Reversing hair damage

I could have been the poster child for damaged hair.

Seriously.

After being a blonde all my life, I went dark and it dried my hair out. The ends were horrible, so I had to chop over an inch off. 

Then came a Kardashian marathon that had me determined to get healthy, shiny black hair.

So, being the product junkie I am, I hoarded every hair repair product I could find. My bathroom looked like a hair salon.

I have oils, lotions, 3 day treatments, masks, shampoos, conditioners,  styling products, all of it! All in hopes that I would repair the damage and get shine.

These are the products I've narrowed it down to, as well as a before and after picture in a time span of 3 months!

The Products:

Nexxus Pro-Mend Split End Binding Conditioner

Organix Renewing Moroccan Argan Oil shampoo

Tropical Traditions Virgin Coconut Oil

Nexxus Youth Renewal Rejuvenating Elixir

Natrol Biotin 10,000mcg Max Strength

(and Nestle Pure Life!)

and (optional) The "Wet" Brush

The Routine:

Alright...Here we go.

I actually prefer "no-poo", but because I wanted something extremely moisturizing, I wanted to add some actual shampoos.

I don't wash my hair much, nor do I blow dry it or straighten it.

Since I'm a stay at home, I don't worry too much about it looking dirty or whatever, but if I do have to go somewhere I just pull it into a messy bun and spray a bit if dry shampoo on it before hand so it has some volume.

I only wash my hair 3 times a week, sometimes only 2.

I take my Biotin every morning and I chug two bottles of water after I take it. I drink water all day and I'm convinced it truly helps with the growth, and I know the Biotin does. My nails look AMAZING!

I brush my hair with my Wet brush all the time, not just when wet. It is amazing. It doesn't break my hair and it gets tangles out so easily.

Keeping the hair smooth and tangle free will really help your hair out.

I rub a little of tropical traditions organic virgin coconut oil on my ends several times a day. It only takes a tiny bit to cover it all. My hair is dark so it doesn't look oily, but I'm sure it would require less on blonde since blonde will show more of the oil. After I apply it to my ends, I wipe my hands off a bit on a towel and then I use my finger tips and massage my scalp for approximately 1 minute.

Before I go to bed every night, I do a full coconut oil mask. I take a larger amount of the oil and saturate all of my hair, paying special attention to the ends and my layers. I use the Wet brush and brush it a lot to get the oil all over my hair and let it really absorb it. I usually just throw it in a loose bun or braid afterwards and put an elastic headband on to keep it off my face and sleep with it in my hair.

In the morning I just rinse it with cold water.

When I do wash it, I do it after washing the coconut oil out. I still use cold water and just easy gently and really only use the conditioner on my ends. I can't stress how great this coconut oil has been on my hair. Tropical Traditions was kind enough to send me a sample of the product to try out, and I really wanted to include the review in this post just to really make my readers understand that I had such great results with it that I actually made it a part of my daily routine. 

I towel dry and apply the Nexxus Elixir to the ends, and sometimes a tiny but more of the coconut oil.

I NEVER dry my hair on hot on the rare occasion I do dry it.

And I never straighten it afterwards! If I absolutely have to straighten it, I dry my hair at night and let it rest and straighten it the next day.

And here are my results:

The left side is in March, the other is from today (May).

And this is from before I started using the coconut oil and after! 

If you're interested in placing an order with Tropical Traditions and picking up the exact kind that I have used you can visit their website here:

http://www.tropicaltraditions.com/virgin_coconut_oil.htm

If by some chance you don't love the results you get with your hair, you can reuse the product for hundreds of other purposes! I apply it all over my body as a moisturizer, I use it as an eye makeup remover, and it works great (for me) at treating acne. You can cook with it as well (it doesn't even store in your body as fat!) and it has so many medicinal purposes I can't even begin to list them all. Its a really great investment that I don't feel like any of you will regret!

9 Months Post Pregnancy weight loss progress & inner thigh gap! :)

Its been a while since I did any good before and after shots and I put these together for my Tumblr, so I thought I'd add them here too. BTW you can follow me on Tumblr as well: http://project-skinny-mama.tumblr.com/

Anyway here are the newest ones including inner thigh gap transformation!

The newest one is actually for my before shot for the Brazil Butt Lift progress!

(the stomach shot is actually an old one i pulled from here, as well as the last in the side views below. I haven't taken any new ones that are decent quality so I'll use these instead even though they're a couple of months behind)

And of course here is the "before" shot for the Brazil Butt Lift

(WARNING: SAGGY BUTT AND GRANNY PANTIES AHEAD HAHAHA! I didnt want to bare my whole booty here so I picked something with good coverage!)

Brazil Butt Lift... Day 2- O...M...G.

I've been slacking on exercise, but I am by no means out of shape.

I've had bronchitis since April. I'm still coughing until I choke daily, sitting around wheezing through out the day, losing my voice often, all that... so my lung capacity isn't quite what it usually is.

BUT this isn't an excuse (at least not in my book) to slack all together and give up on my fitness goals. So of course I've redirected myself and decided to start getting hardcore about this stuff again.

I'm one of those "go big or go home" types of people.

I can't half-ass anything. Its either got all of me, or none of me. No in between.

So if I seem obsessed at some point...well... I am.

Anyway, back on topic:

Brazil Butt Lift!

I don't even watch television and I've seen this infomercial so I know you guys have.

With three kids its often easier for me to do at-home-workouts.

It saves me the trouble of having to make the kids go to childcare while I workout and having to use the gas in the car to get there, etc.

I've had a lot of results with my at home stuff in the past few months so I had a lot of faith in this to begin with.

However I did NOT expect the first workout to leave me hurting!

No I mean seriously, later in the evening I absentmindedly thought, "what the hell did I do to pull a muscle in my butt?!".  I didn't actually pull one (that I know of ) but I was so sore that my amazing sleep number mattress even hurt my butt to LAY DOWN!

So imagine my hesitation on day 2 when I knew I needed to get off my lazy "bum bum" as Leandro refers to it, and get started on my workout.

Baby Mac was asleep, hub was watching TV, time for mommy to work that butt.

And work it I did.

Tonight introduced the cardio portion and Holy Oxygen Batman, let me tell you I was dying and sweating. Really. I looked at the timer.... ha... 18 minutes to go.

And then another 30 for the lift routines!

But was it worth it?

Hmmmm....

I jumped in the shower and when I went to get out I almost cried because my hips and abs hurt so bad.

Oh yeah... 3 c-sections in 4 years and mama is KILLING the ab workouts!

I throw in 200 crunches a day for good measure but tonight's workout really did something to the stomach because it was cramping to the point that I thought it might be that time of the month (it is indeed not.)

So worth it? Hell yes!

Painful? F**K YES!

I'm so glad :]

And after all... they promise I'll have a cute little Alessandra Ambrosio butt worthy of all my Victoria's Secret goodies I've racked up since my weight loss.

I'm down! (and maybe even convinced).

Oh and hey, only half a soda today.

And a made myself down a protein shake (huge for me since I hate fruit!)

I'm taking my sore butt to bed!

Weigh in+Photo Update- REACHED PRE PREG WEIGHT!

Well I promised I wouldn't be doing many updates unless something "dramatic" happened and despite that not really happening, I had a request for a blog update so I figured I'd do a short one :)

I have been off of the Phentermine since J152anuary 25th... I ran out and haven't went back to get anymore.

My appetite hasn't come back at all surprisingly.

Hopefully I'll be one of the lucky ones who only need it for a month.

We'll see!
I am currently BELOW my pre-pregnancy weight which is huge for me!

My goal was just to fit back into my size 7 jeans again

and I went beyond that and got down to my size 5's so definitely NO COMPLAINTS THERE!
I'm pretty proud of myself for sticking to only healthy eating,

no soda,

and CARDIO CARDIO CARDIO!
I've always been diligent about toning and strength training but never much for cardio

and I can tell you it is 100% necessary for weight loss and for me maintenance as well.

So as you know...

my beginning weight was a depressing 152

well.... my current weight is an EARNED 126!

yes yes, I'm patting myself on the back for that!

That doesn't mean I'm giving up because I'm ultimately on a mission for a complete body transformation.

I desperately want to shed a few inches in the thigh area and there's always improvement to be done on the belly!

So I think my next focus point for the blog will be to continue my journey to a six pack belly again!

I CAN DO IT!

I dug up a before picture for a good comparison,

and this is actually from about 2 weeks after giving birth to my 3rd little,

when I was about 160 lbs.

Then of course there are some currents.

And sorry for the overboard picture SLAM but I'm pretty proud so, get over it, or get outttt! :)