Resolutions, the easy way & back to my roots!

Happy New Year. It was both exiting and sentimental to say farewell to 2012, it was a great year but I know that I have the power to make 2013 even better. My big resolution this year is to lose another 50lbs (110 total, whoa) and it's been really easy starting that one as I had already been on the weight loss path for the last 10 months.

I'll be the first to say that the holidays were a rough time for me. With everything going on, not enough sleep and little down time I was definitely not as 'on par' as I would have liked. But that's OK. Having a bad week is ok - a bad month, maybe not. I took my first 'rest time' from training in about three months and while normally this should be a full week, I took four days off from working out. It was plenty. I definitely noticed that I had increased energy for the first two weeks of January and nailed some pretty intense workouts.

I made some smaller resolutions that will help me get to my 50lb goal. First, I really wanted to quit coffee but  I find that sort of unreasonable for me (there are just some days I need it!) I made a small resolution to drink more water. I have really been slacking on this one for the last few months. Ideally, I should be drinking half my body weight in ounces of water daily. I maybe drink 50% of what I should in a day. For the last week I have been carrying my 32oz water bottle around everywhere and have been able to down three of those a day.

This year I really want to work to get my entire beauty routine chemical free. Although many of my household products are homemade, I'm still somewhat lacking in the makeup and hair dept. I knew I had to rid myself of the worst of it - hairspray. I am attached to this stuff, the aerosol kind (ya, I know). Even though I was just doing a little finishing spray, the particles still linger awhile in the air and coat my skin and hair when sprayed on. I was pretty convinced there was not going to be an ample replacement for this product. I tried the first recipe for homemade hairspray I found, mostly because it was SO easy:

1 cup nearly boiling water
4 tsp sugar

I was doubtful to say the least. Sugar water, there is no way that could work as well, right? Well once again, nature proved me entirely wrong, wondering why I had waited so long to try it. It has an incredible hold and does not weigh my hair down - even with the water. The cost to make it is rather ridiculous too, just pennies.

And next up, back to my natural color. I'm allowing myself one hair color application to match to my natural color and then that's it, no more! I'm swearing off the stuff on my head. Plus, I kind of like my natural 'dark golden blonde'. So I took the plunge. Out with the bleach blonde and in with what my hair is really supposed to look like. I'm still getting used to it. Here it is: Before and after...oh ya and those curls are holding with sugar water, after 5 hours:

It does bring out my features more and convinced me that this the way it is supposed to look. I've probably known this for awhile now but it took some time to get the red out of my hair (with the blonde) so I could go back to darker blonde.

For the first time ever I did three consecutive CrossFit classes this week (along with two runs). I'm really trying to switch it up a lot so I've dropped Spin (for now) and am concentrating on faster running speed and CrossFit (because the workout is different, everytime).

In 2013, I'm down about 3 lbs, for a total of 65! Although I feel progress is slow, I feel a lot stronger even than I was a month ago. Exited about the possibilities of 2013.