"Drop 2 Pounds This Week":

Want to shed some weight without the headache of calorie counting, measuring portions or giving up your fun foods? I did! And now it's your turn, by trying what has been working for more than a million other women: the SELF Challenge. As part of our 13th annual Challenge, we've created quick, fun ways to peel off pounds without getting woozy from starving yourself or spending your life at the gym. The key is to get your heart pounding so you lose the poundage.

Here’s the deal: Decide whether you want to lose 2 pounds a week or less (that may sound slow, but you can drop a size in a month this way and keep it off). Follow our free, easy eating plan and try to burn 500 calories per day for a total of 3,500 a week. Those shooting to lose a pound a week should aim to sizzle 250 calories per day (and 1,750 a week). To maintain your weight, focus on daily sweat sessions that burn 100 calories a day (or 700 calories off per week).

Whatever your goal, choose from the following workouts. (Pay attention to the effort level, using a scale from 1 to 10, where 1 is watching TV and 10 is installing a 100-pound plasma screen on the wall.) The smartest, most effective route to lasting weight loss is through exercise, so no matter which mix of workouts you choose, expect to see results within two weeks.

Activities to burn 500 calories:
• Walk 40 minutes at a level 8 on a hilly course (or crank up the incline on the treadmill).
• Do 36 minutes of running intervals: Jog for 1 minute at a level 5, sprint 1 minute at a level 9. Repeat 18 times.
• Take a 45-minute Spinning class.
• Dance to a good beat for 72 minutes at a level 7.
• Hit the elliptical machine for 60 minutes, doing intervals. Do 2 minutes at a level 8, then 1 minute at a level 5. Repeat 20 times.
• Swim freestyle for 50 minutes at a level 8.
• Use the rowing machine for 40 minutes, doing intervals: Go 8 minutes at a level 8, then 2 minutes at a level 4. Repeat 4 times.

Activities to burn 250 calories:
• Walk for 35 minutes at a level 7.
• Run for 20 minutes at a level 7.
• Bike for 30 minutes at a level 5.
• Dance for 50 minutes at a level 4.
• Hit the elliptical machine for 30 minutes at a level 8.
• Swim freestyle for 25 minutes at a level 8.
• Use the rowing machine for 28 minutes at a level 8.

Activities to burn 100 calories:
• Walk for 25 minutes at a level 4.
• Run for 12 minutes at a level 4.
• Bike for 17 minutes at a level 4.
• Dance for 20 minutes at a level 4.
• Hit the elliptical machine for 15 minutes at a level 5.
• Swim freestyle for 15 minutes at a level 5.
• Use the rowing machine for 25 minutes at a level 5.

Should I try this?

Eh. Why not.

Maybe tomorrow.

{article found here}

Yep. I did it.

{pic from here}

I went to the gym!

Hoorah!

Who said I couldn't do it? Huh? HUH???

Anywho, let's see if I keep at it the rest of this week!

Can I?

Will I?

Well I should - unless I want to weight too much and then my heart will stop working...

I don't want that to happen.

I kinda need my heart.

It kinda keeps me going every day.

Especially when I need to be a hopeless romantic and cry at the cheesy romantic and cute commercials.

Plus I need it to pump blood to the rest of my body.

That would help as well.

So if I don't exercise my heart might get clogged and that isn't right because my heart has been good to me.

It doesn't deserve the fat and grease I feed it every time I pop a french fry in my mouth.

It really is taken for granted the heart.

I can't feel it unless Irun up the stairs and are running out of breath by the time I hit the second floor of a 3 floor apt complex...

Or up the one set of flight of stairs to my room from the living room.

So really. It's not just to look good that we should all workout.

It's to give that great organ of ours a little help.

Help that it has always asked of us silently as it sits there between membranes, tissues, muscles, bones and lungs.

Give your heart a little love every once in awhile.

Go workout.

Make it beat fast so it can speak to you - it will thank you later - when you can no longer move as fast as you can now.

Enjoy the endless possibilities that your heart gives you while your young.

Because once you decide to grow up and stop caring for yourself and start caring for those around you, your heart will care for you because it knows that you cared for it once.

When you were young. When you went to workout. When you ran that extra 30 seconds on that treadmill. When you thought you were gonna fall off but didn't and at the end of the run how great it was to feel the sweat roll down your brow to your cheek.

See the heart remembers that. Even though you just think it's sheer hurtful at that moment, your heart is content to be exercising itself and get extra strength to help you out when you forget about it.

The heart is caring.

So care for your heart now.

Stop eating that cheeseburger and fries and milkshake.

Go workout.

Feeling his pain:

But I will go to the gym.

I will run.

I will...

But first: sleep.

Sleep is good right?

As far as I have heard.

Ok.

Will do that then.

Nighty night.

{yeah lots to update on but overwhelmed with so many pics and vids that I need to organize myself later to post them... NYC: I miss you. Waldorf=Astoria: I miss you even more. Especially your SUPER comfy beds! Lauren and Tina: you ladies made great roomies all weekend. Thanks for letting me tag along on this awesome adventure!}

When nothing else works:

maybe i should ask kevin for his light saber he has... haha!

wonder if he would like this...

Fergie: I'm Working Out Every Day for Wedding

With her wedding only a few days away on Jan. 10, Fergie is busy tightening and toning her body to make herself look a little more Fergilicious in her wedding dress. And it's been no easy task after being forced to gain weight for her role in the upcoming movie, Nine."It's hard, I've been working out every day," she said before her New Year's Eve concert in Las Vegas at The Venetian. Her pre-wedding workout routine: "A lot of hiking and doing a bunch of sit-ups, working my butt off and just, you know, try to maintain and stay healthy."

The Dutchess showed off her body at the Vegas concert and later at Lavo where she celebrated 2009 with fiancé Josh Duhamel. Before the clock struck midnight, Fergie was planning their New Year's Eve kiss, telling reporters, "Josh is definitely getting lipstick on his face and maybe his neck. At 12, the couple was spotting locking lips in a deep kiss on the club's catwalk. Then, at their VIP table, they snuggled close to each other while sipping champagne and talking to friends before leaving at 1 a.m.

congrats to fergie on her WEDDING DAY!!!