Forgiveness

I decided to take a little break from physical health for this post and touch on the necessity of a healthy mind. Beginning this journey has really brought forth the different mindsets that I've had before this. The, 'oh, I have to eat this' or 'I can only eat this much' thought process. And if I screwed up, I was extremely hard on myself. So hard on myself that I wasn't able to get back on the horse and I lost faith that I could accomplish my goals.

But in order to be successful in changing my life, I have to learn to forgive myself. No one is perfect, least of all me. Deciding to use Saturdays as a day that I let go a little of my stringent new eating habits, has helped out a lot. And allowing myself to let loose a little bit if I have a party to attend takes the edge off. Maybe stringent isn't the right word, more like, letting myself have something that I don't have to care about it being clean, too much.

But I do have slip ups, wether it be a chicken wing or a small bag of sunchips, being able to forgive myself has relieved a lot of stress. I used to stress out about the food I was eating constantly. That isn't a healthy way for me, or anyone, to behave with food. Being conscious of what I eat and obsessed are two very different behaviors that I'm continually learning about. Slipping up is ok, as long as I get back on the horse.

I have to say that since changing my mind set and really hunkering down to stick to clean eating, my mind set is completely different. I'm comfortable with what I'm eating and not obsessed with the calorie count. Which is something that a lot of people focus on. The article that I posted by Sophia Herbst spoke the truth, eating that little is going to put you into starvation mode and you won't lose any weight, at least not the healthy way. All those 'miracle' diet programs like Slimfast or Medifast ect ect are terrible for your health. When your body goes into starvation mode your hair thins, your nails break, and you take hangery to a whole new meaning. 

It's a big step to take on this new thought process. I took a good, look and hard look at myself and what I wanted and it wasn't to keep gaining weight and have a head full of fog. Or to stress myself out constantly. I want to be happy and healthy and the second step is forgiving my small infractions with food. And forgiving myself for small mistakes that everyone makes on a daily basis. I can't control everything but I can allow myself to be the imperfectly perfect human being that am while making small improvements

Cheers to being healthy and happy everyone!

Amazing Article

I found this article through Facebook today and I have to say; it is a phenomenal empowerment piece. It's probably one of the best that I've read, and I really wanted to share it! The article pretty much sums up everything that I'm trying to do through this blog and breaks the 1,200 calorie myth that has been idealized by many weight loss regimes. 

1,200 Caloriesn by Sophia Herbst 

Cheers to being healthy and happy everybody!

Next steps! Plan, plan and plan!

Hello again! How is everyone's week? I'm so happy that Spring is officially here! Yay, yay, yay!!!

So to continue on my path to being healthy I know that I need to focus on my diet-90% success lies with the diet. Eating healthy is hard, especially when you have a sweet tooth the size of China! Damn you tasty deliciousness!

I keep telling myself that this is the last time I'll grab a bag of these delicious chocolate candies that melt in mouth but not in your hand, and then I fail. My weak self control can only be helped by bringing my own snacks so I'm not starving! I, like many other people, have thought that starving myself equals weight loss. It isn't true! So I'm breaking that thought process now. Hear that? That's the sound of my light bulb going off!

Realizing that starvation doesn't equal skinny is hard for me to to grasp, from years of seeing/hearing that if you want to loose weight you can only consume 1200 calories a day; that's nothing! But I've been doing a lot of research into how people have lost a lot of weight, kept it off and stayed healthy doing it has helped me figure it out. Eating clean and eating enough is the key, not counting calories.

Meal planning and easing myself out of all of the processed and artificial foods starts now. Since I'm on a budget though, I think making the same breakfast, lunch, snack and dinners will help me stay in budget. The recipes I chose go a long way, if you measure them out the way you need to.

My budget is $100 a week, that's to feed me for the whole week and my boyfriend for a few days. I really want to come under budget as much as I can, who can complain about extra money? I selected the following meals because I have a lot of the ingredients in my cupboard already. The following recipes can be found in Tosca Reno's book, the Start Here Diet, but I found similar recipes for you! 

Here's the meal plan:

Breakfast: Apple cinnamon oatmeal-1cup of finished product

Lunch: Greek pasta salad with chicken-2 cups of finished product. With fresh spinach and whole wheat paste to make it more filling!

Snack: Yogurt and granola-1/2 cup of yogurt and 1/4 cup granola. 

Dinner: Sweet and sour chicken-2 cup of finished product. I used a bag of frozen stir-fry veggies to cut down on the prep time.

As I said, I have a lot of the ingredients for these recipes already so it only cost me $51.48 to get everything I needed, plus some bananas and extra apples! What's the secret? Farmers markets, they sell amazing produce at a fraction of the price! I can't tell you how much I love my local farmer's market and how much green they save me! 

If you need to find a local farmer's market or co-op try Local Harvest, it's a great site that can help you find one in your area.

Since these recipes are so easy to make and make so much, it's great for the busy work week when you don't want to be in the kitchen all the time. Something that I find helps me out during the week is to measure out all the meals for the week on Sunday, that way i can just grab and go!

I started eating this way on Monday and I'm already down 3 pounds! Needless to say I'm more than thrilled with the results so far. 

Until next time guys!
Cheers to being healthy and happy everybody!

Journey Begins....

Hi all! Or to those of you that have ventured on to this blog. I'm still not quite sure what it is I'll be blogging about, but I know that I've decided to start in the health arena and go from there.

I'm not starting here because I have all the answers to getting a fantastic and healthy body and this is by no means a how-to; in truth I don't know anything. Like many people I have struggled with my weight and health; been down on myself because I don't look like the beautiful people in magazines or on TV and I definitely don't have those nicely defined abs that everyone strives for.  I honestly think those super-defined abs are a myth- a fairytale that health magazines and trainers have created to make us work harder; or pant over when Emma Stone makes Ryan Gosling take off his shirt. OK that's a lie, a nice set of defined abs is totally attainable; I just don't have them and that makes me a little green.

So like I said, I'm not an expert and this blog isn't meant to be a how-to in any way; it's a way for me to share my own journey, starting with health and fitness and branching out; and hopefully inspire others who are going through the same thing and get feedback and advice from those of you that actually know what you are talking about.

Now I have to be honest, I'm not going into this completely from scratch. I'm a runner and workout almost on a daily basis-so why am I stuck? That's a question that I keep coming back to time and time again. I get it, the diet is 90% of the success and that's probably the issue. So I'm seeing a nutritionist and there's a little weight loss but not much and life is very stressful so I don't feel successful. (See what I did there?)

So part of this is to be completely forth coming about everything; I have been heavy my whole life. There I said it, I am overweight. Whew, that was bit of reality that was hard to swallow but will ultimately help me. Because I am that person that always say's "I'm so fat"; expecting everyone to go "No you're not". I'm not fat, I am unhealthy and it's not good for my body to be at weight it is unless it's all muscle. So that's the first step that I'm going to take-realize and accept the truth but in a helpful, non destructive way.

Coming from a family that is over weight, didn't look into nutrition that much, wasn't that active and really needed to live on a budget didn't help my health. I tried to be active in school; joined a lot of team sports and tried hard but seeing all of the tiny, fit class mates of mine excelling where I couldn't even keep up and snickering about me behind my back really discouraged me.

The teachers sorta tried, they never really took a real interest in me since I'm sure that they had a lot of other things to deal with so there wasn't a lot of time to help me work through it or feel better about myself. They gave up on me and so did I. Because for the longest time I never thought I was worth the effort.

There was one coach I had that to this day does inspire me; my swim coach. She was tough and never accepted excuses and in her middle age still looked amazing. When she wasn't a coach she was one of the nicest people I have ever known and one of the few people that ever believed in me and my abilities to swim. Thanks to her, I started to see some results from swimming, loosing weight and seeing my clothes get loose. The results never stuck though, I ate terrible, cheap, processed food at an alarming caloric intake. I had no idea how to manage portions, I was and still am a bottomless pit.

This endless cycle is what I aim to end and I hope that this blog turns out to be an effective tool to help that goal.

Cheers to being healthy and happy everybody!