Tag Archives: alyssa

Five things that will happen when you attend ShiftCon

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In early December, I was lucky enough to go to Shiftcon in New Orleans as a volunteer. During the conference, I bounced from session to session providing back-up photography, but I also got to help lead two Twitter parties, where I gave away tons of prizes from Shiftcon’s amazing sponsors. April went to Shiftcon in 2014, and I’m so glad I finally got the chance to go. Leah, the founder, is a friend of mine (and my favorite chicken lady), and I’m so proud of the huge community she’s brought together. Want to know five things that will happen if you attend Shiftcon in 2017?

  1. You will meet awesome people from all different walks of life. Here’s me with Tracy, who I clicked with instantly when we joked about the hotel hallway feeling like the hotel from the Shining. Dark sense of humor? Check. Passion for blogging? Check. Mutual friend of Leah? Check! You will also connect with people you may have met before, and enjoy an awesome bloggy-friend reunion. 15327479_1198311406904107_4270921376446775687_n
  2. You will learn something. I learned more about obesogens, Instagram Pods, and how to run around an exo hall taking live photos while also giving away prizes during a massive live Twitter party.

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  1. You will come home LOADED with swag… even more than you get at BlogHer, which used to be the grand-daddy of all free stuff. My favorite Shiftcon swag I’m still using from day to day? My BeautyCounter lipstick and a bunch of delicious goodies from Bob’s Red Mill.dsc_0120

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    Loving my Plant Therapy essential oils!

  2. You will be well-fed. And you’ll be well-fed with food that is locally sourced, non-GMO, organic, and often, gluten-free. We had freshly shucked oysters, a locally raised cow, sandwiches, yogurts with granola, roasted veggies, salads, pudding… We were *very* well-fed between the sponsored breaks, expo hall, and hosted lunches and receptions. dsc_0232dsc_0272
  3. You will enjoy the sights and sounds of Shiftcon’s location for the year. New Orleans is one of my favorite places on earth, and it’s a city that comes to life in its rich music, stunning wrought iron and brick, and vibrant local personalities. This year, Shiftcon will be in Orange County, just a jaunt down the highway from my place, nestled between the majestic ocean and theme park mecca. There will be something for everyone, no doubt!

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So, whadda ya say, friends? See you in February next year? 🙂 Stay tuned here and at ShiftConMedia.com for all the latest about everything ShiftCon. This is one conference you won’t want to miss! (And trust me – I go to alot of ’em. I’d definitely go back!).

An update from Alyssa and April: A fresh start in 2016!

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Well hey there! How are ya? Lots has happened  in the past year… mainly that I had a baby! Holly was born on 11.09.15 and is an amazing, sweet, happy little baby. My life has changed dramatically in just two months, and as I suspected, I’m finding that my attitude towards my body and weight loss is changing. The desire to get healthy is even stronger than ever now because it’s no longer just about me – being a healthy Alyssa is being a healthy mom for my daughter. April and I decided over Christmas this year that we wanted to come back to the Double Chin Diary.

Managing a full-time job, marriage, baby, and writing on my blog is going to be a bit difficult, so this year I’m not giving myself any “goals”. It’s simply trying to move to a frame of mind for feeling good. Pregnancy and the post-partum time period does a doozy on the body, so for now, I’m ready to get started with a few simple things; 1) Getting back to gentle exercise, like walking, yoga, and riding my bike, 2) Moving away from sugar, and 3) focusing on self-care like sleep, gardening, and eating nutritious things. That’s all. No goals of “I must lose this much weight by so and so,” because that stuff has never worked for me. I just need to try to do and be better.

A blogger friend of mine has been experiencing some health issues, and she posted this on her Facebook: “To all of you youngsters on my friend list who are carrying extra weight, PLEASE heed my warning and lose the weight … sooner rather than later! We only get one shot at this life, so please don’t waste/throw away years of it being overweight like I’ve done.”

It really resonated with me, and as I approach the ripe old age of 31, no day or time is ever promised. Why wouldn’t I want to spend it feeling great? I’m thrilled that so far mommyhood has been wonderful; I feel happy mentally, and now it’s time to start feeling better physically. My back in particular has been aching a lot since late pregnancy and labor (more details about that later: the chiropractor is my new best friend), so I’m ready to shed some weight to see if that helps.

Feels good to be back… I’ll check in soon with more details about my body during pregnancy and after.  2016: let’s do this! (PS: You can also find me on my other blog, LaLaLyssa.com sharing more lifestyle related things like tales from motherhood, random posts about cats, and other stuff.)

XOXO

The Double Chin Diary Siggy

 

 

The Double Chin Diary Divider

From April:

It has been a year since I stopped writing on the Double Chin Diary. This past year went by quickly as I didn’t have much time to rest with my usual chaotic schedule. I spent 2015 working an assortment of positions at a local humane society, babysitting, and being a full time student. I am proud to say that I’m just one class away from completing an advanced certificate in Environmental Resource Management and Pollution Prevention!

Even though my life was on the constant move, I managed to gain 45 pounds. I know why I gained the weight. I ate for convenience and not health. My idea of exercise was walking from the farthest parking spot in the lot at work. I stopped hiking, playing tennis, and going for walks around the town. I hit my ultimate level of exhaustion and my body took the impact of it.

This year I can’t continue to act the same way. My body just can’t handle any more weight. My legs get all twitchy when I’m tired, just like they used to do 8 years ago before I had lost 50 pounds. I eat Tums like they are the only thing that keeps me alive. I spend my weekends sleeping and cleaning because I’m too tired from the week to do anything productive after work. I need to start making the changes necessary for me to lose weight and regain my health. Plus, with my niece Holly around now, I have even more motivation to get fit.

Alyssa and I have been talking how we need to start writing again on the Double Chin Diary. I never had an extraordinary amount of weight loss while writing here but a major benefit I found was the accountability for myself to do well. I felt like I wanted to have positive things to write about so I was motivated to try harder.

Now that it is a new year and my crazy schedule should be calming down, it is time to start again. I plan to write at least once a week about my adventures of being back at the gym, eating well, and regaining my health. I’ll be using Myfitnesspal.com to track my weight and maybe my food and exercise, if I can be disciplined enough. I need to start COMPLETELY avoiding the foods I’m allergic to (wheat, rice, oats, apples, oranges, and bananas) as I do think my denial of my food allergies over the past four months definitely attributes to my weight gain.

Like so many at the beginning of the year, I am full of great intentions. I hope I can actually fulfill them this year.

Happy 2016 everyone!

Cheers,
AprilSignatur

Alyssa’s 16 Pounds Lost Progress Pix

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Hello, hello! How are things? My weigh-in on Tuesday wasn’t stellar — I was up 2.2 pounds. But, not gonna let it get me down. Pickin’ myself up and brushin’ myself off, because I seem to be in a little bit of a big loss, then gain, then another big loss type pattern. I was holding water from some yummy food on my weekend away, and I’ve been back at the tracking and exercise with a vengeance. So I know next week will be better. Moving on to Non-Scale Victories!

I’ve been wanting to update my progress pix for awhile, and now that I’ve officially passed a 15 pound milestone, I thought it was time. It’s frustrating to think that it took me since June to lose these 16 pounds, BUT, I’d rather take it suuuuuper slow than nothing at all, if it means I’ll eventually get there. Without further ado, here’s what I look like minus 16 pounds. (And unfortunately, there’s no poorly photoshopped cats this time around. Next time!)

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I’m so glad I have these pictures, because on days where it feels like it’s just not worth it to try to lose weight, I can look at these and SEE change. Especially through my mid-section. Whenever my middle starts to whittle, I know that what I’m doing is working. Even better? The joyous “You’ve lost weight!” exclamation from friends who haven’t seen me in awhile. Love it, love it, love it. But it’s not really about how I look — it’s more about how I feel. And I’m feeling good. I have more energy, my body feels less tense, and I’m not huffing and puffing from simple things. I’m so glad I’m finally seeing some progress on this very long road I’ve been traveling on for several years. It makes me think that maybe, just maybe, the future is within my reach — and it’s very bright!

5 Weeks of Boot Camp

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Tomorrow morning is the first Monday in five weeks that I won’t force myself out of bed at 6:45 AM, hastily throw on some workout clothes, and rush to the park to sweat. I finished my five week Groupon and I’m happy to report that my boot camp was nothing but a positive experience, as it taught me several things:

  • While I am certainly not a morning person, getting a great work out before the day begins is awesome. It was done for the day and I went to work feeling nice and awake and stretched out and limber.
  • I have lazy tendencies, and need to push myself to work harder when it comes to fitness. My bootcamp instructor was great about encouraging me to do more, and it worked. Sometimes a gentle nudge is all I need.
  • Five weeks seems short, but it made A LOT of difference in my fitness regimen. How much? Let’s see!

On the first day of the class, we did baseline fitness testing where for one full minute, we counted the number of crunches, squats, sprints and “six inches” that we could do. Six Inches means you hold your feet and legs off the floor, six inches above the ground, using your core to support you.

Here’s my baseline fitness test next to my scores after five weeks:

Screen Shot 2013-04-28 at 9.40.07 PMI was most proud of my improvements on plank. For some reason, the plank is always the fitness move that eludes me, where I try and try to hoist my body up, teetering on my elbows like a hot dog held up by toothpicks. I’ve finally mastered it, and at the beginning of the five weeks, I thought I was going to die after 15 seconds – and now I can actually hold it up to a minute and 30 seconds. AWESOME!

As you can see above, I improved in every category except for sprints. I am tryiiiiing so hard to like running, but I think I finally hit the nail on the head for why it’s not uber enjoyable for me. It’s HARD to move this body, with an extra 70 pounds. I am agile, flexible and strong, but I am not FAST – and that’s so much of what running seems to be. However, I recognize that it’s an amazing cardio element, so I’m going to try to keep it up.

All in all, after five weeks of bootcamp, I lost 9 inches over all and greatly improved my fitness. I’m already debating signing up again because it felt so much more rewarding for me than my gym. As much as I love Zumba and boxing, this fitness regimen really got me movin’ and combined cardio and strength, and I loved being outside in the morning, watching the squirrels find their breakfast, seeing the sun rising up over the smoggy skies of Los Angeles.

As far as weight, I haven’t gotten on the scale since last week’s kerfuffle, but I’ll be back on it soon. When I’m done with school, I have an appointment with my doctor, just to double check that hormonally, everything is right. Sometimes you just have a feeling something’s wrong, and I want to just double check. In reflecting back, losing weight has been about 94% impossible for me the past year, so I just need to confirm that it’s all good in the hood and it’s likely behavior (food) and not physiology (hormones) that’s making this so challenging.

Anyhoo! So that was bootcamp! I surprisingly loved it.

I hope you have a fantastic Monday – I’ll be back tomorrow!

 

FitBloggin’ Recaps Day Two – Joyful Shimmy, Janet Ober, Hank Hannah and Jack Fit

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The Gang's all here! FitBloggin 2012!

Hello everybody! I am home from Baltimore and slowly getting back into the routine. First things first – I’m lucky to be able to travel as much as I do, but MAN, do I miss cooking when I’m on the road! I just made a delicccccious wheat pasta with a charred broccoli and onion sauce, mixed with lean bacon bits and small mozarella pearls. Super tasty, fairly light (if I keep the serving right!) and homemade. Best of all, I managed to scrape that together before going to the grocery store. Whew!

Laura from Joyful Shimmy learned to love her body by getting naked!

Friday night at FitBloggin’, we had an ignite fitness keynote session. What this meant was instead of the usual boring 1 hour keynote, there was 15 speakers, each broken up into 5 minutes with 15 slides. It was fun, fast-paced and kept us entertained – especially with stories like those from Laura, of Joyful Shimmy, a recovered bulimic who learned to love her body through burlesque! I loved Laura because she was actually the first blogger I met while decorating my badge, and she was friendly, approachable and funny – a perfect introduction to my first fitbloggin’ ever.

Image from JanetOber.com. Click to read her story and buy her book.

There were also really moving stories, like Janet’s. Janet was hit by 5 semi trucks at a time – leaving her leg mangled and nearly destroyed. Despite crippling depression and the serious physical trauma, Janet overcame her struggle and now runs marathons. Her speech was EXACTLY what I wanted to get from FitBloggin’. I’m always the mayor of excuses village, and if Janet can overcome nearly losing her leg, suffering major depression… and then continue to run MARATHONS, I can lose this weight. Excuses are not valid. Janet is a powerful speaker, and her words shook me to the core – not with fear or pressure, but with complete inspiration and validation that if you work hard enough, anything is possible. (Except finding a comfortable bra. I have decided that is impossible.)

 

 

Hank was sick of being the fat guy - so he took charge and shed over 100 pounds.

There were also light and humorous presentations, like Hank’s, from the Business of Losing Weight. Hank has lost over 100 pounds, and to illustrate his points, he did each of his slides in paint. Check out this awesome artwork  – a valiant effort, right?! I don’t think I could do that in Paint!

 

 

 

Jack's No Flack Jump the Track Creative Smack Attack

One of the show stealers of the night was definitely (and not surprisingly) Jack Sh*t. Jack Sh*t is well known in the weight loss blogging community for his offbeat and hilarious blogging style. Jack put together a funny and random slide show with things like slides of iced tea, and things that spark his creativity… including Mentos. Towards the end of his presentation, he magically procured a 2-liter bottle of coke from behind the podium, and dumped in two mentos. It was awesome, and was like the Ozzy-Osbourne bat-eating event of FitBloggin’. I raise my hat to you, mr. gettin’ fit.

There were so many other amazing speakers this weekend, but if I keep going, my jet-lagged body will never have time to sleep! Stay tuned tomorrow to find out about my Twitter Community live blog, and also, which fantastic fitbloggin’ folks I met and chatted with.