Strippers and Pole Dancing

Warning this post is very likely to offend some people so read at your own risk!

I have not posted here in some time and my entire world view has changed since then. So I am using this site to kind of document some of the changes how I see the world. So I thought I would start with one that is very relevant to me.

Pole Dancing VS Stripping is there a difference? 


Pole Dancing is what you make of it and it can be anything from acrobatic to ballerina style to hard hitting rock n roll style to super sexy or even down and dirty. So in my opinion the only difference is how you see your pole dancing.

So  pole dance can be fitness oriented and it can be beyond sexy just like a stripper. The main difference is that pole dance is a job for some people and a hobby for others.

Well and there is the thing about the clothes most hobby pole dancers wear at least enough to cover the bits that society says should be covered. Strippers remove those bits for others entertainment.

My Shift in Thinking

Okay so I have gone from being one of those pole dancers that felt like strippers were evil and wanting to distance myself from them entirely to having mad respect for them. I no longer have any desire to distance myself from strippers or the sexy side of pole. It has not been a quick and easy transition thought I have had to disregard a lot of societal and religious conditioning.

So I know I am going to lose friends and followers once I am public with this but my shift started when I started to question my "faith" or in other words my religion. I am not anti-religious but also I started to find that not only was it not a source of comfort for me it was a great source of conflict in my life. So I decided to stop letting religion define me and start thinking for myself and creating a life that I wanted to live regardless of the possibility of being branded a sinner.

I started looking at people as just that people and I found that through pole dance I met some of the most amazing and positive people who would mostly be branded as sinners by my religion. I can't reconcile that with what I know about them. So this is a super long story and I don't want to bore you with all the details in this post.

I started thinking about strippers and about the fact that they probably make more money than a lot of us. I started thinking that they are way braver than I am because I would be way too embarrassed to do what they do. I also started thinking why the hell are they branded as evil when there are plenty of men paying to see them. Why is it that women are always at fault. Which takes me back to how religion generally treats girls as the little temptresses that have to be basically responsible for not causing a man to sin....Okay still can't go there with out getting a little angry but wouldn't it be better to teach young men to respect woman.

I started to think that women should be able to wear whatever they want or take whatever job they want and not be persecuted. I don't have the confidence to be a stripper but I have begun to take it as a compliment when people call me a stripper instead of an insult. I mean it is hard enough to learn the crazy pole tricks we learn then to do it in front of people while taking you clothes off...That is some mad skill.

So I am done judging people by my X-religions standards! I believe that any judging should be reserved for those that truly deserve it like murderers and people who abuse children.

FitGirl Progress

Good afternoon everyone just thought I would post a quick update and just a little personal stuff.

FitGirl Blogs

First I have spent way too much time the last few weeks on computer work and can't wait to do some more pole work today! I am learning a lot though and have put together a community oriented page for FitGirl. Somewhere that I can write posts that are maybe a little more personal than my blog posts on the business page. It also gives me more control over what goes up when and what types of things I can put on the page. So I would love for you to check it out and give me some feedback!
FitGirl Community
FitGirl Business

Training....Training and...Forced Rest

Well I was training like a maniac because I would like to start performing and competing. I wanted to nail a few really big moves ASAP! Guess what while I have seen progress I need to pace myself, just like I tell clients. I was forced to rest by the fact that I was so sore I could barley lift my coffee mug with out feeling it.

I won't see progress if I injure myself so I have to follow my own advice and if I don't have the all illusive Iron X with a twisty grip by my first performance so be it. I know plenty of advanced moves that I can work into combos.

The plan is to work a little each time I hit the pole on the moves I want to learn. Work on building the additional strength, muscle memory, and flexibility needed to acquire the kick ass super advanced moves. I will spend most of my practice time working the things I already know making them all work together to make a beautiful performance.

A little diary style addition....
Since this is a more of a diary blog I have to spend a little time talking about life in general.

First things first I love and hate writing! I love to blog posts that I am interested in and personal diary posts but I hate that when I get motivated to write ideas come to me the minute I lay my head down on the pillow for the night!

Seriously I am going to have to get a notebook and put it next to the bed so maybe if I just jot down some of the ideas I will be able to fall asleep.

Then there is the writing process.....

I tend to write too much all the time so over the last few weeks I have learned to start with a topic and write, write and write. Then come back later and see if I need to do several posts or if I just need to narrow the one post down.

Now if I could just learn to shut off the ideas when I don't want them and turn them on when I sit down to write that would be great. Then it would be really awesome if my mind would not bombard me with 200 things I want to say about each topic and quickly organize it into a comprehensive post.

Well I guess you can't have everything right!

Pole Fitness is My Business

Hello there everyone! I have been super busy starting my own business and promoting it. I have had my ups and downs and gone through some spells where I was freaking out for one reason or another. I have started to get the hang of what is working for me and what just adds additional stress.

Because this is my personal blog I thought I would come here today and post an update on my life. In February 2014 I started preparation to open a new business. At the end of January I passed my personal trainer certification exam but I really wanted to teach pole. I tried my hand at teaching some cardio kick classes and found my passion really lies in pole fitness. So I decided to stop trying to do things I was not passionate about and focus on something I was.

I also really wanted to work from home or close to home because I am not much for a long commute especially the 4-6 months a year in Ohio that it can snow. My hubby and I own a duplex that we bought shortly after we were married. It worked well for us to rent half out for a long time then our awesome tenant had to move and we tired moving out and renting to two people then we realized good tenants are hard to find. So we moved back and were using our upstairs basically to store things. So the idea for me was to make it into my studio and offer private or semi private pole fitness sessions. Emphasis on the fitness aspect rather than the dance aspect.

Then as you can imagine loads of well meaning people had many ideas for how to promote my business and what I should do to make money. I was pulling myself in so many directions and trying to get any client in the door I couldn't answer simple questions about my services. I didn't want to say no to anything or anyone because it could be some extra money. Yea... that was not working for me so I narrowed it back down to pole fitness which can include strength and flexibility training.

I love what I do and people who talk to me know it and if it takes time to really grow the business that is okay. I just need to stay focused! I have a new website and am working on a blog for my business so if you have a little time please visit FitGirl and leave your thoughts.

Wish I would have known

Are there things you wish you could go back and tell yourself as a child. Over the last year and a half I have learned a few things that I wish I could go back and tell myself. As a child I was very shy and everything embarrassed me so I spent a lot of time avoiding embarrassment. Needless to say that let to trying a lot of things once or twice then feeling like it was not worth the embarrassment to keep trying and failing.

I spent a lot of time blaming my parents who didn't let me do a whole lot of anything. They were very strict but loving parents. Let me clarify what I mean by strict, they tried to shield me as much as possible from what they considered the bad stuff. Basically I was very limited in the types for movies and music I was exposed to and I was not allowed to do a lot of things other kids were. I was not abused although as a teen who couldn't go see the concerts she wanted to I felt abused.

Over the last year and a half I have found that I love dancing and I take Latin dance classes and pole dance and aerial fitness classes. I love them but I was really bad when I started. I kept thinking that had I done gymnastics when I was a child I would have loved it and my parents didn't encourage it. The more I think about it the more I realize even if they did encourage it I would have quit because it was hard. So had my parents decided to let me take dance lessons and I couldn't get it in a few lessons I would have quit.

I realize now that it had nothing to do with my parents while my options were limited as to what I could do they would have helped me find something had I just stuck with it. I even remember one year I joined the track team and they made me fill my commitment. I am was not a runner then and I am not a runner now but I stuck it out and regardless of winning anything it helped me slim down and develop new social contacts.

So what do I wish I could have told myself as a child and teen? I wish I could have told myself when I was really young and took a few tumbling classes that even though it is hard right now it will get easier. That just because I don't learn as fast as the other girls that does not mean I won't learn it. As a teen I wish I would have learned to dance even if the only classes I was able to attend were ballroom style dancing but again I would have quit because it was hard. I wish I could have told my teenage self that anything I wanted to do could be done with hard work and dedication.

It is a lesson I have learned over and over since I signed up for a pole dance fitness class and expanded my types of fitness. I try it all now and when I don't get it the first time or even the first 50 times I just keep saying to myself that if I keep practicing I will get it. It has taken me a long time but I am trying to eliminate I can't from my vocabulary. Well for the most part there are probably thing I literally can't do but when it comes to learning a new dance step or a complicated upside down move on the pole or in the fabrics I have changed my vocabulary. I am also trying to help other ladies do the same when I catch my self saying " I can't" I almost always remember to at YET to the end of that. It is such a habit I don't seem to be able to change the vocabulary completely yet but it will come.

I have been down on myself for most of my 3 and a half decades of life so it is going to take some time to develop a better more positive vocabulary. I always felt like I was doomed for failure in everything I did. I am still not an ace at the dancing part of anything but I am learning and I keep improving and that is good enough for me. I am not good at a lot of things but each time I pick something I really like and really want to get better at then work hard to learn it guess what I get better at it.

Detoxifying your life

Good morning everyone! I am going to be changing the direction of this blog....I know I have done this multiple times but this time I mean it. I am not promising anything on a regular basis because every time I do life just gets in the way and blogging moves just gets moved lower and lower on the priority list.

I am not sure I will actually go back and delete anything but I am going to focus heavily healthy living including but not limited to, product reviews, healthy eating tips, fitness tips and my personal journey to eliminate toxins in my diet and personal care.

I have been pretty passionate about this in the past but the products have just been so expensive so I gave up. You can't spend a third of your income on food and personal care items. Now I have been eating more organic produce and other products for while now but sometimes I just can't. Sometimes we buy from the health store just to support them or to find an item that is not sold anywhere else. Now that the grocery store is selling a lot more organic I purchase these items there as often as I can to let those chain stores know that organic is important to me. The great thing is they now offer a lot of sales at stores like Krogers on the organic items. Just this past week I got Stonyfield Farms Greek yogurt at the 10 for $10 price. I saved about $7 dollars by stocking up.

The personal care items we have in our homes such as toothpaste, soaps, shampoos, lotions, deodorant and makeup are all full of toxic chemicals. Now I am not going to say that any one of these chemicals will give you cancer or put you six feet under twenty years early. I know that is not the case yet there is a problem when you are using so many of these chemicals on your body as well as ingesting then in your food each day.

My first steps aside from eating higher quality foods and as many organic items as I can find is to replace my personal care items. A few days ago I purchased a natural deodorant and a natural toothpaste. I intend to research them further and bring you a review of each of them soon and let you know what is in them and if they work. So far the deodorant and the toothpaste work fine. Since I am the queen of trying to get a good deal I decided to go to Amazon and find some good subscribe and save deals for shampoo and conditioner,  facial cleanser, and a few other items. I ordered 5 products to try because it would save me an additional 15% off my order. When they arrive I will test them and let you know how well they work and what is in them.

Just a note for those of you trying to live a more healthy life just because something says organic does not make it healthy. You still have to watch what is in it and how many calories you are eating. If you eat a cinnamon roll  made with all organic ingredients it does not make it healthy. It may be a better choice than a non organic sweet treat but it is still bad for you.

Also don't trust labels something can have organic in the title and not actually be organic. I could make highly processed food full of all kinds of poor quality ingredients and call my company "Healthy Organic Food" as long as I didn't claim elsewhere on the packaging that I had organic products. Now if I were that deceitful people would quickly quit buying my products but there really are companies the capitalize on our ignorance so just be careful.

Last and most important if you decide to make the switch to less toxic items in your household as I am do your research and start small. Do your research and find out what is most important to your health and start there. I will start providing tips and options soon but if you take one personal care item each week or two a month and replace them with items that better for your health and skin you will be helping your body with each change.  

Finding my WHY

Finding my WHY?
I have been working in direct sales and watching the biggest looser and I found a common thread in them. I know it is hard to connect the dots but this is really something everyone needs to think about. Why is it that you want something? Do you have a clear why in your work and you fitness goals? If you don't have a clear concept of why you are doing something it makes it that much harder to get it done.

I have been searching for my in business and now in fitness and I have come to the conclusion that I have been frustrated because I have been confusing some concepts. I thought my "why" and my end goal were the same thing. For example I thought the amount of money I wanted to make was going to motivate me to sell more products. I thought fitting into the tiny dress I have been dying to wear again was my fitness why. None of this was truly the case once I started to examine things and listen to my emotions.

My business why's have all changed and they actually only have a little to do with money. My fitness has long been a passion for me and I am working hard to get there because I love myself when I am fit! That is an amazing reason to do this.

I am completing an exercise in a book right now by defining my why here on my blog so I can refer back to it. So here goes.....
I want to sell enough products with my side business to pay for the education and equipment I will need to become a personal trainer and group fitness instructor. That is pretty much the main reason for the side business and I am going to keep working at it but I am not going to alienate friends and family to make it happen or spend half my week busting my but for one party booking and being frustrated.

With that said I used to spend a good 30-50 hours a week participating in exhausting activities and shelling out more than half of what I earned to keep promoting my business and all it did for me was make me feel exhausted and frustrated. Not going to happen any more because for once I know what I ultimately want to do and I am going to focus on that.

Here is where I struggle I have so many why's for wanting to be fit and half of them are very selfish! Well that is what I used to think. I love to help others and I like to make others happy especially my hubby and I have been living a lot of my life for others. Well I am done with that but first I want to say the pressure to please others was something I put on myself. I just assumed that my hubby was thinking this or that. I thought he would think I was stupid for wanting to be in the fitness industry....but once I asked him I was completely wrong. How many years have I wasted like this. I didn't believe I could dance but after sticking to it for months and month I am getting better.

Fitness why's may sometimes feel silly and selfish but here we go

I want to look good in that dress, in a bikini (even if I never wear one) and yes I want to look good naked even if the only people who ever see me that way are my hubby and whatever doctor I may have to see.

I want to look in the mirror and feel like every day I have accomplished something by keeping my body in great shape.

I want to get strong so I can do every Pole Dance move known and then some

I want to continue to get fit so I can teach others how to get fit and help them on a path to a new life

I want to stay fit so I have confidence.. For this one I used to think being thin was the reason I felt confident  and yes that helps a lot but the real source of this confidence is that I put in the work and achieved a goal.

I want to feel good about myself all the time so I want to keep pushing to the next level and the next and never give up.

I want to feel good physically not just look good but feel good. I want to have the energy to make it through each day. I want to be healthy yes but that is too broad I mean it when I say I want to feel good.

Here is one that I am embarrassed to say but it is true and I think about it from time to time. I want my hubby to notice other people looking at him like he is a lucky man when we go out together. I want to be the girl that draws a little extra attention.

So those are a few of my fitness why's

Now I have to set some goals the first of which I have already started. Getting fit is a lofty goal so I have to break it down into smaller pieces. So here goes.....

Goal 1
I want to see my abs by June. I know I have them I can feel the muscle but I still have enough fat around the midsection that I can not see them. So the fat must go!

How am I going to do that? 
I am going to start with going back to calorie counting and see what I am eating and what I need to cut. I don't like to do this because I tend to get obsessive and spend a lot of time on it or refuse to go out with my hubby and relax but it needs to be done for at least a few weeks just to calculate the amount of calories I am eating and get on top of any new foods that I don't really know the calorie amount.

I am going to log my exercise and work to get an average of at least 2 hours a day in activity. Don't worry yourselves I am not talking about strenuous exercise for 2 hours every day. I am just talking about a good strenuous work out about 5-6 days a week for 45-90 minutes and some more leisure or fun but consistent activities such as walking the dog or going out dancing.

Next I am going to be more active in every day activities like when I am reading I can stand up, when I play a game on the tablet to pass a little time before I need to be somewhere I can pace. I can do my least favorite thing in the world and clean my house more often. I can practice dance moves while cleaning and while getting ready. I can do those figure 8's (hips move in the shape of an 8) while I am blow drying my hair.  I think you get the picture.

My worst enemy is the television these days I love my TV so one of my first financial goals is to save up for that treadmill I really want so I can watch television while working out even if it is just a light walk. I can spend several hours each day watching television because I have so many things I enjoy watching and it just sucks my time away. I watch it all on Hulu so it is not like I have to watch at a particular time but I always watch in the am while I wake up. When I get the treadmill I will get up and set the treadmill up and do my usual feed all the animals and myself and get on the treadmill for a light morning walk while I watch last nights episode of Nashville. If I feel up to I could make it a jog or a run as I wake up. My bet is this will make my wake up time shorter most days too. I just need to get myself on a budget and work towards buying this treadmill.

Here is the really important one I will chart my progress and evaluate my diet and exercise program every two weeks. If I am not getting the results I need to get where I want to be I will tweak it a little but I will be able to wear that dress and look great in it by June! I can't measure in pounds right now. While some more pounds may come off I am not going to frustrate myself I am down to 127 but I know to get to the size I want I may not loos too many more pounds overall because I will be gaining muscle as I loose the fat. I would be happy when it is all said and done to see 120 on the scale but I will be happy with any weight that has me looking lean and strong. I want people to look at me and know that I work out I don't just want to be skinny.

Healthy for Life My Story

It really has been a long time since I have updated any of my many blogs. I have been working hard to change my life and made many personal discoveries. I have had to face many obstacles and have come out with a new vision.

I started my weight loss journey again several years ago. I was down to a good healthy weight and had kept it off for quite some time give or take a few pounds. Then as a 31 year old I had an accident and broke my hip and I was hoping to get right back up and spend a lot of time walking the dog and on the treadmill and in roller skating and other activities I really enjoyed. Well that didn't happen walking on the pavement still hurts and skating is kind of scary because I can't find a great place to go with a clean enough area to skate in. The treadmill I can do now but at first it hurt like hell and it really upset me so I gave up.

I drown my fear and anxiety in food, and activities that kept my mind off of the obvious issues and my booty on the couch. I was really depressed and lost all confidence. One day I had had it and started back despite the physical limitations deciding a slow steady walk on the treadmill was better than sitting on the couch and I worked my way up to more intensity and got a gym membership and moved on to weights and cardio fitness. I dropped about 20 pounds. I am never sure what I weighed at my heaviest because I refused to weigh until about a month or so after that life changing day.

Then I got stuck and discouraged and I tried many things with my diet that I now believe were just silly. Not that shakes and supplements are all bad but I really don't think anyone needs them to be healthy. Then I decided that maybe the workout's I was doing were not helping that much anymore. I was still in the overweight category and I decided to look for something fun to do. Something that would leave me disappointed when I couldn't make it. I found pole dance fitness and I was finally motivated to go to class as it has both cardio and strength training in one and I have never once felt like the class was 70-90 minutes long. Okay maybe the first month I when I was worn out at about 45 minutes it seemed kind of long but once I built up the strength I was so motivated to just move to the next level. I lost another 25 pounds in less than 6 months!

I kept thinking to myself I want to do this for a living, but instead I signed up with another direct sales company to try to cut the expenses of going to every possible class I could at the dance studio. I still didn't believe that I could do something like teach health and fitness for a living. I have performed with the studio in front of live audiences and still didn't believe in myself. I started to gain a little of the weight back over the holidays and started feeling a little depressed again and even participating in some of the old eating for comfort behaviors I thought I had kicked. About 5 pounds later I was starting to feel it in my clothes and decided there was no way I was going back there again and I kicked it back in to high gear the last two weeks of February up to today. I am pleased to say the weight is gone already and I am feeling better again because I am eating well and exercising.

For the first time in my life I didn't let that failure overcome me and it pushed me to take a plunge into a new carreer. Last Monday I signed up to become an ACE personal trainer and I have plans to get at least at least one more of the ACE certifications and to learn to teach Pole and other forms of dance fitness.

I like the direct sales company I work for now but it is not my ultimate goal and I had to overcome some issues the last few weeks. I work with a food company and the main focus is really on the unhealthy items so I was feeling conflicted. I decided to put that aside and focus more on the healthy items and even healthier preparation of items that are though of as traditionally unhealthy.  I am feeling renewed in my business and in my life!

I thought I would share this story and also have a record for myself to see how far I have come. I am not sure about my exact weight I don't monitor it all the time right now because I have been at healthy weight for some time now and I tend to gain muscle and get frustrated by the scale sometimes. I measure more by the way my clothes fit and the size 4 jeans that were getting tight a little less than a month ago are starting to get a little loose and that is a great feeling!

I am going to prove that anyone who puts there mind to something can do it. One of my goals even with the metal in my leg is to get a flat split in at least one direction. With my injury I am proceeding slow and with caution but I am almost all the way down in a front split with my left leg in front and more than half with the right in front. I am sure I will be able to perfect the front split if I keep at it and don't push too hard. Then we will see about the straddle. One goal on working the injured leg at a time.

Then the other goal is to prove that anyone can get those nice looking abs if they just work hard enough. I know I can but I also know it will take a ton of work on my part and I need to kick up the cardio because when I work my abs I can feel the muscle under them. I want to loose the fat so I can also see that muscle.

If you made it this far I hope my story has inspired you from now on this blog will be about my healthy lifestyle and helping others adopt a healthy life. Feel free to ask me questions I am here to help!

Halloween Fun

Halloween Fun
Well I have had three occasions to wear costumes over the last week and it has been great to fit into a few super sexy ones and not feel like a cow. I have some sort of obsession with dressing up and I pulled out my box of costumes from about 8 years ago and found that some of them were actually too big. Almost all of them fit but some I was not really comfortable wearing so I bought two new ones and they were a hit. Hopefully some of the pictures that were taken will get back to me one of these days.

Maybe this obsession stems from the lack of freedom when I was young or maybe it is just a great excuse to wear something sexy in public at my age. Who knows but I had a blast the last week dancing the night away in a costume and hanging with some lovely ladies and their significant others.


Life Update
The last few months in my life have had me going a little crazy. Things are really good here I am no longer loosing weight but I am still loosing fat. I have my bad weeks and gain some fat but then I usually put my eating in check and loose it again. I have been doing a lot of working out and I am pushing the power moves in pole dance fitness class. I have had the chance to try on some more clothes and found that my shoulders are apparently too big for my size and a lot of tops now fit me in the tummy area but not the arms. I suppose this is a good problem to have so I am not going to complain. I will just buy more sleeveless things and use some wraps to go over them so I don't freeze.

I also started selling Tastefully Simple and found a few little side jobs. I am doing rather well with Tastefully simple and really excited about it. I have some trouble making time for it with all the classes I take but I have only been selling for two months and I will end up with about 2000 dollars  in sales once I close the last party today. I even earned my kit money back and got a bunch for free supplies for my sales. I am actually making money and don't have to push it on people because everyone likes the food.

Well I am off to meet with the hostess that will be closing the party today so have a great day.

Get a Pole Dancers Body at Home

If you have been keeping up with my posts these days you know that I am progressing along with my weigh loss goals by going to pole dancing class as well as getting additional training at home from SutdioVeena.com. In only 4 months I lost 5 sizes and 20 pounds and am still loosing. My body is changing shape dramatically and I owe it all to this amazing sport.

Pole dancers come in all shapes and sizes but if you are training hard and eating healthy you will start to see the  long lean muscles you have dreamed of. A pole dancer's body is not easy to develop but it is possible. I am seeing results very quickly but I am also on the pole a minimum of 4 days a week and I spend just as much time in other forms of training such as other types of dance classes, stretching and flexibility training, several types of cardio exercises as well as strength training.

After training hard these amazing muscles are popping out  in my arms and my shoulders as well as my legs and butt. The definition is amazing yet not too bulky...who knew you could have muscle tone in your forearms.  Most of the fat I have left is in my tummy but I when I work out I can feel the muscle that I will soon be able to see. The best part is that pole dancing is so fun you won't even feel like you are working out. Then the drive to get better makes all the non-pole training so worth it when you get to the pole and you can do something new on the first try.

So if you are looking to try pole dancing visit this article on my pole blog for more information about getting the pole dancers body at home.

Do you ever just feel fat?

Yesterday I felt fat all day the only thing I can think of is maybe I was bloated or something but I looked in the mirror and didn't look fat so I tried to shake that feeling. I hope I am not developing some sort of disorder I could stand to loose a little more fat in my tummy but it is that much.

So I kept telling myself I know I am not fat this is just my mind playing tricks on me and I waited until this morning to get on the scale. It has been a good week and a half to two weeks since I did this and to my surprise I was down two more pounds. I weight 125 now so there is no way I am fat.

I don't look fat in the mirror and I don't weigh too much so what is the deal. I got to thinking that maybe it was more the loose skin I have in my tummy that just feels odd. I did hold a large percentage of my weight in my stomach. So when I am standing or lying flat I look good when I sit or even slouch I can feel the rolls of skin and the fat that is taking longer to leave.

So I decided to use my Itworks wrap if nothing else it leaves my skin silky smooth but who knows maybe it will work a lot better now that I have lost a lot of the fat on my own. I am not going to get my hopes up that it is a miracle cure because they didn't do much good fro me 20 pounds ago other than make my skin feel nice. They softened and tightened my skin but they did not make me loose much in the way of inches like they claim.

I am not going to let myself fall into the trap of always feeling fat so I have to give myself some positive self talk. I work hard each day to make sure that I am not fat I eat healthy most days and I work out enough that one bad day won't kill me. I get an average of 10-14 hours a week of quality exercise in and all of my friends and family are giving me huge compliments and asking me what I am doing. So I am not going to go there I will get that flat tummy in time. As far as I am concerned as long as I stick to this training schedule and eat right it will come I just need to be patient and that is what the professionals are saying as well.

From what I have read people that carry almost all of their excess weight in their midsection are likely to have a hard time loosing it there. I have always struggled with this. I have lost over 40 pounds now and I swear the first 20 all came from my legs and arms...okay maybe the first 15.

I will tell you one thing that I can not stress enough building muscle is the key. Yes you need cardio but I truly believe that a highly toned body burns fat easily. It took me about a year to get the first 20 pounds off and just over 4 months to get the last twenty.I even look better than I did the last time I was thin. My legs and arms are truly strong.

Well enough of my open diary today if you are struggling with your weight I hope I can give you some encouragement. Let me know and I will try to help any way I can.

How I am making a little extra cash at home

Here is a little list of the sites I am using to make a little extra money at home.

Quick List of Recommendations in this post 
EasyHits4U: I don't make much here I use it to promote the other three sites I am going to tell you about and it is free unless you want to upgrade. You can earn ad credits by looking at other ads.

Postloop: This site is fun and easy once you get through the sign up process. You make money for posting on blogs and forums. You get paid for all the work you do and I have cashed out twice to make sure it works. They pay very quickly and it is rather easy to earn. The more you work the more you earn. You can also earn more per post by getting good ratings. You can also earn commission on referrals.

Clixsense: This is a paid to click site with other many ways to earn. You can click on ads, play the game to win money, earn commission on referrals, do small tasks and fill out offers. Then if you want you can cash out or use your money to promote other sites.

PTCBox: This one is my absolute favorite paid to click site. I upgraded my way to ten cents a click and a much better referral commission but you don't have to upgrade at all. I have earned 45 dollars here in just two months and each day the commissions are growing. I did not have my upgrades the first month so I am sure it would have been more had I done the full upgrade earlier. 


Wealthy Affiliates- This site has yet to earn me a dime but the training is highly valuable and the commission structure for referrals is unbelievable. I think I would be earning already if there was not so much other stuff going on in my life. The reason I am not earning is I need to set aside more time to focus on this and learn the technical stuff that keeps tripping my progress up. Training in affiliate marketing is probably the most valuable thing you can learn these days so now that I have some of the other sites moving along with less effort I will be learning how to make an income with this site.


It takes a little time but once you start getting the referrals you are going to earn commissions on everything your referrals do. What I really like about this type of business is that you don't have to market it to your friends and family like you do with MLM's. You are not really selling the product to people who don't want it you are selling to people who are looking to buy it or use it. Once you build your down line will make money while you sleep and that is very appealing to me. I don't want you to think you are going to make a fortune doing any of this and even if could it would take a lot of time and effort. A few months of dedicated marketing and you can make a good side income. If you pick a good place to start in Affiliate marketing you could potentially replace an income from a job but I would not count on it until you start seeing the cold hard cash.

 I love all of these places and I highly recommend them all.  The only one that costs money is Wealthy Affiliates and you get hosting and unlimited training after your free 10 day trial. Work at home jobs are typically absolute scams or time wasters and I had almost lost hope that anything online could make you any money. I am signed up for at least 50 sites for extra income and these are the ones I have found to be worth my time and energy. There are a few others but I will save them for another post.

If you want to learn more about making extra cash from home visit my other blog here

What Pole Dancing is Teaching Me

I love dancing always have but at some point in my life I realized I looked like and idiot and I quit. Having a negative self image was killing me in so many ways and I thought it was directly connected to my weight. I found out I was wrong when I started taking pole dancing classes.

To make a long story short my poor self esteem comes from many places and fixing the weight problem would never make me feel good about myself if I didn't fix other areas of my life. First there was no fun and nothing to strive for in my life. I was just trying to be what I thought I should be. Thin yes but a mature adult who doesn't do anything risky went along with my idea of what I "should" be.

So there was this crazy girl all locked up inside of me dying to get out and I just kept stuffing her back in thinking there was not middle ground. I just assumed that if I let the wild side out I would end up unable to be the person I believed I should be. Now don't get me wrong I am not really that wild but growing up in a conservative household I somehow decided that being sexy was not a good thing. I thought that I had to act my age but I am 34 and  was acting more like an 80 year old. I didn't realize it but somehow I had decided that just about everything I liked and enjoyed doing was some how wrong or just for young people.

Before you have crazy visions of strippers and girls gone wild this girl keeps her clothes on, they might be small clothes but there is only one man that will be seeing this girl naked. I am married to that man and he is the only one that gets to see or touch! I don't drink and I go dancing to dance not to pick up men or get drunk. I only pole dance at the studio, I am learning Latin and Ballroom dancing as it is more adaptable and not quite as suggestive for when I go out for a night on the town.

After a weeks of taking  the pole classes all I could think about when looking at the more advanced students was "I WANT TO DO THAT." I have pushed, worked,practiced and learned in class at home and in my head to get as far as I can as fast as I can. I have somehow lost a bunch of fat and gained a bunch of muscle but the feeling of accomplishment far outweighs the weight issues. I love that part of my life and I am working on bringing that feeling into other areas of my life.

I just needed to find something I really wanted! If I could do this for a job I would be the happiest woman alive. I am working to be my best at it and maybe someday I can do this for a job. In the mean time I am going to pour my energy into a website focused on pole dancing. I will hopefully be able to use it to make enough money to pay for classes but if I don't at least it will be something I am passionate about.

I am still struggling with working I am a big baby and I really don't want to go to work. I have been frantically trying to find a good work at home job and found some pretty decent little online jobs and sites that will pay with enough referrals but they take a lot of time for a little pay until you build up your reputation or down-line. I just dread spending time working on them. I wish I could feel that passion for working that I feel for dancing.

Next week I have a week off from the studio because it is closed so I plan to work hard on my Pole website. I am hoping that after I get over all the how to's of building a website and marketing that I will be able to make it a successful work at home business.

I am hoping to be able to make some money with my Herbalife stuff too but I am going to base my sales on honest marketing from now on. I don't like the way most people market the products and I am going to make my own campaign. I can't get behind the strategies they use so I am going to make my own! I am so tired of all the ads that have some fat woman who is bikini ready and all toned up in six month with a moderate exercise program and some diet product. Even worse are the guys that look like Vin Diesel  after six weeks of using the product. I am not going to lie about the hard work it takes to look like that and if I don't get sales it was not meant to be.

How I lost 5 sizes!

Okay so I am not rocking the weight loss as much as the inches lost. I am now in a size 3 or less. I am actually over 10 pounds heavier than I was the last time I was this size so I know that I have a lot more muscle.The above video is what I am striving for...not the way the ladies look although that would be a plus I want to be able to do all of these moves. I am working hard to get there and I am rocking many of the strength moves but the graceful pretty moves need a lot of work.

I have my story posted at my new website but I plan to talk about it here too but in the mean time check out Pole Dance Fitness and let me know what you think. I am going to try to sell pole dance products there as well as helpful advice on getting fit and eating healthy. 

I have a lot of great news these days and plan to start sharing it here on my personal blog. Lately I have been working so many avenues to get fit and earn income that I have just about burned myself out. I started working with Wealthy Affiliates and I am learning how to stream my online efforts to produce some results. Just learning has helped me stop some of the worrying but I am still working on getting things organized and figuring  out where to focus my time and effort. 

So I plan to work on two income earning websites until I learn how to make them work right and take some time for me and post here on this blog to share what I am doing in all aspects of life. So starting tomorrow I am going to be scheduling my day around completing training and tasks. I will be updating this site and getting rid of old links and widgets. Let me know what you would like to see more. 

The new plans for this blog are to post about my personal thoughts about well everything with a focus on health, fitness and working online. Sorry for the time since the last post but I have been working on way too many things including pole dancing. 

Passive income is it possible

Passive Income Dreams

I don't really know the answer to that question but I am going to work really hard for the next few months to try and figure this out. I hate the idea of a behind the desk 9-5 job. I really want to work at home but it is more than that I want to pick my hours daily. I would like to learn techniques that can earn me money at least 95% from home during hours I am at home. That means if I want to take another dance class and can afford it I don't want to have to worry about being gone for 3 hours in the evening and missing a call from a potential customer. Worse yet is having to opt out of class that I have paid for to make a delivery for a customer who can't get the product at any other time.

I don't want to be down on my sales jobs but I do want to say they really are not work at home jobs like they claim to be. You have to take a lot of your work to the customer and they feel put out if you ask them to pick something up. I am done with Avon for many reasons but I am still selling Herbalife and Scentsy and I have no big complaints about any of the companies in general. If you want to make money with them you can not do it all at home unless you have good website promotion of some sort. I am looking into that for my businesses but I am very worried about the legal stuff involved in creating your own websites and other things such as that.

New Blogs

The big thing I am doing right now to generate a passive income is writing and joining sites that get paid for referrals and other easy tasks. I have a new blog that details my online income from various sources but that is taking up a lot of my time. I realize that I have to start out small and build up and that means a lot of time for a little pay as I work my way up. You can read the details at Extra Cash From Home my new blog. I have many ideas on how to earn from this one I just have to keep working learning about making money from blogging.

I have also created a fun website and hope to monetize it with some local ads in the future. It is all about where to go to dance in my home town. It is called Dancing in Toledo and it is more of a way for me to get to know what is going on in my area and share it with others who love to dance. I just thought since I love my classes so much it would be great to share it with others. On that same note I have a local Examiner account now for the club scene in my area and I think it will be a nice compliment to my website. Now I just have to get out there and explore what Toledo has to offer.

Goals and Things of the Past

I would be perfectly happy being a housewife that spends all her free time at the dance studio and taking care of pets and the house but sadly my hubby is not on the same page so we sat down and talked about it. I need to make around 650 a month one way or another. He wants me to make that much or more so it will be easy enough to get a part time job if I can't make this work. I have until September to at least show significant progress. I am pretty sure if I am progressing each month he will be fine with that as long as it is goes up each month. Right now I am looking at about 100 a month or more from multiple sources and increasing each week. So if I book a few Scentsy parties after my big dance show then I should be able to make the money with no issues.

I would like to work a little harder though at creating the passive income. Considering I love to write and can spend hours writing journal entries about my life and things I have done I am looking to find a more constructive way get paid doing that. I need to take my life and passions and find a way to write about them that puts a pay check in my hand.

If I could earn half from sales and half from passive means and writing jobs I would be very happy. I think this is a reasonable goal I just have to learn to marked all of my skills and get others on board. I need to take the confidence I am getting at the dance studio and put it to good use in marketing myself and my products.

I am done with Avon because it takes too much of my time and energy and I end up loosing my customers to someone who gives 40 percent off and considering I usually only get 20 percent off  I just can't do that.  Then when I drive out to deliver products that I only made 1 dollar on I am pretty sure I lose most of the profits I am making in gas and car repairs. Now that is not to say you can't make money with Avon but I was just having too much trouble with it and found that for sales jobs it was quickly becoming my least favorite in every way. Still love the products just don't want to sell them anymore.

I think I have mentioned this before but I am also done with the idea of moving anytime soon. The idea of having a farm is out of the picture too. I am so glad things happened the way they have because I am realizing there is no way I want to take care of a farm and a bunch of farm animals. I am good with a few hens and maybe an acre or two of property. Two dogs and a maybe a couple small goats for my hubby in the future will be more than enough and that would only be if I didn't have to leave the house to work.

Well I hope you visit my other blogs and have a great read. Let me know what you think about them and what I can do to improve them and thanks for all of your support.

Pole Dancing for Self Esteem

My Life Changes
Well I took the plunge a little over two months ago to learn to dance. I was looking for something fun but also something that would help me get fit. Pole dancing combines dance moves and strength training so I decided on a local studio that offers pole dance for fitness classes.

Let me tell you it is the best experience I have every had. I am getting in shape. I know you always hear me complain about my weight but not any more I am down to a healthy weight and the inches are melting away. The impressive muscles in my arms have built so fast it is hard to believe.

The fact that the class is fun and challenging keeps me going 4-6 days a week and I even entered myself into the student show case so now I  have rehearsals on top of that. Once that is done I am going to try a little Latin dancing.

The best thing about these classes is they are really helping me feel better about who I am. I feel like I have found a part of me that I lost when I felt like I just had to grow up. I kind of thought having fun was just for kids and I just had to grin and bear whatever life threw at me. I also felt like I was never going to be able to get fit and stay fit if it meant just going to the gym because I hated the gym. I liked how I felt after a good workout but I really hated going. So I felt I doomed to the up and down cycles I fall into.

Shift in Priorities
To accommodate my new love for dancing I have had to rethink the things I really want in life. If you have been around here for awhile you know that I had this desire to live on a small farming property and have farm animals and do things close to natures way as I could. I can't say I don't care about these things anymore but I am learning that some of them are not as important or as urgent as I once felt they were. I actually believe it was a severe dissatisfaction with life and myself that made me think these things would make me happy.

I no longer want to move to a big property although someday I would like to move to a nicer area with a bigger yard it is not urgent and I don't need acreage. Our current situation has low monthly bills and selling this home is near impossible in this economy so we are going to make it work.

The other factor in this decision is that I don't think I want to take care of farm animals and acreage. It is enough to take care of this house, a dog, six chickens a cat and a small yard. With dance classes and trying to work part time there really is no time for a farm type life.

Onward to a New Destination
All of this has had me questioning all of my behavior over the last few years. I have been seeing a counselor to help me with my ADHD and I think I am making a lot of progress with my organizing and reasoning skills. I also think it is helping me to realize that I need to stop living in a dream and start learning what things I can change about myself and my life that can make that dream a reality. Before I do that I have to stop lying to myself about what my dreams are. I want my dreams to be accepted by my friends and family so I will change them to fit my social network at the time.

Right now I can tell you that my dream job would be to learn to dance well enough that I could teach it. I know that would be far off in the future but if I keep working at it who knows. Some of the other things I wish I could do to make a living are write and blog but it seems impossible and stupid so I say things like I am just trying to make some extra cash doing it. I give on many of my dreams because others tell me they are stupid. Now the people I am around don't actually flat out say they are stupid they just give you the looks that make you feel like you should go get a "real" job.

I am not sure where life is going to take me now but one thing I do know is I am going to stay in dance as much as  I can and learn as much as I can because it is the highlight of my life right now. There are so many positives to being involved at this dance studio that I will likely be there for the life of the studio.

I am also going to start writing on a few of my blogs regularly and look for small writing projects I can work on. I have found a few legitimate work at home type opportunities to fill in the gaps but they are low paying and they are inconsistent. They also don't require a lot of skill, time or energy and can be done while watching television or when I don't feel like doing anything but sitting on the couch after a rough workout.

The last thing I am going to be doing is working on a list of ideas to make money that do not require me to sit on my ass all day. If I have to get a regular job I would like to be active. Hopefully it won't come to that but if it does I don't want to sit on my booty all day and get fat again. I only need to work part time so I need to figure out what I can do that does not sedentary.

Work From Home Review

Well as you all know I am always looking for a good work from home venture. I like the products I sell but I would love to get more passive income. Well at least a good side income would be nice so I have been searching this past week for new ways to do this. I came across this website and signed up US Work From Home. I am not sure what I think yet but I will give you the gist of what you do and you can decide if you want to try it.

What you do is you sign up for a few free or low cost free trials and then you get an affiliate link to share this same website. You are getting paid to get other people to join and fill out free or low cost offers. There are training videos to help you get this off the ground. I did go with the higher reward program but it ended up costing me a few dollars because there were not enough free trials. You don't have to do this. Once you are done you can earn $20 for the starter or $80 for the next level for each person you refer.

I have not worked the program very much yet as I was waiting for one of my trial offers to go through but I am hoping to spend a few hours a week and make a little cash. I will report back as soon as I have put some effort into this and let you know if you can make money with this work at home business or if it is just a scam.

If you want to get started with the starter program there is no cost and it is easy to find a free trial that will meet the guidelines to get started just click here and let me know how things go once you get started.

Weight Loss Success

I gave you a taste of what has been going on in my life a few days ago. Things are going very well for me now that I have found something I love to do. I signed up to dance in the student showcase in just over a month so that means hours of practice each day to get up to par with the other students. I am not a natural at this so I have a lot of work to do! I am determined to get it done!

I am going to find my pictures from when I started the Herbalife program and post some before and after pictures. I have also started a weight loss support group Getting Fit Together to help encourage others. The forum is open for right now but you will need to register to post soon. This forum will not be a great big sales advert for me but I will sometimes recommend the products I sell.

So my life right now is all about getting fit and helping others do the same. The best tip I can offer my readers is to find something to do that your enjoy and it will change your outlook on getting fit. For me it was pole dancing fitness class. If you are just not sure what it is for you try as many things as you can and choose something that you refuse to miss unless you are seriously ill.

For classes look for a place that offers short term trial memberships or drop in classes for a small fee. If you think you might like to do something that requires an equipment investment look to see if you can rent what your looking for or keep trying sites like Craigslist to see if you can get low cost used equipment. Try everything you can possibly think of until you find what is right for you. It will pay off in results.

Hello Again I am Still Alive

I know that it has been a very long time since I posted here or on any of my blogs for that matter. I have been keeping busy and I try not to let too much time slip away from me. That means limiting my time on the computer because it seems to suck time like nothing else.

I have been working on organizing my home and my life and I am getting to the point where things are looking pretty good.

I started a dance class...now don't laugh it is a Pole dancing for fitness class. It is so much more fun than the gym! I love going and can't wait for class and even got my own pole and the hubby installed it so I can practice on off days. It is really hard work but I am toning up all over and I have lost some weight but I must be gaining a ton of muscle because I have gone down about 3 sizes and my waist has shrunk a little over three inches. I had to go buy some new clothes and then today not 2 weeks later I had to exchange all the ones I have not worn for smaller sizes.

I have been pretty focused on getting my house and health in order. It is nice to see all my tops say medium or small depending on if I get them from the women's or juniors department and to fit well in a size 7 pair of jeans. I only have the juniors size jeans here so I am not sure what size would fit in women's.

Yea I am just feeling good more to come the hubby is bugging me to make him some lunch so I must go.

Getting Organized

Today I did a long overdue check up on my organizational skills. The results were not good at all but there is hope for me yet. After taking a long look to see how the three businesses were performing I gave up and decided to start keeping better records.

The first thing I will be doing is using one bank account to keep track of all expenses and earnings. This means all the money collected will go right into that account and no more spending the cash as it comes in. Then I will write down all of my business expenses at the end of each day. I will not spend more than I have in that account even if Avon has a great deal on some of my favorite products.

The second thing on my list is to organize my schedule to make room for Scentsy parties. After talking to my mom and getting a definite workout schedule and posting that on the calender for the next two months I have two months of party slots. I work out every Monday and Wednesday then alternate Thursdays and Fridays to fit my moms schedule. So parties will be every Tuesday evening and Saturday afternoon and every Thursdays and Fridays we are not at the gym.

The third thing is to schedule times when I can meet with potential recruits and the fourth is to establish delivery days and times. There are a lot of other things that need to be done like finding a great method of follow up with both customers and recruits but I think if I start with redesigning my schedule it will help me assign time to those tasks.

Once my schedule is under control I will try to get to the gym more than three days but for now it is going to have to do. The plan would be when possible to walk the dog, get on my elliptical or do a workout video. So I won't loose the 8 pounds a month I wanted to loose but a pound a week is not bad and I am sure I can do that with three gym days and a good diet.

There is a lot more for me to think about but for now I am going to start small and organize my schedule bit by bit until my week days are all blocked off into sections for work, personal stuff and sleep. I need to learn to be somewhat flexible but I also have to stop this dropping everything to meet with a potential recruit. Learning how to balance my schedule is tough but I think it will play a huge part in my success or failure so it must be done.


www.youravon.com/csund
http://csund.scentsy.us/
www.goherbalife.com/csund

Don't Quit

Well today I wanted to throw in the towel when I got up. Didn't sleep well and on top of it I was sore from three days in a row intense strength training and cardio exercise. I decided not to go to the gym and give my body a rest. Tomorrow and Saturday are cardio days and I never work out on Sunday. I was hoping to make 6 days this week but 5 really isn't that bad.

On that note I think I am going to stick with three days of strength training for now. I am going to try to do it every other day if possible. Learning to balance so that I don't feel like giving up will be key.

I just wanted to sit on the couch all morning...which is sort of what I did but I found productive things I could do on the couch. I worked on some marketing tactics online for my three business. I would love it if you checked out my new blog MLM Queen.
I did get up and down a bunch for supplies but I did some mailing duties and preparing orders for delivery. I am not really sure how but apparently every time you get up and sit down you use your abs not to mention bending over and well just about every movement you make seems to involve your abs. Didn't know that until I did 30 minutes of abs with a personal trainer.

I don't really want to quit anything I just don't have a ton of patience and I really need to develop it. I want immediate results weather it be weight loss, sales, recruiting or personal stuff. I know that is logical but I really wish I could see real results right away, right now. I know I am not going to make it to the top without work but I wish the work would pay off faster.

Okay I have got to get a better attitude I have to learn from my mistakes and try again. I have to learn what methods are time wasters and what methods work. I just have to get up when I fall dust myself off and keep going.