Imagine Kat

In this post I want to talk a little bit about my experiences donating plasma as I struggle with deciding to continue doing it or not. I apologize to my mom who might be reading this as she highly discourages me from going. Donating plasma saves lives, so why would my mother be against it? Well, I am here to explain a little about what plasma donating is from the perspective of someone who donates. So first, I will answer some basic questions to help unfamiliar people understand... What is plasma? The dictionary definition says, " the colorless fluid part of blood, lymph, or milk, in which corpuscles or fat globules are suspended." In my highly simplified brain I see plasma as the stuff that carries your blood cells and also helps with your immune system. Why do people need others to donate their plasma? Plasma donations are used in many different ways. From what the posters tell me inside the donation centers, plasma helps save the lives of old people and sick childr...

So obliviously, it has been too long since my last post but I do have a pretty good explanation for this. I wanted to make sure I gathered the correct information to share so I could give the best tips for anyone else struggling to lose weight. To be honest, I have not found the "miracle" solution for everyone. It just felt time to share what I have been experiencing and maybe, perhaps, it may help someone else. So going by the wii fit scale at my home (which I know is off because it is on the carpet when I weigh myself), I had reached 150 lbs . I am proud to say that all though after lots of time and struggle, as of today, I am 140 lbs (according to the wii fit). I think part of the reason that I have not shared my progress already is that I have actually become paranoid that I will jinx my progress and gain the weight back (pathetic, I know). So I have been tweaking my diet/fitness little by little to try and find just the right thing to keep losing weight. Almost lik...

So I am doing my best to keep up with my Nike + Training, but I noticed staying active and eating healthy becomes 10x more difficult on vacation or on holidays! My mother was visiting last week and I wanted to take her out to all the places we have that she does not get to see at home. This made watching calories and my diet much more difficult as well as finding time to workout.    As a general update, my weight has not dropped that much and still fluctuate, but since I have been doing Nike + Training, I feel like I have slimmed down, my pants are loser, I feel stronger, and overall I have hope that the pounds will start dropping soon if I continue to watch how much I eat. My husband and I live in a two bedroom town home that is at the end of the row. My sister moved in with us in April and has been living in the extra room for the summer while she has her internship. Yesterday, Tyler's brother moved in as well to find work and save up for his mission. He will be stay...

It's a pretty simple question, but possibly one we don't ask ourselves enough. What motivates you to achieve a goal? What motivates you to workout? Yea, you want to be healthy, fit, skinny, etc....but what keeps you going when you do not see the results you were hoping? What motivates you to push yourself to the limit? This past week my husband got me Nike + Training for the kinect on Xbox 360. You start out by putting in height, weight and age, picking a trainer, and then doing a fitness assessment. It then gives you a fitness and athleticism score (which shows where you have room to improve). You will also put in what you want to work on (strength, power, toning, etc) and how many days a week you want to workout. It then creates a 4 week program for you! That first day just doing the fitness test was quite brutal for me! You see yourself next to this animated trainer and I felt slow and unfit. While doing high knees and struggling with having enough space in my living ...

WARNING : This post will mostly about my PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrome) and may not be appropriate for some readers. So as I have stated previously, last October I was diagnosed with PCOS. In my case, this means I have high levels of testosterone for a woman, have (possibly) multiple cysts on my ovaries, and acne that is hard to control. It also means that when I do decide to start having children, this may be very difficult for me depending on my health and weight. Before going on birth control, my periods were very irregular and now I can predict them to the day and they only last 4-5 days, which is super nice! When I was diagnosed with PCOS in October, based off of my current symptoms and blood work, the doctor basically said she did not need to do an ultra sound to tell that I had cysts on my ovaries. I recognized that during key parts of my menstrual cycle, I would feel slight discomfort in what would feel like my left ovary. The doctor said that there is really not much t...

If you are anything like me, "diet" was the same as a dirty word when you were a kid. Who would ever want to go through the trouble to watch what you eat and count calories?! Plus, as much as I hate to admit this on the internet, I still do not enjoy eating salads like I feel I should. And like many others, I have an ENORMOUS sweet tooth with big sugar cravings! So for those like me, who struggle with "dieting" and have a hard time telling yourself when to stop eating, here are five tips and tricks that I have gathered that have actually really helped me the past couple weeks: goes: #1 Do not eat after 9 PM and get 6-8 hours of sleep. This is something I started practicing after hearing it from the Wii board. Eating right before bed is a big no no for people who are trying to lose weight. This can be hard for people with sweet tooth cravings as big as mine. For the first week, it was surprisingly difficult to stop eating sweets before bed. I found it easier if i...

What kinds of things have you tried in order to lose weight? It seems that we are constantly bombarded by new weight loss fads and the ever thinning expectation of what "beauty" yet are also surrounded by the ever tempting convenience of fast food (in the restaurant sense as well as in what we buy). This is my third blog post, and I would really like to get some feedback on what kinds of things other people have tried. What has worked for you? What hasn't? Here are some things that I have tried in the past, and a little bit about how they worked out for me. A year ago, I tried Insanity  with my roommate. (It is worth noting that in the past I have tried P90X as well and found that for me personally, I much prefer P90X.) But everyone is different and may find they like Insanity better. For me, when I tried Insanity, it was right in line with the time period in which I gained 30-40 lbs, and have been trying to get it off ever since. At first when the weight piled on,...

So before I get into why I need to lose weight and be healthier (because let's face it, I'm not the only one) .... I thought it would be helpful to go ahead and just list out all the things that are wrong with my body that can sometimes make working out and losing weight less than fun. Contrary to what the title portrays, I am not doing this to try and get sympathy, or make anyone feel sorry for me (I just wanted to make that the title to grab attention). I am by no means someone to feel sorry for! There are way more people with more substantial disabilities and/or disadvantages than my own.  I guess the honest truth about what I am about to tell you are my sad excuses for sometimes not doing certain exercises or routines. (I know...I should do better). But perhaps this process of leaving it out for the whole world to see what I use as my "crutches" will help me to suck it up and toughen it out. :) So to make this more interesting and perhaps educational for som...

Welcome! To my new (and for the most part first) blog! My name is Katrina Wahlquist, and all though I have been married for about six months now, the last name still feels pretty new to me. I really enjoy writing, but have never been one too attracted to the idea of writing about myself on the internet, assuming someone else might actually enjoy it; but since I have now been working for a company for almost nine months that is centered around websites, social media, marketing and blogging, the idea is not quite so frightening. My hilarious husband's name is Tyler (btw) Any waaays...Part of the reason I actually decided to write this blog is because of something that has been on my mind for a while (and the majority of women's minds as well)...weight loss. Specifically, my own weight loss. Growing up, I was a slim, athletic and active child. I played softball, basketball, swimming, tennis, volleyball, and most of all, soccer. It can be said that I have played soccer most ...