Knowledge is Power

Last year I kicked my obesity in the butt and said goodbye once and for all!

Man I'm so cheesy!  This move is from doing all of my Turbo Fire!!  

Anyway...where were we?  Right, getting to a healthy and normal weight.  

There is so much out there as far as weight-loss and nutrition go.  A lot of good information, and some crap.  I believe there are more than 1,000 ways to lose weight, you just have to find what works for you.  But the more you educate yourself the easier it will be.  

I've said before that this has been a journey that has taken me 9 years.  And why did it finally stick and work this time?  I think it's because I've found the perfect thing for me.  Some people do well at counting calories, personally I've always found it to be such a chore.  While others have a program they like to follow, I tend to like being told what I need to do.  Bottom line, the more I researched, the more I began to finally believe that food was not the enemy.  It was my view of it.  

I really feel like I've been released and freed of my food addiction.  But I can't stop educating myself or working on it.  And that's why I love reading what other people have to say, and getting tips, and finding cookbooks with yummy recipes for good wholesome food!  

So here are some people, books, and things I've found to be helpful (some of these are interchangeable categories too):

Bloggers:        

There are sooo sooo many bloggers out there, but the ones I have featured in the right column are ones I check frequently and find to be quite helpful.  

My faves are:

Oh She Glows

The Edible Perspective

Daily Garnish
& Peas and Thank You

Recipes:
If you're looking for recipes there are a few sights that make it quite easy, and while these are set to vegan for me, two of them you can sub in whatever "type" of recipe you're looking for.  Most of them lead back to bloggers.

Finding Vegan
Food Gawker
Taste Spotting 

and other Non-Vegan, but still healthy

adaptable recipes at Kraft Foods, and a healthy living section.
Hungry Girl, an eat this not that way of finding recipes.

Magazines:
Always lots of useful articles, recipes, and inspiration.

Runner's World
Veg News
Clean Eating

Cook Books:
I know you can find more recipes than you could ever use online, but there's still something I love about having cookbooks.  And my faves are my faves, because they're also filled with lots of tips and guides to creating the best meals!

Veganomicon
The Vegan Table
Vegan Planet

I'm still in the process of collecting cookbooks, and I have my eye on quite a few.  There's so many out there.

Just one more thing...

Fitness:
We travel all of the time so I haven't had the opportunity to join a gym, but that hasn't slowed me down.  I've done a lot of dvds and running, and have seen great success with both!

My favorite workout of all times would be a toss up between Turbo Fire and Turbo Jam.  They're both such a blast!

And though I've gotten bored with them doing them too much, they're still great workouts to keep around to throw in the mix: 30 Day Shred, No More Trouble Zones, Last Chance Workout, and Cardio Max.

And recently I signed up for an e-course through No-Meat Athlete, just to get a better perspective on fueling up and running.  You can sign up too!  Just go here.

The world wide web has so much to offer, and I've really just skimmed the surface.  But don't get bogged down.  Embrace the fact that you can seek and find things, without having to pay loads of money doing it.  Eating right and losing weight and becoming physically fit does take some money, but you don't have to pay someone to tell you what to do.  It just takes some focus and hard work.  

So what info can you pass my way?