Follow me as I break my nasty habit of overindulgence.....
I'm a thirty-something married gal, living in Los Angeles. I'm beginning this blog to both motivate myself, and eventually others, to be accountable - for both what I am putting in my mouth and for what is coming out of my wallet.
I try to start each new year with a motto.....this year, it's "Shop Less, Sweat More".....hence the title of my blog. They say in order to be successful at eliminating one habit, it's a good idea to replace it with another. So, my goal for this year, is to replace my bad, bad habit of shopping with the good, good habit of exercising regularly.
What brought me here? Well, two things, I suppose. Credit card debt that I have been working hard to get rid of, mainly. How does that impact my ability to exercise? Well, for the past year I've participated in a boot camp, and it's not cheap....$150 a pop for a five week session. So, I decided to treat these two separate issues as one...saving money, saving calories. Not renewing my boot camp membership will save me money, and the money I am saving needs to go to paying my debt.
The majority of my credit card debt is leftover from college. While I was able to obtain some student loans, I did rely a lot on my plastic friends to get me though. It didn't help that I had crappy health insurance with a sky-high deductible, and really didn't help when I had to fork over almost $5k for surgery to remove skin cancer on my back. That, combined with the expenses associated with school and not being able to work full- time due to school really packed a mean financial punch.
I graduated with a Master's degree and now have a well-paying job, which will allow me to tackle this debt head on. Also, my student loans will be forgiven in June as a part of a student loan forgiveness program for individuals working in certain fields, so that will be a huge weight lifted off my shoulders, and is also motivating to get rid of all of my other debt, too.
As far as weight goes, I've always struggled with the same ten pounds....I go up ten, down ten. I really just want to get into a routine to manage my weight and be healthy. Yo-yoing up and down isn't healthy for me physically or mentally. Boot camp brought great results, but I want to be more self-motivated, more of a self-starter, and I want to learn to exercise with what I have, for free. It's all mind over matter - it was sheer willpower that got me into bootcamp, and now I need to apply that same willpower to do it on my own.
I'll be back tomorrow with a full run-down of my baggage - both the fatty kind and the monetary kind! I hope to update my blog every day or so, in order to remain accountable to myself and my eventual followers. Maybe there's someone out there struggling with these issues, too....you never know.
