April improvements.

It's a brand-spanking new month!

And it's the first full month of Spring. 

And I've decided to make this April into a month of self-improvement.

I'm already an exercise fiend and a pretty healthy eater (with the exception of my sweet tooth...my very large sweet tooth) but I feel like I need an extra push right now to get out of my health and fitness rut. I've been running and walking and elliptical-ing 

but I'm beginning to get bored with my routine and I really need to add some 

strength training exercises into my workout (because these arms aren't the kind of arms that 

should be displayed in a sleeveless top without some toning). 

I found this 7 day diet here,

courtesy of another lovely blogger, and I thought I'd give it a try 

to kick off my journey toward summer shapeliness. Here's the gist of it:

Day 1: Eat only fruits.

Day 2: Eat only veggies (the brightly colored variety, especially).

Day 3: Fruits AND veggies.

Day 4: Bananas and low-calorie yogurt. 
(is it weird that I'm really looking forward to this day?)

Day 5: Fowl (or in my case, I'm substituting a veggie protein) and tomatoes. 

Day 6: Fowl (veggie protein) and veggies.

Day 7: Miracle soup.

It might sound sort of intense but as a vegetarian, my diet consists of a lot of this stuff anyway.

(And don't worry, I don't have any illusions about losing 10 pounds in 7 days...

for my 5 foot 2 frame, that would be absolute craziness)

But for some reason, the little voice inside my head saying, "Hey, Andrea, maybe you should eat fruit for dessert tonight instead of an enormous slice of ice cream pie again?" doesn't hold as much weight as an official diet that says,
 "ANDREA, YOU MAY NOT EAT ANYTHING BUT FRUIT TODAY!". 

I guess I'm very respectful of set-in-stone rules. 

In addition to this little 7 day diet, I'm kicking up my workouts by adding in
 Jillian Michaels's 30 day Shred. 

It's only 20 minutes long (but a difficult 20 minutes...especially when Jillian's telling you 

that if you feel like you're dying, just keep going). 

My unused arm muscles are crying with anticipatory pain already.
I'll let you know how it goes!

P.S. I had my FINAL photo-dynamic therapy treatment today

and my face looks like an angry red stop sign, 

so Yoshi kindly agreed to take an outfit photo in my place.

What Yoshi wore: Dog hoodie, Old Navy.