Kelly Trepp, Author

I've been slacking in the updates here lately, and for that I apologize. As some of you know, I'm counting down the days until my wedding. Today we have entered single digits and it cannot come too soon! I'm ready to walk down the aisle, sporting my Essense of Australia gown, and flexing my muscles from all those push ups I've done in preparation for this day. But the countdown isn't over in nine days, nor did it begin with the proposal. The countdown I'm talking about is for counting calories. I mentioned before that I lost quite a bit of weight with South Beach Diet. I had even become a member of their site to plan our meals, chat on the forums with people in similar situations as me, and track my progress. Before long, I had plateaued and it became plain that cutting out processed foods and eating healthier carbs alone wasn't the answer. Yes, I took up running and became more active; but I found myself to be lethargic and having less stamina on days wher...

It's Wednesday morning. You wipe the sleep out of your eyes and stretch as you roll over to check the clock. Time for your weekly Wednesday morning weigh-in. A million things run through your mind. I shouldn't have had that extra slice of garlic bread with my spaghetti last night. Forget the bread, why did I eat the pasta? You take a deep breath... We've all been there. The battle with the number that we see on the scale. Society puts unrealistic pressures on us to be a certain size, look a certain way, and reduce ourselves to a number. But what does that number really tell you? When you step on the scale, it doesn't tell you your muscle mass, or your BMI or any other healthy way of measuring your fitness. So why should a number constitute a fitness goal? Let's forget numbers all together. As I started losing weight thanks to my healthier meal selections, I tried to make exercising fun for myself to speed up the process. Sort of like this, but less 80s. I'm a f...

My first attempt at dieting came, as I said previously, when I realized the monster I had become. Eating every carb in sight, guzzling sodas filled with sugar and consuming as much pizza as the country of Italy in a single week. Ok, I may be getting carried away, but regardless, I determined the carbs had to be doing me in. So I turned to Google, **Angels sing** and Google turned me to the South Beach Diet . The basic principles of the South Beach Diet (SBD), as I gathered them from my quick google search, were to eat low carb foods until I felt full. I was intrigued. I did more research to determine that the SBD is more than a low carb diet. It's a lifestyle change. The three phases of the diet are designed to kickstart your metabolism, help you lose weight steadily, then maintain the healthier you. In the first phase, which I'll return to every now and again when I've had a particularly binge-full weekend, SBD cuts out sugars, including natural sugars found in fruit, brea...

In June of 2010, the love of my life, we'll call him FI (fiance), proposed to me on our vacation in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. The ring was everything I had hoped it would be. Beautiful platinum crossing band with inset crushed diamonds with a gorgeous center stone that was everything I had dreamed of. FI was making my dreams come true. FI with his beautiful hazel eyes, luscious eyelashes, masculine muscular build and swagger. And I, well, I was about 20 pounds heavier than I ever wanted to be and in a right state to pass out when attempting to complete a mile run. Let me back up a bit... I was a fairly active teenager. I played a lot of sports growing up, and I danced two hours a day through most of high school, give or take a few months due to related injuries. As you may glean from these blog entries, I'm a giant klutz. As a consolation of my active lifestyle, I was able to eat pretty much anything I wanted in copious amounts. Fast forward to freshman year of colleg...