Thanks for visiting my blog again. That makes me happy :)
I hope the tips and suggestions I put up here help you a bit, and you get to make a smarter, healthier decision next time you go grocery shopping, eat out, or think about exercising.
This post is the second part of how to be healthy (The broccoli must die entry). I will be focusing mostly on exercise and rest today.
Last time we talked about proper nutrition, how to stay in track, what to do and what not to do.
Nutrition (continued)
By the way I totally forgot to add this to the nutrition entry Wednesday, but eating breakfast is absolutely super important. When you're sleeping you're not giving your body food those 7-8 hours that are sleeping. If you wake up and don't give yourself food in the morning your body goes into starvation mode- trust me, you don't want that happening! It's an awful thing to do to your body! Just like those stupid diets "Drink/Eat this and you'll magically loose weight." or the ones "Starve yourself to loose weight". BTW I'm not even going to talk about those types of "diets" because they really piss me off, they're awful and damage your health/body and since I'm talking about how to be healthy, and how I stay healthy that's completely out of the picture.
Fun fact: those that never skip breakfast are more likely to stay at a healthy weight when they get older. So logically as you get older you have more health problems and being overweight could be one of them for you, unless of course, you eat that yummy breakfast of yours! ;) Then it's one less problem you have to worry about.
Exercise
If you are friends with me on Facebook, or are following me on Instagram (albanianicandy), you probably know that I love exercise/ working out. It used to be something casual for me a few years ago, not really important to me. I'd play soccer twice a week, go hiking twice a week, play volleyball 6/7 days in the summer, go on walks everyday and that was about it back then. It wasn't really a workout per say, and I never saw it as one. However, I made sure I was doing what I loved, having fun, and I naturally stayed active due to all the physical activities I participated in.
Today, exercise is a must and important to me. It's not about being thin!!! (Those exclamation points were for the ones that think it's everything about how much you weight/ what size you wear.) It's about being strong and happy!
Please refer to my iLIFT post a few weeks ago, for different fitness goals you might have. Also, I'm not a specialist by any means. This is all the stuff I've been learning and reading about for the past few years for fun, as I'm really into health/food/fitness nowadays. Also, it's a plus that my fiance is a Health Coach and knows pretty much everything I ask him, and muuuch more!
If you're trying to get in good shape, I'd suggest some cardio with strength training/ weight training. If you do a combo of that you'll get in really good shape in no time-- you have to stick with it AND be patient with yourself though. It's a process and it still needs time. Nothing happens overnight. ;)
From my experience and my research, exercise is great for your overall health. It gets you stronger, you release the school/work/life stress out, revs up your metabolism, and you are happier and more confident in yourselves. Who doesn't want these benefits??!
Imagine an almost (bad) stress free life, being super productive, energetic, happy, confident, and strong.
Once more I got lost among school work, my job, internship, working out and now *drum roll please* wedding planning! It's been a pretty tough few weeks, not gonna lie. Seeing the fiancé about twice a week was a little hard at first. Now we're managing our time pretty well I'd say-- that way we get to at least see each other more, even if it's going to the gym together.
Since we haven't had much free time, hardly at all to be honest, and being healthy is still a priority for us we're making sure we're giving our bodies the best nutrition, rest, as well as staying active even in our busiest days. I've talked to a few people and it seems to be challenging for most people to give themselves the good, healthy food, rest, as well as exercise.
Let me tell ya a few tricks that work for me, and could possibly work for you as well. The biggest one is PLANNING. Funny, huh? We'll let me tell ya that it works! Just try it out before you judge me/ what I say. ;) Here's everything broken down about Nutrition. STAY TUNED FOR PART TWO (REST & EXERCISE). WILL BE PUBLISHED ON FRIDAY.
Nutrition:
Plan your meals ahead.
Plan your grocery store trips, what you'll buy, what you'll make, and when everything is happening. That way you save a ton of time wondering around what you'll buy, what you'll make, as well as don't buy things you don't need etc.The great thing about meal planning is that you also don't have any food gone bad as you're planning on using everything at a certain time. Who doesn't want that??! We've all been through the fridge scene "Ohh, I bought that?!?! Oh. Well. It's gone bad now... Oops. I forgot... Next time I won't let anything go bad!". And the scene almost always happens to repeat itself, and you've wasted a bunch of money. Again. If you're like me, in a tight budget, trying to make everything work then you don't want that happening!
Since I'm pretty busy I try and have my grocery store trips on the weekends/ typically Saturdays. Then Sundays is the fun part of it! I cook for the whole week, prep my veggies, etc. If you're like me and love the kitchen then you'll have a blast preparing everything! I make sure to have some music playing, or talking to my parents, and other family members.Sometimes Auston (the fiancé :D) joins me and we have a real party in the kitchen prepping yummy, healthy foodand enjoy each others company <3.
Grocery shopping Saturday night with Auston.
As I said earlier, prepping your food ahead will 1. save you money 2. save you time and 3. will help you stick to your healthy eating.
Stick to what you planned!!!
It'll be hard the first few times but slowly, slowly your body will get used to eating the healthy foods and stop craving the junk that you might currently be eating. And no. The cravings won't completely go away-- unless you have some super magical power and yours go away. Honestly, we're human and we have those types of cravings. You just have to learn how to deal with them the correct way. And that requires time and dedication. Honestly if I'm craving something I'll eat it! However I don't go crazy on it... Everything on moderation (don't ask me about my bag of M&Ms that I've been eating for the past week while I do my Math HW though). I figured if I'm always eating healthy and crave something yummy and not healthy i.e. ice cream (I like this triple chocolate ice cream from Smiths-- seriously death by chocolate. There's so much of it in there you cannot imagine! Never seen a more chocolaty ice cream. Ever.) I will still eat it. Uh huh. Again, everything in moderation. That's the key!
That's Auston's fridge. :) Most of the food is pretty healthy there. Super organized, you know where everything is/ stuff is easy to find, therefore no food wasted/ gone bad. The fridge got more stuffed on Sunday when we made yummy food/prepared meals with what we bought Saturday night.
Drink your water ladies! (And gents if you're reading this, it applies to you as well.)
Make sure you're hydrated. Even if it's freezing like it's here in Utah you still need your water! Maybe not as much as in the summer but you still need it. I drink about 2 liters of water every day. And yes. I go to use the restroom every 10 mins. Thanks for asking. :) haha If you have a hard time having water try having always a water bottle with you. Sip water every now and then and you'll eventually finish your daily water intake. :) That's what works for me-- trust me I hated drinking water before. One or two glasses was how much water I'd have a day. That's really bad! Now I need my water. :)
Skip the soda.
By that I mean all soda! Even the diet ones. They're horrible for you! Yes, they might have zero calories but have you seen the ingredients?!?! They're substituting the sugar with ingredients that your body has a hard time breaking down or cannot break down, and that's bad for you. Plus they still spike your blood sugar and you'll want/ crave more sweets afterwards. Then you're trapped into the junk food circle again. If you're craving a soda, have fruit juice instead. Make sure there's no sugar added as if it is, it will have the same effect on you as soda. Now, at the ingredients list you'll still find the sugar at the juice and that's because fruits are high in sugar, but it's better for you to have sugar from natural sources than artificial ones.
Eat plenty of fruits and veggies each day.
This is actually pretty important and a lot of people just skip this just because they hate veggies, or because fruit is high in sugar. Your body still needs them! Remember that. The best way I've found to help myself eat my veggies (no problem with fruits-- they're YUMMY haha), is prepping the veggies I like and try and skip on the ones I hate, or have them with something else so I can somewhat hide their flavor. i.e. I love carrots, cucumbers, tomatoes, cauliflower but hate celery. In order to have my celery I blend it out with whatever snack that I'm having. This was actually Auston's idea. What a genius! You can even have celery with some natural peanut butter. That works great as well! Oh and remember to have fruits and veggies in different colors. It's okay if you feel like this:
