HEY!!! Kate, I'm so excited you have started this blog, this is seriously going to help motivate me to get out and go do something active. This week started off nice, I didn't have school on Monday, so I started my day off with a nice 3 mile run early in the morning before it got too hot! (Just as an FYI I am training for an olympic sized triathlon so I need all the motivation I can to keep up the training, its a mile swim, 24 mile bike and 6.2 mile run...YIKES!) That night a group of us got together for some ultimate frisbee, which if you can get a group together to play something like that on days you just know your not in the mood for a real "work out" this can give you some really good exercise and you don't even realize how many calories you are burning. Tuesday and Wednesday were kind of failures as far as activity goes, my excuses are school and work, they get in the way sometimes. Today, however, I did a brick, which is where you do 2 of the 3 exercises (swimming, biking and running to get your body used to doing them one after the other). So today I did a 12 mile bike ride then a 1.3 mile run, thats all I had left in me, I wanted to die! I really like the idea of the stickers on the calender each time you work out. Simply weighing myself a lot seems to help me also, if I see that number creeping up I just want to lose that weight, and once I see it start to go down pretty consistently I just want to keep it up!

As far as diet goes, I know I can't give up my ice cream, I just love it way too much, but I do need to control how much I eat of it. I also have a really hard time with portion control, when I start to eat something I just want something else and something else right after that. I've realized that the more I'm away from home keeping myself busy the better I eat. That only works though if I plan for my day and pack myself what I can eat. One of my favorite treats lately has been a bowl of strawberries, blueberries, and blackberries, with one of my favorite yogurt (light) flavors and some low fat granola. It's delicious, and tastes great on a hot day! Another thing that I really like, but I don't think very many others would like it, is plain oatmeal, with strawberries and cottage cheese. I always have to add just a little brown sugar to it, but if you like the taste without the sugar, go with that! I also always make sure to have a bag of carrots in my fridge to snack on if I need something to snack on!

I want to start hearing some good diet ideas! How I can control my portions better, and how I can control that sweets craving! Sorry for the lengthy post but I'm really excited about helping you guys while you help me!