WANT TO GET IN SHAPE? GET A DOG!

If I could earn a penny for every time I heard someone tell me they want to get in shape, I would've been a millionaire 3 times over. We all want to look good and feel great, right? (I'm especially targeting all of you women out there.) My first year of college I was no different. The freshman fifteen is NOT a myth; I found out the hard way that it is very, VERY real. Needless to say, I joined the bandwagon on the diet and exercise movement. I ... , too, bought some nice yoga pants and hit the gym with friends. Now, the first week or so was absolutely successful - I ran 3 days a week and ate as I should. I totally had it. Well, okay, I thought I had it. How many of you fell of your routine after week 1, or 2, maybe even 3? If so, you're not alone. I never could grasp the athletes and super model skinnies who could exercise without fail every single day. I don't know about you, but I got bored.

So let's fast forward a few months in my tale. I moved in with my boyfriend and (not much of a shock here) wanted a cute little puppy. My cute little pee-all-over-the-carpet puppy was totally shot down, but that's alright. I got my wish when I volunteered at a local shelter and fell in love with a 55 pound Staffordshire terrier with goofy ears and a take me home smile. In fact, that's exactly what we did - we took him home. Now when we got him there we quickly learned that the apartment was NOT his gig. He was frequently bored; he chewed through hundreds of toys and whined frequently. I refused to rehome him, as I loved him terribly, so we started to accommodate for his high energy. We began with three 10 minute walks a day, plus a 30 minute walk at night. If you're with me on the math here that adds to an hour of walking a day. Almost immediately I noticed changes in him, so we kept with the routine. Low and behold a few weeks later, I also began to benefit from this daily task. I was convincing myself to exercise without ever realizing I was doing so, and the scale reflected. Once I realized I was gaining back my comfortable weight, I also started to eat better, too. After I came to terms with the benefit of walking with my dog, we upped the ante a little. We started taking hiking trips on the weekends as often as we could. The happy tail wags and soft smiles kept me motivated for weeks and months to come, and still do to this day. prom selections in black

Daily exercise for your dog is so important, for their mental well-being as well as yours, since a bored dog is a destructive one. So because your so caught up in exercising him, you're willing to exercise yourself, too. They always say that you should do things for yourself and not for others, but let's face it: how many of us would actually exercise every day to the dot if we simply did it for ourselves? I sure as hell wouldn't. Thanks to my dog, though, I found a way to enjoy the road to getting in shape, and found the motivation to do what it takes to stay that way.