The Start

I'm Katie, and this is the start of my trek for muscle tone and freedom from chub. In high school, I lost my baby fat by junior or senior year, and could pull on size 4 pants with ease and could barely keep them on my hips - despite living on a diet consisting largely of Wendy's chicken nuggets, Dr. Pepper and my mom's home cooked Italian meals. Since starting college, however, I've gone from 117 pounds my freshman year to being 152 at the start of my senior year - and it's not because I've been packing on muscle. Being confined to one pair of too-small jeans doesn't really suit me, and I hate not being able to stomach the sight of myself in tight fitting clothes anymore. While I know I'm not obese by any stretch of the imagination, I'm not happy with my body as it is, and know that if I don't start catching myself now, it will only get worse as I keep getting older - turning 21 has seemed to be the turning point, though whether it's because of my natural metabolism slowing down or due the increased ease of obtaining alcohol is not entirely clear. I know I have a naturally curvy body, and I want to be able to show it off, and get the most use out of it that I can, especially in my horseback riding and other atheletic pursuits.

For these reasons, I'm starting the P90X program, though with a few changes - as a poor college student, I don't plan on forking over precious cash for supplements and special foods, and with no access to a proper kitchen, I'm limited food-wise to whatever the dining commons serves and whatever I can prepare in my dorm room with a kettle, hot plate, blender, microwave and crock pot. Therefore, I'll be using the nutrition program that comes with P90X as a general guideline rather than a bible, focusing on the suggested caloric intake and portion sizes they recommend rather than their specific recipes or more detailed meal plans. Hopefully I can make this work and still see progress; I'm open to reevaluating this decision, but like I said, there's some limitations I have to work around.

Luckily, there's an upside to being in my senior year of college: I live a stone's throw away from a state of the art fitness center, with a very reasonably priced membership plan for students (check it out here!). Rec Hall has multitudes of cardio equipment, weight machines, free weights, benches, equipment rentals, trainers, athletic courts and fields, basically anything you can think of, not to mention the 3 other gyms on campus which also provide pools, classes and indoor tracks. Plus, the Penn State campus and surrounding area is rife with places to walk, bike, hike, etc, and hilly, providing that extra boost to the benefit of having to walk where ever I need to go.

Basically, the point of this blog is to keep me motivated, and give me something to answer to, as well as a place to share my progress and hopefully provide a resource to other people in similar situations. I'd love to hear from anyone who decides to follow me - whether you're excited to see me succeed, excited to watch me crash and burn, looking for inspiration, looking for a motivating buddy, or just bored and looking for something fun (?) to read online. I love feedback, especially the constructive kind!

I'm starting the program for real tomorrow, and have a few more posts to get through today, so keep an eye out.