlete.  In college, I stopped playing sports, started drinking heavily.  All my muscle turned to a blobby jello-like consistency. No longer big and fit, I was just big and well, big.  But my love of feeling athletic was not going to settle…

Inspiring Fit Week: Zandria shares how gaining muscles gave her more confidence

Blog: Keep Up With Me
Tracking: Zandria
Niche: Working on muscles
Health goal: I want to be able to do at least one unassisted pull-up.
Zandria's story:

What causes a person who’s never worked out on a consistent basis to become interested in fitness? For me, it all started about six months ago.

Last summer I went from wanting to be more active, and thinking that I should be doing something, to actually doing it. What happened was, after too many years of putting way too much time and energy into retaining a certain number on the scale, I decided I was going to start focusing on how I felt.

Instead of being skinny and weak, I wanted to be stronger. I was tired of joking about my almost nonexistent cardio endurance, and my serious lack of upper-body strength. I'd never lifted weights regularly in my life other than a few halfhearted attempts at dumbbell curls using a 5-lb weight.

So why am I interested in fitness? And how do I continue to stay motivated?

Inspiring Fit Week: John wants to drop 100+ pounds

Blog: John is Fit
Tracking: John
Niche: 100+ pounds to drop
Health goal: Drop weight
John's story:

I started my journey from fat to fit back in August at 295 pounds and as I write this today I am at 262 pounds for a total loss of 33 pounds.  I’ve lost four inches from my waist, don’t snore as much at night  and have a ton more energy.  I still have a long way to go to goal (185 pounds) and I am taking it slow – my goal for 2008 is to get down to 220.  It took me years to pack on these pounds and I am satisfied with taking years to get it all off.  And then to keep it off!

At this point in my journey I have had the success I have had not by implementing any strict diet but simply by recognizing where I needed to make adjustments and doing so slowly.  For example...

For race day, the Insignia KIX mp3 player may just do the trick

It's no secret that I can't exercise without my cute pink iPod Mini, but the one thing that I wish it had was an FM tuner. When I run races, I like having a radio so I can get news and traffic reports. Some local stations cover races, and yeah, I should be focused on running, but I'm no hardcore racer. I run to finish and to have fun, and music and current events is crucial to my sense of fun during a 13.1 mile run.

Yeah, I could add an accessory to my iPod to get the radio but I really don't want to add on another thing just for a race, like the Kaiser SF Half Marathon I'm signed up for. I like to go as light as possible. So, Best Buy gave me one of their Insignia brand 1GB KIX mp3 players to try out. Here's my list of "Turn-ons" and the "Turn-offs" and what I think overall of the KIX. The Apple Shuffle has a run for the money! Read on...

Books and DVDs to help you stay focused on achieving your goals