Here are MY tips... and YOUR motivation!!

A lot of people have been asking me for recipes, and asking what I have been doing other than actual exercise. I figure the easiest way to address everyone at the same time, and to add to my blog in the meantime would be to ….. of course, blog about it! Lol….

Let’s start from the beginning….

Obviously, a huge part of the reason I gained so much weight in the first place, was poor eating habits. You don’t just gain a bunch of weight over night if you’re eating well. I told myself I was eating good, but upon realistic and close inspection of what exactly it was I was consuming, it was clear I was so very wrong.

·         FRUITS AND VEGGIES! At first, I started by implementing a lot of fruits and veggies that I liked into my diet, wherever possible. I  have always loved them anyways! I made the decision to use spinach instead of lettuce, and I’ve always used fresh, raw veggies and fruit wherever possible. We make sure to have fresh veggies at most meals, and to have fruit for snacks. [ TIP:: Boiling veggies depletes them of their vitamins!! If you do this, save the water you boiled them in, and pour it into a pitcher and chill in the fridge, and drink it as vitamin water! ]

·         WHOLE GRAINS! I only use whole grain breads, pastas,  cereals, crackers, etc, and brown rice instead of white. I don’t eat anything that’s ‘white’ other than occasional potatoes, really. The whole grain alternatives REALLY don’t taste bad, as many people presume! In fact, I can whole heartedly say I prefer the taste to their ‘white’ counterparts. Give it a try! Granola bars are also a healthy, and delicious snack! And if you’re craving chocolate, just a tablespoon of Nutella on a Nature Valley Crunchy granola bar totally does the trick for me!

·         EDUCATION! Working where I do has really been helpful. My nutritionist was shocked that working in a kitchen setting wasn’t tempting me to eat. The fact is, my job is to make healthy, good-looking and good-tasting foods in the correct portion sizes.  If anything, working where I do has inspired me further, and been a huge help. I think a huge problem for many people, is even if you THINK you know what a correct portion size is, chances are you are wrong. My advice is, literally measure your portion sizes out for a while! After some time of doing this, you will get the jist of it and you won’t need to physically measure quite as often.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  A serving of juice for example, is a super small glass….. Four ounces.  Exactly half of a cup. When my kids were young and first began drinking juice, I would give them 2 ounces, and fill the rest of their cup with water so they would think they had a lot even though they really didn’t. They still have a hard time drinking juice if it isn’t cut with water, because juice is SO very sugary.

·         BALANCE! Also,  it is important to do your research and make sure you are eating balanced meals. I don’t eat anything that is pre-prepared. Not even frozen pizzas. I make my own pizzas at home, and they taste SO much better than the frozen version. We do eat out occasionally, but VERY occasionally. And when we do, it is more often than not Subway. When it’s not Subway, I ask for no mayo, sauces, etc.. I eat small portions, and I make sure I look up and track those calories! Incorporate fruits and veggies into EVERY meal!

·         NO BUTTER! I had been using coconut oil on everything, because I saw all over pinterest and elsewhere how it’s so super good for you in so many ways…. But my nutritionist advised against it. He said there is no solid proof that it is THAT good for you and years ago it was thought to be very bad for you. Plus, one tablespoon is about 120 calories. [ He DID inform me at our last meeting though, that consuming coconut oil has in fact shown in studies to improve alzheimers in the elderly! ] Upon cutting that out of my diet alone, and better calorie tracking, I have lost 6 pounds in 2 weeks in comparison to the 5/6 a month I typically lost through this whole process. Obviously, no butter! If anything, use zero calorie cooking spray when you’re cooking, and I DO use some coconut oil instead of butter where necessary. But not much. I rarely find a need for butter in my life.

·         WATER! Drink TONS of water!! I have a few of those plastic reusable straw-cups…..and I drink as many of those a day as I can. I constantly keep it filled with ice water, and often I squirt some lemon juice in it. Lemon juice is said to speed up your metabolism, among a bountiful amount of other health benefits!  I don’t drink anything other than water, green tea, and coffee. This ensures that I stay hydrated, and keep my metabolism and energy up so I have the energy and hydration necessary to get in my work outs! Drinking sugary drinks such as juice and soda has zero nutritional value for you! Despite common misconceptions, juice isn’t close to HALF as good for you as the real deal, fresh fruit! Even ‘real fruit juice’ is often not ONLY fruit juice. You’re better off eating an apple. WAY less calories anyways!

·         GREEN TEA!! Green tea is a great detoxifier, and removes things you don’t want from your body.  I aim for drinking 4 cups a day, and the easy way to do it is to drink it chilled, on ice. I fill up my teapot and put it on the stove, and when it’s steaming hot, I remove it from the heat and put about 4 green tea bags in it and let it seep. Then I fill a pitcher with ice, and after about 5 or so minutes [ sometimes I leave it about 10 minutes.. lol] I pour the hot tea over the ice. Sometimes I’ll mix a squirt of local honey in it, and some lemon. Gives it JUST a bit of flavor. But more often than not I drink it plain.

[Sidenote: Local honey is said to be very very good for you…I’ve heard that if you consume honey harvested in YOUR local area, it prevents and fends off colds and allergies… but it has to be your local area, where you live! Worth a try!]

Also, I know a lot of people ‘ don’t like tea’ .  I never really drank tea before, but I also heard that it speeds up your metabolism so I decided why not? It has about half the caffeine that coffee does. So if you have a cup of green tea [ 8 ounces] that is about the same amount of caffeine as ½ cup [ 4 ounces] of coffee. It gives you a different kind of energy rush than coffee does, which I like, too. Coffee can sometimes make me jittery and scatter-brained, but green tea makes me feel mellow, yet energetic. Never jittery. You’ll acquire the taste for liking it after a while!

·         DRINK COFFEE! Drinking coffee has been one of my ‘secret’ weapons. In the beginning,  I drank a TON of coffee… I needed it for energy, especially once I started working out. For a while, I opted for green tea INSTEAD of coffee, because coffee can make me a little crazy. But sometimes, tea just doesn’t compare to a piping hot cut of coffee in the morning! And the extra caffeine is sometimes necessary! Of course, make sure you don’t put too much cream or sugar. That can pack in HUNDREDS of calories into your day.

·          [TIP: Drinking coffee before a workout can help your heart rate get, and stay in , the range it is supposed to be in to get the maximum amount of calorie burning out of your work out! NOT all workouts, and heart rates, are created equal! Neither are all people or heart rates, so do your research. See my previous blog about target heart rate zones, or check out  livestrong.comfor more information! I urge you to browse around that website, there is a LOT of information on the site that is very useful.]

·         TRACK THOSE CALORIES!!!! I’ll be honest. Through the first many months of this whole process, I didn’t ‘track’ my calories per se’. I used my common sense by eating what I knew was healthy food, and making sure I didn’t eat too much. Just doing that, eating really healthy, made me feel hungry less often, so I was less prone to snacking. It of course really helps if you’re in a household where everyone is on board to eating well. I refuse to buy ‘bad’ foods, except when I have company over.. which typically ends up being my cheat day. Lol

·         GET HELP! My nutritionist really pushed me to physically track my calories. He had me write down what I was eating for 2 weeks, then he inspected it. I’ll admit, when I first started tracking I realized that some days I was eating 1800-2000 calories where I would have thought I was eating closer to 1500… tracking my calories really helped me educate myself on where those hidden calories were hiding. Coffee creamer, sugar, coconut oil, etc. Even when using coconut oil to fry your eggs, you need to count the calories of the coconut oil… I hadn’t been doing that.

He said that what I was eating looked really well, but that if I could squeeze down to 1500 calories everything would happen much faster… and he was SO right. As I’ve stated a few times now, I lost 6 pounds in 2.5 weeks, whereas I was typically losing 5/6 a month.

·         WEBSITES! There is a GREAT website, which also super conveniently also has an APP for your smart phone, called ‘ My Fitness Pal.com’. The website [CLICK HERE TO OPEN IT IN A NEW WINDOW] includes tons of different foods, which you can look up the calories for. Also, the fantastic thing about the app, is it has a barcode scanner on it.. so you can just scan the barcode of what ever it is you’re eating, and the calories per serving size and other nutritional info will pop right up for you, and you can enter it into your daily calorie intake that way. So convenient! It has been such a life saver! Ironically, I got my ‘smarter phone’ about 3 weeks ago, and it has definitely proven to be working! However, please remember to take everything you read on the internet with a grain of salt! J Confer with your nutritionist to confirm what you are reading!

·         KEEP IT SIMPLE! I don’t like to eat casseroles, etc that make it hard to track exactly what they contain. Not to mention, that you KNOW contain stuff like mayo, a lot of cheese, or white pasta. I avoid those foods as much as possible. I eat whole grains, fruit, veggies, boneless/ skinless chicken breasts, etc that are easy to track and that are most healthy.

·         DO NOT DEPRIVE YOURSELF! There was one point in time in the past months when I wasn’t eating ‘ enough’. I gained a few pounds back and was really upset about it, but I believe my body went into starvation mode and panicked. If your body isn’t getting enough calories to survive, when you do eat,  it will hoard anything that you do eat and pack it on as fat so that you can sustain for a long period of time, as if you were starving. Obviously, not good! On the flip side of starving, lol.. it is also important to endulge a bit. I can honestly say I haven’t felt deprived, or like I wasn’t getting what I wanted at all in the past months. I have allowed myself small portions of dessert on occasion, [occasion being maybe 2 times a week], I have allowed myself fast food, [ taco bell maybe once a month], etc. I just make sure I track those calories! It really does make a difference. But of course, do not let yourself be over indulgent. Just a little!!!!! A cheat day a week is nice to have, but many times my cheat day will come around and I don’t even want to cheat! One the weight starts falling off you won’t like feeling like you’re setting yourself back again. Like they say, “ Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels!” . But it’s totally fine to do, and actually especially in the beginning, it is essential to not make yourself feel like you have to give up ALL of your favorite things in order to be successful… that is not the case!! Just be smart about it. 

·         FIND YOUR MOTIVATION! Scour the internet  for success stories of people who have lost a ton of weight. One of my motivators was Marilyn Ziebell, a local girl from Iron River who I know through a mutual friend. . she blogged about her weight loss journey, in which she lost over 100 pounds! Does it get any more inspirational than that?? Click HERE  to browse her blog!

 Find and take to heart motivational phrases. Think of the bigger picture. Evaluate your life, and where you’re at. Think of all of the things you want to do, but aren’t confident enough or capable enough of doing. Think of people who are disabled and would give ANYTHING to have your body, which is perfectly capable of being healthy and strong. Think of your family; your children, your significant other. Think of all of the things you can do together, and all of the places you can go together, and all of the things you can achieve together. Think of how inspiring you will be to them. Think of your children looking back, and putting health high on their priority list in life, and wanting to be just like you. Think of how great it will feel to wear what you want to wear, and to rock it! Think of how you want to look back on your life in your old age…. Did you live to the fullest?? Be your own inspiration!

Well, this should be a fairly good set of advice for those of you who asked! I was hoping to incorporate some of my favorite ‘ healthy’  recipes into this posting, but I’ll have to save that for a later time! Stay tuned, and in the meantime enjoy the first snowfall out there! Also, don’t think of it as ‘winter’s coming, I won’t lose as much weight. “ I’ve heard so many people say that lately! I started all of this in February, when it was still our winter time. I felt there wasn’t much else to do with my spare time than work out anyhow. Summer time is when I struggled. Who wants to sweat your bum off on an elliptical when you can be laying at the beach, soaking up the sun, swimming, and grilling some steak!?! Lol… Use this time to make your winter a great one, and change your life! You’ll be so glad you did when summer does roll back around and you rock that bathing suit!