So, we have been analyzing what we eat for just over two weeks now. We are paying better attention to what servings sizes are in the portions we are giving ourselves with each meal and snack we consume.
Up to this point we have made absolutely no changes. We have just looked at our diet as it currently is consumed. Hopefully we were able to hold back judgement from this look into our current eating habits. However I recognize that some of you may have already cringed at some things, stopped journaling altogether, or have already started making changes.
It is all okay. Wherever you are at, whatever you are doing, is all okay.
No, seriously it truly is all okay.
It took me 12 years to get to a point where I was able to maintain a consistent weight for over a year.
During this time span I stopped and started making changes several times. I tried this fad diet and that fad exercise program. I got to points where I hated women without curves as much as I hated the fact I had so many of them, too many of them. I tried finding memes and articles that would instill in me a confidence that how I looked didn't matter as much as what is inside.
That statement is true, how you look really does not equate to how beautiful a total person you are. However, even knowing this truth, screaming it from the top of my lungs, sharing it with all my close friends and fat loss buddies, writing articles and leading rituals with this theme, the mirror never seemed to care about this truth.
Knowing the truth did not turn off my desire for fat loss, tone, strength, and some semblance of looking in that mirror with a bit of confidence in the outward beauties reflection of me.
In fact, having the truth did not suddenly change the logic my brain and body worked within either. Sometimes that truth just made it worse. Leading to imperfections on the inside, the core of who I am, that would shine through regardless of my body size and physical perception of beauty.
Not being able to take control of the situation and have some success with it was as big of a black mark on the beauty inside of me as it was an obvious mark on that physical beauty standard I desired.
Fat loss and gaining health in your life is not something that you can just flip a switch and suddenly be magically successful at doing. There are rare cases of people with this kind of discipline and will power, yet most success stories you will be exposed to are riddled with imperfect attempts.
So DO NOT beat yourself up. Just keep trying. That really is enough. Eventually the changes you are making to your "norm" will allow you to be successful in creating health habits that lead to fat loss and an overall physical and mental beauty you can come to appreciate in yourself - regardless of any external stimuli or judgement.
First off I want you to remind yourself repeatedly and often that is takes 21 days to make a habit and, as you might expect, that means it takes 21 days to break a habit.
So, whatever changes you apply you HAVE to give yourself at least a month of continually doing them, before you can easily let them go or easily incorporate them into your life.
As I mentioned already, do not beat yourself up if you fail one day. That is never going to get you anywhere. So many people will say, "well I slipped up once, might as well keep on doing it."
Don't be that person.
Instead be the person who says, "shoot, I did not mean to do that. Well, this one slip up isn't throwing me off track!!" Then don't wait to reset and go back to building your new habit, (or letting go of that old one). Instead just jump right back in like nothing ever happened!
BEATING YOURSELF UP IS NEVER THE ANSWER.
It is okay to give in. It is okay to fail. Just don't let it stop you from pushing forward and making the changes you want, or maybe even need, to be healthier!
This journaling of your current diet is now your tool for change!
What you need to do now is review that food journal and find within it habits you want to change. Be they adding something new or getting rid of something old. Look over your journal and see what types of changes you should be making. Some of these will be more obvious than others, for example, if you are not very activate your first goal may be to add 30 minutes of activity to your daily routine. Or, if you do not want to add activity you may realize that because of the low amount of activity you do your carb intake really has to be lessened.
I do have some recommendations I can make on some general changes I believe everyone should make for a healthier self. Changes and new habits that have helped me so much!
Also, if you would like to share your food journal with me and have me offer some suggestions I would be willing to do that no problem. With the understanding that I am not a certified professional anything, I am just offering help based on my personal experiences.
Let's start with:
Up to this point we have made absolutely no changes. We have just looked at our diet as it currently is consumed. Hopefully we were able to hold back judgement from this look into our current eating habits. However I recognize that some of you may have already cringed at some things, stopped journaling altogether, or have already started making changes.
It is all okay. Wherever you are at, whatever you are doing, is all okay.
No, seriously it truly is all okay.
It took me 12 years to get to a point where I was able to maintain a consistent weight for over a year.
During this time span I stopped and started making changes several times. I tried this fad diet and that fad exercise program. I got to points where I hated women without curves as much as I hated the fact I had so many of them, too many of them. I tried finding memes and articles that would instill in me a confidence that how I looked didn't matter as much as what is inside.
That statement is true, how you look really does not equate to how beautiful a total person you are. However, even knowing this truth, screaming it from the top of my lungs, sharing it with all my close friends and fat loss buddies, writing articles and leading rituals with this theme, the mirror never seemed to care about this truth.
Knowing the truth did not turn off my desire for fat loss, tone, strength, and some semblance of looking in that mirror with a bit of confidence in the outward beauties reflection of me.
In fact, having the truth did not suddenly change the logic my brain and body worked within either. Sometimes that truth just made it worse. Leading to imperfections on the inside, the core of who I am, that would shine through regardless of my body size and physical perception of beauty.
Not being able to take control of the situation and have some success with it was as big of a black mark on the beauty inside of me as it was an obvious mark on that physical beauty standard I desired.
Fat loss and gaining health in your life is not something that you can just flip a switch and suddenly be magically successful at doing. There are rare cases of people with this kind of discipline and will power, yet most success stories you will be exposed to are riddled with imperfect attempts.
So DO NOT beat yourself up. Just keep trying. That really is enough. Eventually the changes you are making to your "norm" will allow you to be successful in creating health habits that lead to fat loss and an overall physical and mental beauty you can come to appreciate in yourself - regardless of any external stimuli or judgement.
Let's Make Some Habit Changes!
So now comes the real challenging part - making changes.First off I want you to remind yourself repeatedly and often that is takes 21 days to make a habit and, as you might expect, that means it takes 21 days to break a habit.
 |
| Slip up on day 6? What do you do now? Simple! Move on to day 7 and make or break your habit! |
As I mentioned already, do not beat yourself up if you fail one day. That is never going to get you anywhere. So many people will say, "well I slipped up once, might as well keep on doing it."
Don't be that person.
Instead be the person who says, "shoot, I did not mean to do that. Well, this one slip up isn't throwing me off track!!" Then don't wait to reset and go back to building your new habit, (or letting go of that old one). Instead just jump right back in like nothing ever happened!
BEATING YOURSELF UP IS NEVER THE ANSWER.
It is okay to give in. It is okay to fail. Just don't let it stop you from pushing forward and making the changes you want, or maybe even need, to be healthier!
What Kind of Changes Should I Start With?
Well, here is the part that may be harder for everyone because you are going to have to decide this on your own. Which is why we have been journaling our food consumption, times we eat, and how we feel when eating this past couple weeks.This journaling of your current diet is now your tool for change!
What you need to do now is review that food journal and find within it habits you want to change. Be they adding something new or getting rid of something old. Look over your journal and see what types of changes you should be making. Some of these will be more obvious than others, for example, if you are not very activate your first goal may be to add 30 minutes of activity to your daily routine. Or, if you do not want to add activity you may realize that because of the low amount of activity you do your carb intake really has to be lessened.
I do have some recommendations I can make on some general changes I believe everyone should make for a healthier self. Changes and new habits that have helped me so much!
Also, if you would like to share your food journal with me and have me offer some suggestions I would be willing to do that no problem. With the understanding that I am not a certified professional anything, I am just offering help based on my personal experiences.
My Healthy Habit Forming Recommendations
Let's start with:
 |
| I own this set of WW's portion sized serving spoons. They are so helpful! |
- Portion control - We discussed this in last weeks blog-post in which I provided information on how to best estimate the serving sizes within your meal and snack portions.
For a lot of us how much we eat is much more of a significant impact on our overall health than what we eat. Take the time to get serious about being portion aware and not eating more than a serving of any one item you are going to put on your plate.
This will mean creating a habit of weighing and measuring all your meal items. Invest in a cheap scale as well as some pre-measured serving utensils. Weight Watchers has quite a few of them - as do many other places I am sure. It is truly worth it to invest in these tools while you are learning what a real serving of your foods actually looks like.
If you are eating anything from boxes or packages be sure to portion out an actual suggested serving of that item. You will be truly amazed how little food you actually get from these items when you portion yourself out a serving.
Which leads to my next suggestion ...
- Cut out all unnecessarily processed and all packaged foods - Not only will this eliminate tons of unnecessary carbs, sodium, and unnatural ingredients, it also allows you to fully know and understand exactly what is in the food that you are putting into your body.
Sometimes you cannot avoid buying something packaged for example condiments. Yet almost everything else you can avoid being packaged. Personally there are a few items I buy processed and/or packaged still such as whole grain bread, saltine crackers, greek yogurt, cheese, lunch-meat, coffee creamer, 1% milk, fat-free sour cream, and whole grain low carb tortillas.
When I really think about my cupboards these really are the only packaged items they hold anymore. Everything else is bought in bulk bins - flour, wild rice, beans, sugar, grains, dried fruits, etc. or fresh, meats, veggies, and fruits.
As well, if there is an item you really need but it is out of season fresh, such as a particular fruit, always go for frozen first and then canned. Frozen fruits and veggies retain almost the same levels of vitamins and nutrients as fresh. This is because of the very adept flash freezing technology that really keeps the whole fruit in tact during processing.
As well, stay away from any additives to these frozen or canned items. For example the Green Giant varieties of frozen veggies with flavorings added. Just get the frozen without added crap and make your own sauce! Most of the time the sauce you create will be ten times tastier and have 1/3 to 1/2 the fat, carbs, and sodium that you find in those packaged items. - Pre-plan Your Monthly Meals (at least dinners) - Doing this really helps you be successful with items 1 & 2 as you are able to know what portions you will be looking at for each meal and then shop for the ingredients you need for the month - meaning you can now evaluate how many packaged or processed items you will truly be exposed to all month!
It is also really great on your budget as you can purchase meat and bulk items in quantities that will last you the entire month. Storing or freezing them until you need them. I separate my meats out into meal servings that equate to enough for the recipe or enough for two, put them in ziploc freezer bags, and pull them out to defrost that morning before work.
This means that once a month I purchase bulk items (meat, bulk) and once a week I purchase the perishable items that cannot be purchased in bulk (veggies and fruit). As well, most items from the bulk section, (flour, rice, beans), last for months in storage and are cheap to purchase in large quantities. Meaning I also only shop for a larger amount of items about once every quarter.
Planning a monthly menu is truly not that hard to do nor does it require an over-analyzed and well documented daily plan, I promise! For example, I know that twice a week I can take some chicken and some rice or tortillas and make some sort of meal. So twice a week I write down something like "chicken crap bowl" or "chicken wraps" and then that week I decide what veggie I would like to add to them. I also know I want to have fish once a week, so I pick a day of the week to have fish with rice or tortilla, mark down, "fish tacos" or "fish bake", and, like with the chicken, I pick a veggie to go with it to purchase that week.
I also like to have items that can have leftovers for a day or two. So I pick crock-pot meals, or turkey breasts, or some other type of item to cook that I enjoy eating lots of leftovers from. - Cut Your Carbs - Mind you I am not saying eliminate them entirely. Just learn the good ones and choose to only eat those kinds of carbs instead. Taking on item 2 will do this part for your naturally as well.
Carbs are not bad for you, however they are the nutrient that produces fat in our body and are the first to get cut in every diet plan you will find. Especially when your physician needs you to lose fat quickly for a procedure you may need to have done.
The truth about carbs is this, most of us are NOT that active and carbs are like premium gasoline - they are made for a car that works really hard pushing it's limits and straining itself regularly. The carbs are turned into energy for hard working bodies and for those of us whom sometimes do not even do the bare minimum of 30 minutes a day, well, the carbs are turned into fat. Weee!!! - Quit Consuming Alcohol, Soda, Fancy Lattes, or any Suagary Beverage - This goes with that whole carb thing. With these items you are drinking huge portions of sugary carbs that, in one serving, typically go well over any daily recommended serving of a "good" carb you could get. It is like ordering a burrito from Baja Fresh and then realizing that burrito accounts for your total recommended daily calories ... just one freaking burrito!
These liquid carbs can, and most often do, ruin any efforts you have made all week in just two servings. It is ridiculous how bad these are for you in more ways than just trying to lose some fat.
Which leads to my last, and what I feel might be, most obvious suggestion ...
- Stop Eating Fast Food - If it has a drive through or can be delivered to your couch stop eating it. I don't know that I really have to explain the reasons for this one, yet there are many. If you would like to see a blog post about the horrors of fast food I am sure Google Search can offer a bajillion!
Just stop eating it ... it is so, so, so, ridiculously, horribly, bad for you.
These are just a few things I have made a habit of that really work for me.
Only you can truly tell what adjustments are going to benefit you.
I just provide this list for ideas of ways you can build new habits in your life that will create a healthier situation overall. Ways I have applied to my own life and have found much success with. Ways in which I still sometimes slip up or give in, (I do love me some Starbucks every now and then!), yet ways I know to be successful even if I slip up ever so often.
Whew! This post seems to contain LOTS of information.
What will your one habit change be?
I suggest we start on November 1st, just two days from now. Then we can check back in 21 days, right before thanksgiving. Giving us some time to prepare for glutinous feast day. So we can work out our plans to enjoy all the deliciousness we will be exposed too!!!
~TigressSky~
Don't Do Them All At Once!
I am not suggesting that you do every single one of these in one sitting. Nor am I suggesting you have to do any of them. It is up to you to evaluate your food journal, review your current diet, and decide for yourself what changes should be made.Only you can truly tell what adjustments are going to benefit you.
I just provide this list for ideas of ways you can build new habits in your life that will create a healthier situation overall. Ways I have applied to my own life and have found much success with. Ways in which I still sometimes slip up or give in, (I do love me some Starbucks every now and then!), yet ways I know to be successful even if I slip up ever so often.
When Should I Start?
Whew! This post seems to contain LOTS of information.What will your one habit change be?
I suggest we start on November 1st, just two days from now. Then we can check back in 21 days, right before thanksgiving. Giving us some time to prepare for glutinous feast day. So we can work out our plans to enjoy all the deliciousness we will be exposed too!!!
~TigressSky~
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