We’re at the end of the first quarter of 2016. How are your goals going?

This year I’ve made it my mission to get in the shape of my life and enter my first figure competition in the fall.  This is pretty ambitious but I wanted to really challenge myself.

How did I get here?

It hit me one day when I was going through my closet trying on clothes. I was shocked at how tight some of my favorite outfits had become. When did my waist get so thick? What happened to my boobs? What was going on with my butt?

I had to face it.

I have what I most dreaded.

I have a Mom Bod.

Before marriage and kids, I was a super, active gym rat.  But my career, along with a daily two-hour commute and volunteer commitments – heck, life in general – has meant that sometimes I don’t work out as much as I need or eat as clean as I should.

Also challenging is that once I hit 40 my metabolism slowed down.  Without vigilance, it’s easy to pack on the pounds. They creep on gradually. So gradually that you don’t even notice. This is how I got here.

No more.

Rather than have a pity party for myself, I decided to get serious.  I have an amazing trainer, Quincy Roberts of QR Elite Fitness, one of the best trainers in fitness in body building.

Since early February, I’ve been primarily focused on cleaning up my diet and getting into the habit of eating clean.

This has been the most challenging part of my task because I have a sweet tooth and love carbs.

My diet is pretty simple.  Low-carb. Six meals a day with lots of lean protein and veggies.  My current caloric intake is 1500 calories.

My workouts for now consist of 4-6 days of cardio (for fat burning) and 2-3 days of weight training.

My trainer will switch this up over the next few months.

As the saying goes, you can’t out exercise a bad diet so my challenge is to maintain my consistency while dealing with the craziness of my working mom schedule.

I’m using my FitBit which I sync with MyFitnessPal app to track my daily dietary intake.

Here are the photos I took this weekend.

I debated whether to do this but think it’s important to show where I’m starting from.

Not a total train wreck but definitely a work in progress! I plan to post updates every two weeks.

#Transformation2016: Taken March 19

#Transformation2016: Taken March 19th

Next post, I’ll go into more detail about my diet and post two-week progress pictures. Check out my Pinterest page for inspirational quotes, recipes and killer workouts. As always, I love to hear your thoughts and ideas in the comments!

Let’s do this!