You are what you eat (the struggles of food)

No seriously!!!  If you eat crap, you will look like (and feel like) crap!  Like I said in my last post, I am totally all for a cheat meal here and there.  We are humans, we shouldn't deny ourselves some of the great food there is to taste! But within reason!  Food is amazing, no doubt, but unless you are a food critic, or married to a chef, you aren't getting the top of the line meals all the time. You're ordering the same mediocre pizza, eating the same thing at the same restaurant, or chinese buffet every week.  I give myself some cheating room if I'm in the city with my friend or on a mini vacation, and that's ok.  But it's a split, heavily in favor of eating right.  Everyone has a different philosophy about it, some people say 80-20, some say 85-15, I'm more of a 90-10 kind of person.  Maybe it's because of the way I see myself fall off the wagon or lose results quickly depending on what I eat.

I'm not saying I'm perfect, because I definitely am NOT!  I not only fall off the wagon sometimes, but I roll down the hill hitting every rock on the way down.  When I fall off the wagon, boy you better believe I just straight get a running start and just jump off.  It's completely frustrating and I kick myself every time, but it's all on ME.  It's no one else's fault that I couldn't keep my will power in check.  That's why I prefer such a drastic split between eating clean and cheating a little.  Because my will power is so weak, and gets even worse when I'm overly tired like I have been since I added school into my already crazy schedule. So having an entire cheat meal is a will power killer to me.  I try to just have a small dessert or something and not an entire meal, because then I just crumble.  I have to keep a smaller split so I don't give myself too much room for my running start off the wagon.

So basically, I just got off on a whole tangent there, but I know that some people look at me and think, "you're tiny, you can eat whatever you want, shutup, don't talk to me about struggling with weight or diet or whatever"  But it's so untrue.  I know that I am in no way, shape, or form someone who struggles terribly to lose weight, but there is still a struggle.  For instance, a couple of weeks ago, I fell off the wagon for about a week, I had good meals here and there, but not too often.  I over indulged and as a result, I gained 4 pounds, and not the muscle weight I am wanting.  Some people may say oh big woop, but that's a big thing to me, that's about 14,000 calories I had to burn on top of my normal exercise routine.  That's 4 more pounds of fat that I have to get rid of so I can be more defined in my midsection and back side (because you know that fat isn't nice enough to go to my chest : P)  So I guess I just want people to realize that no matter how skinny, fat, toned, built, whatever, MOST people are in some kind of struggle with their diet or exercise routine.

Yet another tangent there so here's my point: FOOD IS IMPORTANT!!!  Nourish your body, don't punish it!  I know when I eat clean for a while, if I have pizza or something, my stomach just about kills me trying to digest that junk!  I told you guys that a couple weeks ago I slipped big time, for about a week or so, gaining that weight and looking at myself in the mirror thinking, what are you doing, you are going backwards, don't do that!! Because once you start it's so easy to just keep going.  Very rarely does someone straight up just gain 20 pounds, it all starts out small.  4 pounds here, a couple pounds there, and before you know it, it has gotten out of control.  So don't let a few pounds here just be a nonchalant thing.  Make it a big deal to yourself, maybe not to the world, but to yourself. Make sure you don't let things like that just slip by, I'm not saying punish yourself and be overly hard on yourself, but look at the gain and say ok, it's done, now what am I going to do to fix it.  I just added an extra 30 minutes of cardio into each of my 2 cardio days and ate super clean until I lost it, and guess what, I'm almost there.  after only a week and a half/ 2 weeks, I'm seeing the loss, and I'm seeing my abs again.  THAT is how important eating clean is, a small increase in workout and huge clean up of diet and I'm always amazed at the difference in my body in such a small amount of time when I change my eating habits. But very importantly: I didn't beat myself up about gaining the weight, because that's done and over with, I DID come up with a plan and stuck with it!  And you can too.  I know it sucks and it feels like it's so time consuming but you can do it!  I know there are a million excuses but you can do it!  Look at the problem and come up with a solution.  If it's well, I have kids or I don't have time, I totally understand. This summer was killer for me with having connor home all the time I couldn't just leave him to go to the gym, so I turned my computer on and I did my workouts in the living room either alone or using videos from youtube.  Little kids who can't occupy themselves can be a problem when it comes to workout time but that just means maybe you'll have to stay up or get up 30 minutes, an hour, or however long later/earlier.  I know it's hard, but if you make a plan it's so much easier to stick to it. Your body will adjust, it may take a while but push through and i promise you will adjust.  I didn't think I'd be able to do it, but I am! I'm doing it right now!!  You can too! Don't get discouraged, just do what you can and be proud of the efforts you make!!

 I get on such long rants here and I think I will go back and read through this because sometimes I think I'm just rambling about whatever comes to mind and not making sure this makes sense lol.  So hopefully I'm making sense, if not...well I'm sorry, I'm only half through my coffee, but hopefully you get the gist. And hopefully I helped a little with some type of inspiration or helping you make feel better and know you aren't alone in your struggle.  so that's it for today : )

Diet (hate that word) thoughts

Let me first off say that I hate the word DIET!  It is such a negative word these days.  People say, I hate dieting, or fit people taking about their "diet" and others just respond "oh my god, you're so tiny, you don't need to diet"   People don't think of diet as your regular eating patterns and habits, they almost always think of it as a weight loss program.  SO UNTRUE!!!  The dictionary has 5 definitions for diet and only one of them has weight loss in the description:

1.

food and drink considered in terms of its qualities,composition, and its effects on health: Milk is a wholesomearticle of diet.

2.

a particular selection of food, especially as designed orprescribed to improve a person's physical condition or toprevent or treat a disease: a diet low in sugar.

3.

such a selection or a limitation on the amount a person eatsfor reducing weight: No pie for me, I'm on a diet.

4.

the foods eaten, as by a particular person or group: The native diet consists of fish and fruit.

5.

food or feed habitually eaten or provided: The rabbits were fed a diet of carrots and lettuce.

"diet" is an important part of living and being healthy!  What you put in your body can make or break you!  Why would you kill yourself with an hour of cardio to burn fat and turn around and eat pizza or cheese fries!  You just killed yourself for NO REASON!!! And that is really frustrating, especially when you obviously don't see any results from your gym sessions.  I know that we are all addicted to our conveniences when it comes to food. I am soooooo guilty of that.  Working 2 jobs, going to school, having a child in school, and a husband, I am always busy!  when I get home, or if I'm even home at all, I just want something quick!  And I don't want to have to take the time to put together a meal and pack it for the next day, it's irritating and time consuming and I NEED TO GET OVER IT!!!  I need to suck it up and do it!!!  I at least try to make healthier decisions if I have to do fast food but let's be honest, there's not that much out there that is "healthy" from a drive through.  

But seriously, for most people, diet is 80% of what you see!  I WISH WISH WISH it was 80% exercise because I can manage that!  I kick ass at the gym, but it's not! It's what you put in your body, what you use to fuel it, and nourish it, THAT's what makes the difference.  Now there is a portion that is genetics, and that is something I have to let go of, because I cannot change that!  I wish I could, but I can't so I'm just going to work harder for some areas.  

Anyway, That's my little rant on that, so on to what I'm really on here about.  I need to get on a schedule, program, regimen, whatever you want to call it.  I need to get consistent and I need to get back to healthy.  I have been cheating way more than I should as of the last month or so and I have to get back to it.  It's so hard when you aren't just feeding yourself though, as I said, we are attracted to convenience and we all know that a 6 year old would rather eat macaroni and cheese and pizza instead of chicken and rice.  So I've been looking at the Paleo diet.  I need to do some more research to really dig in deep and find out about it.  I have read that a lot of body builders stick to this diet and I can see that, a lot of what I eat when I'm eating healthy is leaning more toward the paleo side.  My biggest problem is SWEETS!!! They are a killer for me!!  I totally believe in having a cheat meal once a week or every 2 weeks just to keep your metabolism in check and make sure it isn't getting too comfortable.  Sort of the way you would change up a workout so you don't hit that plateau.  But darn my sweet tooth!!!!!  I want to eat cookies and ice cream!!!!  I must overcome this demon!!!  So any suggestions on "good for you" desserts that will satisfy my sweet tooth and not destroy my diet would be helpful!!!

So yea, I'm thinking that the way to go about this is to change my whole family's "diet"  I hate to hear my son whining about his food, and I end up sitting at the table for another 2 hours trying to get him to eat, but sometimes I guess you pay the price to make your kids eat healthy sometimes, and I'm sure that he gets to pig out on other food when he's at his Dad's every other weekend so yea.  I'm thinking I just need to totally revamp my cabinets and go for something that I can do for the whole family instead of trying to make my own meals along with everyone else's.