Health: Time to get in wedding shape

Earlier this year my boyfriend and I got engaged! He’s an amazing man and I feel super lucky to be with him, but it’s time to start thinking about going on a wedding diet. Neither of us are naturally skinny, we also love to eat and don’t like going to the gym. Oops!

So, it’s time to think about getting moving and shaping up! I got a kind offer from Garmin to road test their Vivofit. Since there is two of us needing to get fit, it made sense to do it together and get a little competitive! He went for the blue Garmin Vivofit, I went for the purple. We both downloaded the Garmin Vivofit app and we put on our trainers! The Garmin Vivofit is worn around your wrist and it tracks your movement and uploads the data to your phone. You can easily track how much you have walked per day and give yourself a daily target.

I wish I could tell you we joined the gym the following day, but we didn’t. What we did do, is we started counting our steps using our Vivofits, we also started being a little more careful with what we ate. I have had soup for dinner for the last two weeks (seriously, not even at the weekend have we strayed away from soup dinners!) and I bought a whole heap of nuts, dried fruits, granola and yogurt. I have also completely quit coffee, except for Vita Cocos Cafe Lattes. With these coffees, they contain coconut water rather than milk, but they also don’t contain added sugar, it’s shameful to admit, but my lattes come with two sugars.

At the weekend, we have been making the effort to go for long walks, often we walk from Bethnal Green to central London, it takes about 1 hour 30 minutes and we have even done the return walk too. It’s really satisfying counting your steps each day and it really spurs you on to talk that walk round the park, or walk instead of getting the tube. It also makes me consider what I eat for my meals too. It seems crazy to walk for hours and then dine out on burgers and chips, which is why we have been eating soup and snacking on fruit and nuts and eating yogurt and fruit as a treat.

It’s been two weeks now, my boyfriend has been commenting that all his clothes are much looser, but truthfully, all mine fit the same. I don’t want to sound bitter, but don’t you hate the way men shed weight faster than women?! It always takes my body weeks and weeks of dieting before I noticed a difference in my size, and whilst, I may not look or feel any different in terms of weight, but I do feel good for walking more and eating well. It’s funny how something so simple as a Garmin Vivofit can make you look at how much you exercise, which has a knock on effect to you looking at what you eat. It’s great having such an easy tool to monitor your movement and whilst I was expecting us to get competitive with each other, it’s actually been really fun taking super long walks and looking at our apps to see how many steps it is in total.

On a side note, we have been walking in New Balance trainers, I have the black and pink pair, my boyfriend went for the grey and green pair. I personally think mine are the coolest, but he absolutely loves his. I have even caught him wearing them to work on ‘dress down Friday’. Both of us agree New Balance trainers are lightweight and really well cushioned. Perfect for walking miles in perfect comfort! When we finally move our walks into runs, we will be able to wear these trainers then too!

Have you ever used the Garmin Vivofit to monitor your movement and get fit?