First off, Happy New Year everyone!! Now it's time to make a New Year's resolution, right?
This post is dedicated to one of my favorite fellow bloggers, Amy Jean the
Relentless Bride. Her wedding is coming up in a couple months, and she's been looking for inspiration to get in better shape for her gorgeously form fitting wedding gown. With today being the very first day of 2010 and the day to make a New Year's Resolution, I figured this is the perfect time to talk about how I got in shape for my wedding.
I have always been a thin person, but I've never been a very fit person or had a regular workout routine. This being said, I knew I had to step it up to look right for my super fitted mermaid wedding dress.
Some pictures of me prior to the wedding workout...
Before:
To make it fair, I chose after pictures from the ones that were put up on Facebook by my friends and not digitally enhanced/edited professional images.
After: (Check out the differences in my arms!!)



I don't know about you, but I can tell a HUGE difference between the before and after. And best of all, I could FEEL a huge difference at the time too. I didn't need to lose any weight... it was really more about toning up and feeling better. So how did I do it? I ran. That sounds so much easier than it actually was. Because, as I mentioned before, I've never been one to work out routinely, and I am definitely NOT a runner!
I started running about 2 months before my wedding. I had a little extra motivation because I knew I should have started working out way before then. (You need to be pretty much done changing your body when you get your dress fitted around 6 weeks before the wedding or you will have to get it fitted all over again or push it back and risk it not getting done in time).
What really worked for me was forcing my non-morning person self to get up and jog in the mornings. I had never done this before, so I was pleasantly surprised to find that running in the morning jump started my metabolism and also encouraged me to not eat a ton of junk during the day.
Win!
The HARD parts:I can usually work about for a week, but then I stop. That white dress hanging in my closet was really helpful to think about along the way. Also, getting up in the morning was hard on several occasions. I bargained with myself a lot. On mornings when I was not wanting to run, I told myself that if I at least got out and walked, that would be okay. In reality, when I hit the road, I usually picked it up and ran anyways. I almost had to trick myself out of bed, and then everything was fine. Another thing that helped was always having my iPod with me and an updated playlist. :O)
I'm not claiming to be a marathon runner here. Most of the time, I would run for about 30-40 minutes, which included jogging and walking intermittently. So now my New Year's Resolution is to do it all over again and keep with it!!