Blogger's Biggest Loser -- Week Two

Today I am linking up with My Vickilicious Life for my first time for Bloggers Biggest Loser! You can link up here --

I'm trying to lose a pesky 25 lbs that I put on while living in Colorado. After moving in with M, I guess they could be called "love pounds". 
My heart hasn't been fully into losing it since I moved back to California and I blame eating too much love. So since the first of the year I've been working hard on the portion control in addition to running as I always have and drinking a ton of water. 
My goal is to be back in my skinny jeans -- which I haven't seen since the day I moved to Colorado -- by summer.
Since Jan 1st I've only lost 5 lbs. I know I am capable of way more. But a pound is a pound and I have to be patient! Funny that I don't think 5 pounds is a lot to lose but if it were the other way around and I had gained 5 pounds... woah. Anyway -- enough rambling.

Today I am going to talk about Working Out...
I've just about tried it all. Running -- Swimming -- Yoga -- Pure Barre -- Kickboxing -- Pilates -- Zumba Just off the top of my head. 
Swimming is by far my favorite workout. I find it relaxing and enjoyable and I love the killer results of how toned my body is if I swim a couple times a week. Finding a swimming hole, however, hasn't always been easy. 

I like kickboxing, I use to do it in college. When I lived in Colorado I found a kickboxing class at a jiu jitsu place that a co-worker recommended. We used boxing gloves and bags and everything! I loved it! However, the class times and location were a bit inconvenient for my schedule and I only attended a few times. 

I love Pilates. I do not love all of the new reformer Pilates stuff. Although I've never tried it, and don't knock it til you try it, it seems way more expensive. I like the original stuff and usually will do some moves that I learned though past classes on my own. 

I've done Zumba once. Liked it. I just didn't feel like it was giving me the full body workout that running does. Also, I am weird about my workouts because I feel some things make my legs bulky. I know -- I'm weird. I'm also not one that wants to join a gym. I'd rather run -- for free -- outside. 
Yoga. Oh, yoga. I've tried to like you. I've tried hot yoga three times. All three times I almost blacked out. I actually left my first hot yoga class early because my blackout feeling was so bad. I guess its more embarrassing for me to fall over than leave a class early. I wanted to give yoga another shot and I did. Same feeling. I really wanted to love yoga because I'd like to become stretchy and more flexible. Again though, another thing to pay for. And yoga isn't cheap!

Pure Barre. Holy expensive. I tried Pure Barre through a Groupon I had. I thought it sounded awesome. I would die to have legs like a ballerina. My first class almost made me black out. I'm not that out of shape guys, I am just prone to passing out! And it was really hot in the room, I was having flashbacks to hot yoga. Anyway, I made myself go to all of the classes on my Groupon. I liked the way it made me feel but all of the other girls in the class were about 1/3 my size. I was beginning to feel pretty insecure and came to conclude I was never going to have ballerina legs. Plus, after my Groupon I was never going to be able to afford a membership. 

So that brings me to running. I've blogged about running here. It seems to work for me. Its free. Its what I do. 
In addition to running and swimming, I lift 10 lb dumbbells a couple times a week, do a few Pilates moves as my crunches and do 20 - 30 push ups a day. In sets of 10.

What works for you? What is your favorite? What do you hate?