It has almost been a year since I have seriously started working on living a healthier lifestyle. I am by no means anywhere NEAR my health and fitness goals, but I am A LOT closer than I have been in years. I have tried the “healthy” lifestyle on multiple occasions prior to last year, but I was not as dedicated and educated on living a healthier lifestyle until I did the 28 Day Fit Girl Jumpstart Challenge in October of 2014. Since then, I have slowly been taking baby steps to teach myself the difference between diet fads and unnatural weight loss schemes, to the actual act of changing my lifestyle, and making cleaner eating choices and committing to working out regularly.

Clean eating is not a diet. I actually have learned to despise the word “diet”, and understand changing how I eat has to be a lifelong commitment. The changes will not happen overnight, but it will definitely start to show in the long run. The biggest fact I’ve learned about clean eating is, at no time should you starve yourself. When you’re hungry, you’re supposed to eat. You’re just supposed to eat healthier food vs. junk food, or not eating any food at all (leads to bingeing on unhealthy foods). In terms of working out, I learned any activity is better than no activity. You also don’t need an expensive membership to a fancy gym to stay fit either. There are so many at home or outdoor workouts available these days, which makes getting fit a lot easier.

Below I will share my favorite websites and social media people who got me started on my journey, kept me motivated on my journey, and continue to teach me how to do better along the way.

Jersey Girl Talk is a website I discovered through Pinterest while searching for lifting routines. I had been reading up on the benefits of lifting for women, and wanted to jump into it. I had lifted all through high school while running track, but it has been quite some time since I’ve lifted weights and wanted to find a beginners program of some sort. I stumbled upon Adrienne’s (the website owner) lifting for beginners pin, and really liked the sound of it. I’ve loved it ever since. I also follow her on Instagram and Twitter, where she is extremely personable, and responds to your tweets and posts if she is mentioned in them. I haven’t tried any of her recipes yet, but will be giving them a try sometime soon!

I found Fit with Curves through a friend’s post on Instagram. She had re-posted one of the exercises Tatiana (the blog owner) had shared on her own Instagram page. I’m all about seeing people doing healthy things so I clicked on her name to check out her page. I instantly loved the page, and not only because of the workouts. I loved seeing her acknowledge being fit means different things for different people. A woman with curves who is fit will not look like a woman who is fit without curves, and that is okay. Embrace it, and focus on how to become healthy in your own body. I enjoy some of her mini workout videos, and have occasionally added a workout here or there to my routine at the gym. She also has clean eating recipes on her blog I have not tried yet, but plan to in the near future. You can find her on Instagram and Twitter as well.

I’m actually not too sure how I found out about Get Fit with Nic, but I’m happy I did! I do know it was through Instagram somehow. Either way, if you’re looking for great at home and/or outdoor workouts, she is the person to follow. Gym memberships and/or finding the time to go to the gym can often be unattainable for some people. Her works are perfect for those of you who run into these issues. She often posts mini-videos of her workouts, which are perfect for those of us needing the extra “umph” to get our butts off of the couch in general. She has recently started a traveling workout session in major cities for a low fee of $10 which is pretty awesome. You can follow her on Instagram and Twitter.

This is my FAVORITE meal prepping website at the moment. I found this gem of a website while searching for clean eating meals on, Pinterest. My Body My Kitchen, has SO many delicious recipes, broken down into separate categories, to make it easier to search for the type of food you want to eat. What makes this website the best for meal prepping is the amount of food options (so you never get bored), the amount of flavor used in the dishes (to keep you coming back), and how much he loves to make food spicy. If you aren’t a huge spicy food fan, just omit the use of the cayenne pepper and red pepper flakes in your recipes. My husband HATES spicy food, so I modify his meals, and he still loves them. You can follow this page on Instagram as well.

This is my number one go to resource for clean eating and working out, because this is what got me started on the correct path to making healthier life choices. My friend Charelle told me about it back in September of 2014, and her, my Grandmother and I did the month-long challenge. The results were unbelievable for it to have only been a month. For anyone else looking for a great jumpstart to their healthier life goals, I suggest you start with the Fit Girls Guide. The major take back I got from this challenge was how to measure my food and calorie intake, correctly. Did I mention not only is the food really good, the exercises are extremely easy, and can be done at home. You can find the Fit Girls support groups on Instagram and Twitter as well.

If you decide to give any of these resources a try, I hope they are beneficial, enjoyable, and fun to do! Also, let me know what you think about them and what you like and didn’t like. Good luck on your journey and I hope these resources are helpful to someone out there. 🙂

This picture shows my results of the 28 Day Jumpstart Challenge last year. 

Brie <3

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