goals

Fit Gal: Brittany!

I have been DYING to introduce you to this amazing woman and fitness guru! She has come a long way and I am so impressed with her dedication and committment to fitness. So here she is…

 Fit Gal: Brittany!

1. Tell us about yourself and your fitness lifestyle.

Hi! my name is Brittany and I am a 23-year-old student studying Business Administration.  I made my lifestyle change almost 3 years ago now.  I had a free membership to the gym on campus and decided to take advantage of it.  Starting out, I had no idea what I was doing.  I would follow my boyfriend around in the gym and watch what he did.  I was very self-conscious because I had no clue what to do with any of the equipment – I felt like everyone was staring at me.  I started  to follow fitness pages on Facebook and read up on some articles online to get the basics.  One day I picked up a copy of Oxygen Magazine at the grocery store while I was waiting in line and thought wow, this girl looks amazing! I bought it, read it cover to cover and felt more motivated than ever.  Not long after I was giving my boyfriend tips in the gym! It’s been a great journey so far and I’m so proud of myself for making this lifestyle change. I am continuously learning and loving every minute of it!

2) What are your goals and how are you working towards them?

My original goal was to lose some weight and tone up.  In the beginning I did lose weight – but I pretty much gained it all back in MUSCLE.  This was kind of discouraging at first but looking back at where I was and to now, I definitely look and feel smaller, more toned, fit and have a lot more shape.  I think it’s important for women to realize that they shouldn’t be scared of lifting weights because all the muscle you build burns more calories and keeps your metabolism revved!!  My goal recently was to compete in a fitness competition. I am excited to say that I will be doing that in April 2013!! I joined a local team that does coaching for athletes and fitness competitors and am so excited and proud at the progress I’ve been making so far.

3) Do you “eat clean”?

Yes! I believe it’s impossible to make progress in the gym if you do not eat clean.  I did pretty well at eating clean before I joined my team but obviously still enjoyed treats..I have a terrible sweet tooth 🙂 Now that I have a deadline I’m kicking my butt into gear! Lots of protein – chicken, lean beef, salmon, haddock tuna etc, good nutritious veggies like kale, swiss chard, broccoli and good sources of carbs – sweet potato, oats, quinoa, & brown rice.  I still have an occasional treat but keep it small in moderation.

4) In what ways do you stay active?

I am in the gym 3 days on, one day off then repeat. I work all muscle groups twice a week.  Right now I am doing little cardio as I’m in the muscle building phase of my prep.  I’m also doing some group yoga classes when I can.

5) What inspires you to live this lifestyle?

Those moments when your mind is telling you to stop because it hurts but you keep going and push past that weakness..those are the most important moments because it means growth.  Seeing changes in myself no matter how small they may be makes the difference and keeps me inspired to work hard and stay motivated!

 Lots of love!
Brittany
“Fit Brit”

brit

Thank you so much Brittany for joining the Fitness and the City fam as a Fit Gal! You are so inspirational and I personally cannot wait to follow your journey to your first fitness competition!! Good luck girl!

Oh and by the way, she has an awesome fitness Facebook page as well, so be sure to go check it out!

—> www.facebook.com/fit.brit08

2013 Goals

It’s resolution time! Time to start the quest of taking action, rather than simply making resolutions and not sticking to them. I feel as if it helps to write them down and share them, while pushing to make this a great year! Here’s what I have on my mind for 2013:

  • Become a certified group class instructor
  • Sweat everyday
  • Meal prep every Sunday for the upcoming week
  • Start a morning workout regime (before work…tough!)
  • Blog more! =)
  • Travel more and explore different cultures
  • Stay away from negative people and things that hold me back
  • Learn from successful people
  • Set higher goals! (work on seeing those abs of mine, determined!!)

Most of all—->I think it’s so important to strive for excellence rather than perfection.

I have big expectations for myself, but it’s time to set the bar high and keep track of these goals!

What are your new years resolutions?

Today, I am a featured fitness guru on Jessica Read’s website! Go check her out and see what fitness apps we recommended!

—> Six Pack Apps for 2013

December Squat-a-Thon

Happy December friends! This month we will be doing the Holiday Squat-a-thon Challenge hosted by Fitspobook. Join us on the Fitness and the City Facebook page here for lots of encouragement! We have formed our very own fitness community and it feels great to challenge each other and work together to accomplish this common goal. Please join us and squat away this December as we brave the holiday before us! You can do it, and we can do it together! Let us know how you do! 🙂

Progress with MyFitnessPal

Hello my fit friends! I apologize for my lack of posts, as I have been quite busy this week. I also don’t want to post just because…I would rather have something important and beneficial to say. 🙂 This week I decided to be extra strict in regards to my eating habits and exercise, with it being post Thanksgiving and all. I want to test my body and see what it is truly capable of. I have been successful thus far, eating super clean, no cheat meals, and hitting the gym 4/4 times this week. I have to say, I am quite proud! With a little ambition, you can achieve anything you set your mind to!  I wanted to share a bit below about what is going on for me in my fitness world.

{progress pic above}

I started using MyFitnessPal, which is an app you can download on your phone. It is super cool, and I have been very diligent about using. If you havent heard of it, with this app you enter your food and workout logs each day, as it counts calories and calculates how much more you should be consuming to stay at a certain weight, or whatever your goals may be. You can either search for the food, or scan it, which is awesome! It is SO important to track your progress when you have a certain goal in mind. If you are trying to lose weight, this is KEY! If you are like me and trying to gain muscle and track protein intake this is also a great tool. Needless to say, I am loving it so far and has helped me immensely to stay on track. You can also find me and follow my records, username: FitnessandtheCity.

 

While eating extremely clean, I found myself to be eating the same thing over and over again. I usually start with Nonfat greek yogurt in the morning, and at least one of my meals consist of chicken and brown rice or veggies. I need to spice it up a bit, and will be searching for new recipes. Stay tuned! What are your go-to meals?

{Here was a delicious meal that I came up with. Organic brown rice from Trader Joes, asparagus and shrimp. I’m no cook in the kitchen but this was tasty! }

Stay tuned, I have a new Fitness and the City Fit Gal coming up! Her name is Cassie and she is truly inspiring! She is a cosmetology student who has made the commitment to a healthy lifestyle. I can’t wait to introduce her!

{If you would like to be featured on my blog as a Fit Gal, please email me at Jenna.pardini@gmail.com }

Happy weekend everyone! With the gloomy weather (at least here in San Francisco), I know how much comfort food and being lazy can take over you mind and body! Try to stay on track with your goals. Positive energy = positive results! 🙂

The Very First Fit Gal: Chelsea!

Ok everyone, here it is! The launch of something new on my sight. As I have mentioned in the last post, I want to feature a “Fit Gal” every so often so we can learn about others journeys and feel motivated in that sense. She will totally inspire you, as she has even gotten me more motivated to really commit to a healthy lifestyle. She happens to be one of my very best friends, whose friendship means the world to me. When I saw these pictures of her, I was in awe of how amazing she looks! Check her out for yourself, find inspiration, and learn about how others work towards their goals. So here she is!

Fit Gal: Chelsea

1. Tell us about yourself and your fitness lifestyle and journey.

I have always loved being active and have played sports, and have generally ate a healthy balanced diet. However, drinking and a social lifestyle has always kept me from being lean and having my “dream” body. Drinking leads to additional calories you don’t notice, and late night pizza that you definitely don’t need. Also, it makes it hard to stay motivated in the gym. So to jump start my fitness kick, I cut out drinking.  This made me feel fresh when going to the gym to ensure I had a good workout, and it nixed late night bad food binges. I immediately leaned down, roughly about 7lbs of fat. I was back down to my body size that I had before moving to San Francisco and discovering that there is something social going on every night of the week. However, I wanted to have the body of my “dreams”, so I decided to make a few more drastic changes and some hard work to make sure I could get there. My diet changed to included no more sugars, a lot less carbs and living off of mainly veggies and lean protein. My workouts are different every day to make sure I do not get accustomed to any exercise and plateau (I think of it as always trying to “surprise” my body to keep seeing results). But most importantly, I started a food diary. I use the iPhone app MyFitnessPal. It is so simple and quick to use, and has every food under the sun. I started making sure I put everything in there all the way down to the tablespoon of soy milk in my coffee. It was a HUGE surprise how many calories you eat in a day. Since it gets harder to trim that last little bit of fat off you once you are lean, it becomes 100% important to track your diet. Losing weight (fat weight) is simply math/science, so I needed to figure out exactly how many calories my body needs in a day (basal metabolic rate – BMR) you can look up calculators online for the equation. I aim for about 1400 calories a day on the days that I am working out. On the days that I take off (I am only doing one day a week of rest right now) I eat around 1200-1400 calories. Once I do not want to lose anymore fat, I will up my caloric intake to around 1800 on the days I work out to maintain my weight. This was the best information that I picked up – your diet is what is going to give you the canvas to paint your hard work with your workouts – drop the fat and your abs, shoulders, etc will easily and beautifully show through and display your hard work and discipline.

2. What are your goals and how are you working for them?

I am pretty darn close to all my goals right now, so my new goal is to maintain. However, initially, I wanted to get down to a certain weight because that was my ‘skinny’ goal weight. I reached that goal early on, however what I didn’t realize is muscle SERIOUSLY does weigh more than fat. I had to get rid of the scale and start judging how I look and feel in the mirror and with my clothes. Right now I have been consistently about 5lbs heavier than my lightest weight, but am thinner, have very little fat and have crazy ab definition (that’s what I’m most proud of). This has been hard for me, because I think girls are very reliant on the scale to justify “skinniness” and “fitness”. Absolutely untrue. I have never been more fit and I weigh more now than I did about 2 months ago. That’s because of the awesome lean muscle I’ve built an toned. Right now my fitness goals are to tone down my last little “problem” areas and still maintain this level of fitness. The only way I can keep up a high level of fitness is by not being black and white with anything. I can let myself have a night of drinking and eat what I want, but I make sure the gym and my diet the next few days is better than usual. Going cold turkey will probably end badly with getting burnt out. I still wanna go to weddings and parties and have champagne and cake, but need to balance that with my new fit lifestyle… And champagne and cake doesn’t need to happen every night. I’ll save it for special occasions.

3. Do you “eat clean”?

I have always eaten rather “clean”, meaning I was never a big fan of processes foods. So in a way, yes I do eat clean. I eat more strictly clean now, meaning no more diet Cokes and I’m more focused on making sure the food I’m refueling with is balanced and healthy. But again, moderation and balance is the key… But when you are working out, and working out hard, your body craves healthier food so it’s pretty easy to choose veggies and chicken over processed foods. Additionally, I’ve always chosen to eat clean because a lot of processed foods freak me out and gross me out with how they are made (or what we don’t know of how they are made) and the potential health risks with regards to cancer etc. of eating them.

4. In what ways do you stay active?

The gym is my main form of fitness. However I do pepper in walking and stairs whenever I can (and count that as working out). At the gym I always do some form of cardio and mix it up every day. Erging, stairs, running, elliptical… I like intervals more than a steady long cardio sesh. I can get a better workout in with 15 mins of intense intervals on the erg than 45 mins at a level 7 on the treadmill. Again, you need to “surprise” your body to keep seeing results. Your body will quickly get used to the same cardio day in day out and will plateau. If I can’t get in the gym, totally fine – I can go for a run anywhere, do lunges, push ups, dips, crunches, plank etc anywhere.

5. What inspires you to live this lifestyle?

I like the way I feel. I love the way I look. Going shopping is so much fun, everything looks good on a fit body. I love how strong I am. And the compliments are awesome. I like seeing how I can push myself. The type of discipline it takes to keep a fit body takes a lot of dedication, which we all owe ourselves a healthy body, it does everything for us. Also, I know I am still very young (25), but I want to develop good habits now while it’s still easy, so I can potentially help and prevent issues when I’m older.

Isn’t she amazing? I just love her to death and find her so inspiring. Thank you so much Chels for taking part in my blog!

If you would like to join me here on my page as a Fit Gal, please email me, I would love to have you!  jenna.pardini@gmail.com 🙂

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