Seven Day Arms Challenge

This week has been crazy! There’s been a lot of this involved…

As well as this…

Finals started last night for me, so it’s been really hard to squeeze a workout in the past two days. In theory, 30-45 minutes of my day is not very long. It should be pretty simple to go to the gym, workout, and be done with it. I just haven’t had the energy to push myself out the door, and it’s always easier said than done.

The other problem I’ve been having recently is dealing with stress eating. When I’m stressed, I crave comfort foods. My favorite is pesto grilled cheese and tomato soup.

It’s one of my all time favorite meals (I’ve had this same meal, minus the tomato soup, three nights in a row), right next to macaroni and cheese. I haven’t quite figured out how to manage this, other than balance it out with healthier meals and snacks when I can.

Since dinner wasn’t exactly healthy last night, I made a salad for lunch. I didn’t snap a picture of it before I scarfed it down, but it had almonds, dried pomegranate arils, and goat cheese. I ended up pairing it with this superfruit dressing (soooo good!). With a couple of cuties, this was the perfect lunch.

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Usually, I’m not one to admit or even talk about how self consciousness I am. I don’t like to draw extra attention to body parts I’m already uncomfortable with. I would like to think that after 20 years, I’m comfortable in the skin I have. Of course this isn’t the case, and it probably isn’t in most people. I am most insecure about my arms. I’m not quite sure why; to me, they seem a little unproportional compared to the rest of my body. I hate wearing dresses without a cardigan, tank tops, and fitted short sleeve shirts. Maybe I’m the only one who sees this, maybe I’m not. Quite frankly, I’m not interested in knowing if anybody else has noticed. While staring in the mirror the other day, I decided I was going to do something about it.

I am determined to use these next few winter months to change the way I feel about my arms, so of course I was really excited when I came across this workout on pinterest. It’s called the Seven Day Arms Challenge. I plan to replace my current arm exercises with these for a week and see what kind of a difference it makes.

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I thought it would be a lot of fun to do a before and after with measurements to see if it really does make a difference. I do realize that it will probably take more than week to really see any noticeable changes, so I plan to continue this for at least two weeks. To be honest though, I don’t really see myself heading to the gym seven days a week just to fit in an arm workout, since I usually only go about five days a week. Hopefully I can do some of the exercises at home. Most of them look pretty quick, so it shouldn’t be too hard to fit them into my busy schedule.

I really like this workout because they put youtube videos at the bottom of the page for people (like me) who are new to the world of exercising and aren’t quite familiar yet with all of the technical terms associated with strength training. It seems beginner friendly, so I hope this challenge turns out well.

I would love for other people to join me on this, so please feel free to tweet me (or comment) about it! I always seem to have more motivation when I’m being held accountable for something.

Have a good day!