If you've been around for a little bit (or watched my last youtube video), you'd know that I don't count calories or go on diets. However, this is 100% what I did when I started getting healthy. Here's what changed and why these don't work. (Remember to consult your doctor before changing your eating and fitness habits).
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Have you ever caught yourself putting little roadblocks in your way? I don't know about you, but I'll get really intensely motivated for a couple of weeks about something and then it'll slowly fade away or suddenly get dropped. For example, I really wanted to learn how to play the guitar...but I couldn't reach far enough to play harder chords than the basics so I just stopped playing. OR I wanted to be a personal trainer but between graduating and settling in a new city, it slipped off my radar.
For those of us who don't seem to be able to commit to interests long-term, finally having something click with us is kind of a miracle--but when it clicks, it CLICKS. When I was playing softball, one of the first things our trainer said to us was "If you eat one bite of pasta it will ruin your whole diet." Along with the fight against pasta and other breads, our other major rules were to eat mostly protein and to not count calories. That's right--don't count calories.
Over the last few years of being an off-and-on dieter/healthy person, I've done a lot of experiments with various tactics to being healthy. Here's what I've done, here's what's worked, and here's what hasn't: 1) Calorie Counting (with an app) Apps like FitBit or MyFitnessPal are awesome if you're interested in keeping track of your calorie intake. What I like about this is that it keeps the amount of food you're consuming in check--instead of reaching for your 3rd slice of pizza, you're going to see that you're going way above your calorie count for the day. Also, these apps hold you accountable by making your intake very visible. What I don't like about calorie counting is that it gives you the opportunity to ingest unhealthy kinds of food--as long as you don't go over your calorie limit. Also, as with most of the logging-through-an-app opportunities, you have to weigh everything or measure everything you consume to get the exact number--and that's ridiculously time consuming. Personally, I keep ebbing and flowing with this one, and find that I'll log my calories once a week then forget to do so again, just because of how tedious it can be. 2) Macro Tracking (with an app) According to a trainer I saw recently, your macros (or macronutrients e.g. protein, carbs, and fat) at the end of a full day of eating should be about 30-40% carbs, 30-40% fats, and 15-20% protein. While this information was specifically geared toward me and I encourage you to go see a health professional for more information, watching my macros was helpful because it gave me an idea of whether I was eating the right kinds of food or not. However, if you've planned your meals for the week and they don't actually fit with your macro percentages at the end of the day, then you're out of luck. Additionally, the same pitfalls that come with calorie counting (such as need to get exact measurements) apply to any situation when you're using an app. 3) Keeping a Food Diary--No Numbers What's nice about keeping a food diary or journal is that you don't have to sit on your backside for an hour after or before every meal trying to pick apart what you just consumed to log exactly what you ate. You log everything you've had for the day and see if it complies with your diet goals, and you are also given the opportunity to stop eating when you're full instead of when you've hit your calorie limit for the day. The downfalls to this are (as I've seen and experienced): you can end up over-eating even with the healthiest of meals, and forgetting to log meals or just plain old falling off track is common. 5) Carb Counting This is a new one for me--in fact, I'm in the middle of trying it right now. My partner was actually the one who told me about this process, and he has been using it for food management off-and-on in this last year. What we're doing for the next couple of weeks is counting only the carbs consumed for everything. Did you know that a medium apple has 25 grams of carbohydrates? I sure as hell didn't until this week. The rundown is that you choose your maximum value of carbs for the day--we chose 50 grams--and consume food within that range. What's great about this is that the calculations are fairly easy--every measurement is online. What's difficult is that if you've hit your limit for the day and are still hungry, you need to get creative, and "creative" for me has been eating a lot of eggs and more cheese than normal. So, while it's been relatively easy so far, you have to make sure that you're getting proper nutrients and not snacking on foods that don't have the nutrients you need even though they're low-carb (like cheese). Also, sometimes you don't get exact measurements and can only guess that your salad was probably about 13g of carbs. Here's an example of the menu we've had this week: Breakfast: protein shake (11g carbs) Lunch: Panera greek salad with chicken (13g carbs) Dinner: Burrito bowl (27g carbs) Total: 51g carbs Breakfast: 3 eggs, cheddar cheese, sugar-free ketchup, 5 blackberries (6g carbs) Lunch: Spaghetti squash w/ turkey and vegetables (15g carbs) Dinner: Hamburger with no bun and veggies (8g carbs) Dessert: Dark chocolate squares: (9.6g carbs) Total: 38.6g carbs I hope that you found some of these methods and pros/cons helpful! If you have any questions or other ideas, please feel free to comment on this post, or you can email me directly here. It's 6:05am by the time that I'm sitting down to write this. My alarm went off at 5:45am, and I promptly went to go make some coffee.
The first big decision of my day is choosing which coffee mug I'm going to use. It sounds a little nuts, but it determines my mood for the day. My Allen Bros or Bloomsbury mug starts me off on a productive day, whereas one of my Harry Potter mugs starts me off on something I can describe only as a "believer" day--one where fun is the priority rather than being in "business mode." I never purposely intend on choosing one mug or the other, it's a feeling that I get, and I grab the mug I'm gravitating toward. Today I was feeling a pull toward my Hufflepuff mug, so I grabbed it from the shelf, filled it with some cashew milk, poured the steaming coffee into it, and took it outside with me while I listened to a podcast. I was only outside for about 5 minutes before I was prompted to go back inside and write down what I was thinking, and rather than putting it on Facebook, I thought I'd quickly hash out something for the blog--a new series I'm calling "MiniPosts" (when I suddenly have an idea and don't care about mistakes or there not being a flow to the piece). In High School, I was put into Hufflepuff house, and if you know the Harry Potter franchise, you know that there's a stigma surrounding the yellow-and-black clad house. They're kind of the "others" and despite efforts by authors, celebrities, and hardcore fans, the house is still ridiculed by those who know the universe. I obviously identified as a Hufflepuff for a fair amount of time--as I got the mug in 2016 and Pottermore sorted me in 2012. So what happened in the last couple of years? I decided to break away from the house only recently, even though it doesn't feel that way. My reasoning for doing so was because I didn't feel kind enough, patient enough, or fair enough to belong in the house. Upon retaking the quiz, I was placed into Ravenclaw, and attached myself to it after considering, "Of course I identify with a new house, people grow and change in college so why wouldn't I value intelligence and creativity more than friendliness? People suck. I don't want to be the goofy and trusting Hufflepuff." However, every time I think of the riddles you have to answer to get into the tower, I know for a fact that I'd just have to wait around for someone who can actually figure it out to come by and let me in. This is all theoretical of course and comes from a fantasy world, but the mug provoked a thought that I can't let go of: Why wouldn't I want to be kind, dedicated, value hard work, be patient, and fair? What happened in the last couple of years that made me lose those traits, not want to implement them into my life, or not appreciate them? I have become a lot harder and a lot less trusting as a person, and while I value creativity, wit, and intelligence, I need to re-introduce those Hufflepuff traits into my life in order to be a more happy and positive person. There's always going to be people that laugh at you or discourage you to act weird, be silly, and enjoy life because they're so caught up with their own image and fitting in the box. Hufflepuffs aren't purely weird and goofy, rather, they are kind and hardworking individuals that we can all gain a little inspiration from. Why not be a little more of a Hufflepuff? On August 20th, I started a 30-day challenge with my partner. For those of you that are unfamiliar with this kind of diet/lifestyle, here are the basics: You can only eat foods that our cavemen ancestors would have consumed during the Paleolithic era. This means no beans, legumes, processed foods, foods with added sugar, corn, dairy, caffeine, grains, etc. It's basically the Whole30, just with less of a strict hold on sugars like honey, and you can eat dark chocolate over 70% and can drink red wine.
I was able to complete the Whole30 at one point, and figured that this would just be another reset of the same kind. Also, I figured that doing this with my partner would mean that he'd have more support and would be able to complete it if I was doing it with him. The thing about these kind of health challenges and resets are that you have to be prepared for them. Go in with the facts, have a game plan, and have someone or something that will keep you accountable. That being said, I've been in this health and fitness game for a little over a solid year now. While that's not much time in the grand scheme of things, I've been able to do my research and experiment a lot with what works and what doesn't for me. So, I figured that since I already ate pretty much 85% paleo already, it shouldn't be too hard to do this challenge. We went full steam ahead after having a much-anticipated gnocchi date the day before, and started off relatively strong. Sure, we missed certain foods, but we were eating paleo and weren't starving. On August 31st, I went on a retreat with a group to San Diego, CA. I wasn't able to be fully in control of the foods I was consuming, but stuck to the nuts and Rx Bars in my backpack for breakfast along with a piece of fruit, and even asked for a salad because I wasn't able to eat the pizza. I should also mention at this moment that I'm lactose intolerant anyway and eat greasy foods so rarely that my body immediately goes, "WHAT IN THE HELL DID YOU JUST PUT INTO ME" whenever I eat pizza. That being said, my biggest cheats were spoonfuls of peanut butter, cheese and deli turkey for "sandwiches", and coffee over the course of the weekend. Back home, my partner had a really rough weekend food-wise that I won't get into, but let's just say that he ended up starting the challenge over. This was definitely a challenge to say the least. Despite already having a healthy diet before taking this on, I found I wasn't ever satisfied with the meals I was eating, and was actually eating worse on this than during my normal routine. I was going to In-N-Out 4x as much as usual because it's something that I could eat, was having a lot of potatoes, and drinking more wine and eating more dark chocolate. I wasn't happy with the food I was consuming, and so I leaned towards the less healthy options in order to diminish the craving for satisfaction. I 100% "failed" this 30 day paleo challenge, and my partner did too. On Friday, we recognized that we were miserable and linked our attitude to the fact that we weren't nourishing our bodies the way they needed to be in order to sustain our rigorous academic and gym-based lifestyle. I hadn't gone to the gym all week because I was so low-energy, was constantly irritable and depressed, and although I was full, felt malnourished despite having eaten primarily protein, fruit, and veggies. After talking about what we thought was best, we stopped the challenge, went to get some well-made fresh pizza from a little market (mine had prosciutto, figs, and arugula on it), and shared a brownie. Needless to say we felt fantastic after, and I finally felt satisfied with the meal I had. That night, we indulged and got a couple of drinks after seeing a play, and agreed that we would develop a new sustainable routine that fits closely to what we needed. This upcoming week, I'm excited to get back to my everyday routine and continue tracking macros rather than keeping to such a strict diet. I will eat a solid breakfast in the morning, a sandwich at lunch, fruit and veggies for snacks, and make dinners that I'm excited about rather than just randomly throwing together (I'm also going to try Blue Apron for the first time this week to see if I like it, and will most likely be posting about that experience next week). What I've learned from this experience is: 1) The food you eat should be used to fuel your day and sustain your lifestyle. 2) I need to work mostly at moderating the quantity of what I eat rather than focusing on eating healthy (which I'm already doing). 3) Food-based challenges shouldn't be something that you pick up and drop, you should want to learn something from it and sustain what you learned well past the conclusion of the challenge. 4) It's ok to backtrack and to "fail" at something if you recognize it truly isn't working for you. 5) Food should be a joy, not a punishment. |
AuthorElena B. Archives
June 2020
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