Starting Point

Monday, August 29, 2011

Day 66-Some Thoughts on this whole TTWLC

Mandatory recap: From the last post until now, I went to Yoga (62) and walked a whole bunch on the weekend. I apparently hate exercising on the weekend. I don't know why. I have more free time so one would think that I would take advantage of it..but no...I am super lazy. Food wise, I did really well until yesterday when I went to the Canadian National Exhibition. I ate half of a deep fried mars bar (seriously), 2 delicious (award winning) ribs, and some Tiny Tom's Donuts. It happened...deal with it. So much for my boot-camp/detox business. But supper last night was amazing! Slow cooked whole chicken, carrots, broccoli and sweet potato wedges. Om nom nom. speaking of noms..check out this liscense plate I was driving behind...
Full of Win

So tonight I am getting ready to go to Zumba for the first time in a while! Super excited.

Ok here is what I really want to blog about. Last week someone asked me what I do on my free time. I told them that I go to the gym eat healthy and I then I blog about it. (It made sense in context) And it got brought up that I have lost about 10 pounds in the past 50 days. Ntb. Anyway this chicky asked me "How did you do it??"

Ok once again, not an expert, but this is just my opinion and what worked for me.

My answer...in different words...Cut the crap.

This goes a bunch of ways...a) stop eating crap, and b) stop lying to your self and making excuses...c) stop giving yourself crap.

I will elaborate.
Firstly, I try to eat as naturally as possible. My fridge is full of veggies and fruits and my cupboards are bare. No frozen meals, no frozen pizzas, not very many boxes. This means that I plan my meals meticulously, and I plan my grocery list accordingly. To simplify things, when you do groceries, just don't go in the middle aisles. My typical grocery cart has the following processed items...1 loaf of whole wheat bread, 1 box of crackers...and 1 pkg of mini rice cake chip things. Look at the ingredient list, if it looks like a organic chem class gone wrong...don't eat it!!! Yes those mini thins are low fat and low calorie, but they aren't real food...that is what makes them bad (and delicious). Same goes for packaged salad dressing.  I eat my salads raw or with a little bit of olive oil and vinegar. Some times extra fat and calories in moderation (natural almonds) vs process low fat stuff (100 cal chips) can actually help you loose weight!
I figure by eating this way 90% of the time, I can allow myself half of a deep fried Mars Bar once ever.

Part b) I was (still am sometimes) the queen of excuses...I'm tired, I worked too hard today, I don't want to go to the gym wah wah wah. I will fully admit that it is very hard to drag yourself to the gym (hence my lack of real exercise on the weekends). Somethings that have worked for me is to consider the gym a mandatory thing (like a meeting) that you have to go to NO MATTER WHAT. The other thing is to put it in my schedule. I know that every Monday I do Zumba, Tuesday is Body Pump..etc. The main thing that has worked for me has been a work out buddy. This time around with this challenge it has been my boyfriend Mike.  My BF and I have become each other's motivation to go the gym because we go together. He does his thing while I do a fitness class and we meet after. We get to talk about what we did at the gym, and compare our muscles (haha). But seriously he has lost 10 pounds as well, so we are doing pretty well.

And part c) If you do bad one day and eat something naughty, don't skip the gym. If you gained weight one week instead of losing, don't go eat a bag of chips. If you ate a delicious deep fried mars bar to get the full experience of the CNE, don't eat ice cream later out of depression that you ruined your diet.
It's not about being perfect and "good" all the time...it is about eating healthy, exercising, and still living your life. Don't give yourself crap over one bad week or day, or minute. Just accept that sometimes a bag of chips is ok, and move on. This is a lesson I am still learning. I remind myself that even if I still can't run a 5k, and I haven't lost much weight in the past 2 weeks, it is ok, because any bit of exercise is good, and every healthy food choice can't be a bad thing.

If you want to see success with a healthy life (in my humble, non-expert opinion) is to balance it. Start with simple switches that you can stick with (coke to diet coke to water for example). Once you have the balance, then you can fully enjoy your healthy life without worrying about every minute of it. That is truly when you can have your cake and eat it too (low fat-gluten free-organic-chocolate cake with local beets in it please :P)

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