This blog post should be titled "What's the Next Step?".
I know it's only the second week of the new year and there will be lots of hurdles that come at us for the next 50 weeks but I feel like my workouts are going well so far and I have been feeling really good about my portion control. I think this is the first time that I've had tortilla chips and dark chocolate in my house at the beginning of the week and it's still here at the end. However, with that being said that still means that every day I may eat a chip and a piece of dark chocolate. I'm trying not to get back into my crazy WW mentality of tracking everything because then I just feel way too guilty about everything and every time I mess up I feel like I've committed a crime. I don't want to put myself through that. I want to find a way to live healthy and a way of life that I can keep for the long haul.
Okay, the entire paragraph above is a preface to how I've been feeling today....good and bad. I feel good because I feel stronger and healthier but I don't feel as good as I could. Along with portion control and food needs to come some healthy guidelines that I haven't been incorporating. Where are all my servings of fruits and veggies? Where is all the fabulous lean protein that sounds good whenever anyone else describes it? My food this week has been mixed. Mainly a lot of it has to do with starting a new job and eating there twice already this week because of special occasions. And last night Sarah and I had pizza so that wasn't super great (but it was tasty!). All the other meals have been planned out though and relatively healthy. However, I still feel like I'm missing something. I don't want to go hardcore food diet so I need to reach some healthy middle ground. Maybe the 80/20 that most people talk about?
So I've been thinking about how to do this and have some realistic target to aim for and this is what I've come up with to try for the next week. Get in my water no matter what. Even if the thought of water disgusts me. And journal how I feel after each workout because I guarantee I'll notice a difference with my energy. Eat at least one serving of fruit/veggie at breakfast and two servings with lunch/dinner. Have only one non-healthy item in the house (so I must choose between chips or chocolate for instance). I will still eat when I'm hungry. But if I have only healthy items to choose from let's see if that will change how I feel.
***On a totally separate note I've been thinking about getting body fat and metabolism measured. I'm not worried about either of them but how cool would it be to account for them now and at the end of the year to see how much changed? I would be really interested to see what the numbers look like. What do you think?
1. You might really like the http://www.runsforcookies.com/ blog girl. She talks a lot about not depriving herself, but still maintaining a healthy lifestyle. (She loves cookies, haha) Anyway, I think she has a few posts about eating a treat vs. having a binge on the treat food, which I could relate to. It's all about balance, but I feel like I need rules to attain that balance.
ReplyDelete2. I really want my body fat measured too!! My scale gives me a number, but it is like ten points different day to day, so I know it can't be accurate. I think there are a lot of gyms that offer it for free or cheap, so maybe yours does? The metabolism stuff is a bit more involved, so I'm not sure how to go about that. I know that the sports medicine docs here at OU-Tulsa do it, but I'm really not sure about cost.... It'd still be really cool!! I've been reading a bunch of the bodybuilding.com articles and blogs, mostly because I idolize the women that do fitness modeling competitions (not the bulky bodybuilder ones though). They talk about "cutting" to get their body fat down and discuss the percentages, which makes me really curious about what mine is! I know you can buy the calipers online cheap, but I'm not sure how accurate they are doing it yourself/being inexperienced at doing it.
Also, maybe you should make some rules/guidelines for yourself, like "I'll always bring my lunch to work and eat it rather than food that is brought in for birthdays" or "I'm allowed one small serving of chips and salsa if I get all of my veggies and water in." I feel like these people that say "I just eat whatever I want and can still maintain my 200# weight loss!" are full of crap and that they must have some sore of rules for themselves. That or they are just full of crap.
ReplyDeleteanother theory I have: Maybe they all lift a lot of weights? I am convinced now that strength training is where it is at because between the beginning of November and January 1st I did not exercise, track food, or even care what I was eating. I ate a TON of crap--every single cookie and cake and candy that I could.....but I didn't gain weight. I'm still pretty confused about this, but the only thing I can think of is, I did a lot of strength training in Sept/Oct with Insanity. So that is the theory I am testing for the New Year: focus on strength training and diet (the diet part until March anyway) and see what happens.