Health
I've never been a person hugely concerned about living a healthy lifestyle. From a young age, I was always active in sports and my mom would always ensure we had a good diet, but it was never something I worked on personally. I have been blessed myself with the fact that I could eat garbage and not really have any ill effects from it. I'm a guy that can cook really well, loves to cook a lot, but just won't bother to do up anything fantastic when it's just myself. I believe a lot of people share this same mentality and so my diet was one of my initial concerns once I was on my own.
A little history...
Earlier on this year I just decided that I was going to include more fruits and veggies into my diet. Prior to this decision, I would say I was well below my intake of fruits and vegetables. It was never something that I consciously included in my diet, and whenever I reached for a snack, it certainly wasn't going to be an apple or a banana. I had to find ways of substituting these for things that I normally ate. Browsing the men's health website, I began to get interested in the idea of having a shake as a substitute for a small meal. At the same time, I did more and more research on the benefits of more smaller meals spread over the course of the day. I had always eaten 3 meals, sometimes even only 2 because I would skip breakfast in the morning and just drink coffee instead. So, this interested me quite a bit.
All the research I did on more smaller meals seemed to make sense, but just did not make it easy to apply to real life. There were all these schedules, and ideas for snacks and meals, but none seemed to take into account that someone would be working and may not have the resources to just whip up a shake at 10am in the morning. So, these ideas had to be adapted to my life. My job doesn't really allow me to just take a break and go deal with my diet... I'm tied to my desk for the most part. Also, when at work and slightly stressed, i want to go for something unhealthy to snack on... not a piece of fruit.
The other thing that wasn't known to me prior to this was the actual cost of eating healthy. You just cannot do it cheaply. It is cheap to eat junk food, but to have a constant selection of fresh fruits and vegetables in your kitchen is costly. However, if I got rid of all the junk food at the same time, then things aren't that bad, but it pays to keep a smaller stock of fruit and visit the grocery store more often to keep these from going bad regularly.
In order to get thing rolling, I started by setting out a rough plan for meals. I can actually get away with the same, boring things for snacks and lunches if I know I'm going to do something great for supper. It gives me something to look forward to, and I allow a little more freedom on my supper meal because I think I would fail miserably if I didn't give myself a small cheat daily. I know enough about myself to know where my threshold is, and if I reach that point, I'm going to fail. I also do not punish myself for cheating on the diet. It's not worth getting upset about because it will just make things worse in the long run. I just get back on track and keep going.
At the time of writing this, I normally have 2 apples, 1 as a snack, the other with lunch, 1.5 cups of grapes for a snack, 1 cup of strawberries or blueberries and a banana in my morning shake, and a cup of mixed nuts or just almonds as another snack. I do include other things like pomegranates, pineapples and melons when they are in season. For my lunch, I also have a whole wheat sandwhich with a little bit of cheese and fat free chicken or turkey on it. The cheese is a little bit of cheat, but, it does help me because I do love cheese a lot, so I have allowed that to be part of my lunch. So... that's my diet for the most part during the day. Supper is usually either a salad or stirfried veggies with either chicken, prawns or fresh fish. I will occasionally include some rice or pasta with my supper, but that's becoming more and more rare. I could almost got to a vegetarian diet pretty easily I guess, but leading that kind of lifestyle is not that important to me.
The results...
The results speak for themselves with this change in diet. Without increasing my exercise at all, and continueing with my job that ties me to a desk all day long, I still lost weight. In fact, over the course of a few months, without even thinking about anything but my diet, I dropped from 196 pounds down to a stable 174-176 pounds. I also lost 2 inches on my waste, again with no exercise at all. The other interesting side effect is that I have more energy. I do wake up in the mornings easier and feeling better in the mornings. It does appear that this has made it easier for me to start my exercising, which I'll discuss in the next couple days. The other important thing is that I cut out coffee from my normal daily intake as well. This was not a tough thing to do because I wasn't dependant on it like a lot of other people. I will still have a cup socially if someone wants to go out in the evening or on the weekend, but it's not something that I even think about any more during the week. I also do not drink much alcohol any more, which has also added to my weight loss.
Future dietary goals...
I'm not too sure what more I can really do in the diet. I think I'm very comfortable with things as they are. I've added vitamin supplements to my diet now. After a lot of research, I do feel it's important to have a daily multi-vitamin. There are always going to be things that you are just not getting. I also include Vitamin C and D supplements, as well as Coenzyme Q10. I don't want to be one of those people that preaches the need for vitamins, but I think everyone should at least be taking a multi-vitamin each day. Do some research yourself and see what might work for you.
Now that I'm single, the one thing that I don't want to start doing is living that bar/lounge lifestyle again. I don't go out for food often, and certainly will not go to a fast food restaurant any more. It still appears that a lot of the people I know live this lifestyle and (apart from the cost of it) this no longer appeals to me. I think it's part of the reason why I find myself sort of reluctant to constantly go out when invited. If you don't have friends that have similar goals with their diet, then it becomes challenging to stay fixed on your own goals. Keep in mind that I do fail from time to time, or cheat I guess, but because I worked hard initially to stick this diet, it's now more a habit and not so much work. I won't punish myself if I get slightly off track, it's just not worth pressuring myself like that
Thoughts?
Be well...
K
A little history...
Earlier on this year I just decided that I was going to include more fruits and veggies into my diet. Prior to this decision, I would say I was well below my intake of fruits and vegetables. It was never something that I consciously included in my diet, and whenever I reached for a snack, it certainly wasn't going to be an apple or a banana. I had to find ways of substituting these for things that I normally ate. Browsing the men's health website, I began to get interested in the idea of having a shake as a substitute for a small meal. At the same time, I did more and more research on the benefits of more smaller meals spread over the course of the day. I had always eaten 3 meals, sometimes even only 2 because I would skip breakfast in the morning and just drink coffee instead. So, this interested me quite a bit.
All the research I did on more smaller meals seemed to make sense, but just did not make it easy to apply to real life. There were all these schedules, and ideas for snacks and meals, but none seemed to take into account that someone would be working and may not have the resources to just whip up a shake at 10am in the morning. So, these ideas had to be adapted to my life. My job doesn't really allow me to just take a break and go deal with my diet... I'm tied to my desk for the most part. Also, when at work and slightly stressed, i want to go for something unhealthy to snack on... not a piece of fruit.
The other thing that wasn't known to me prior to this was the actual cost of eating healthy. You just cannot do it cheaply. It is cheap to eat junk food, but to have a constant selection of fresh fruits and vegetables in your kitchen is costly. However, if I got rid of all the junk food at the same time, then things aren't that bad, but it pays to keep a smaller stock of fruit and visit the grocery store more often to keep these from going bad regularly.
In order to get thing rolling, I started by setting out a rough plan for meals. I can actually get away with the same, boring things for snacks and lunches if I know I'm going to do something great for supper. It gives me something to look forward to, and I allow a little more freedom on my supper meal because I think I would fail miserably if I didn't give myself a small cheat daily. I know enough about myself to know where my threshold is, and if I reach that point, I'm going to fail. I also do not punish myself for cheating on the diet. It's not worth getting upset about because it will just make things worse in the long run. I just get back on track and keep going.
At the time of writing this, I normally have 2 apples, 1 as a snack, the other with lunch, 1.5 cups of grapes for a snack, 1 cup of strawberries or blueberries and a banana in my morning shake, and a cup of mixed nuts or just almonds as another snack. I do include other things like pomegranates, pineapples and melons when they are in season. For my lunch, I also have a whole wheat sandwhich with a little bit of cheese and fat free chicken or turkey on it. The cheese is a little bit of cheat, but, it does help me because I do love cheese a lot, so I have allowed that to be part of my lunch. So... that's my diet for the most part during the day. Supper is usually either a salad or stirfried veggies with either chicken, prawns or fresh fish. I will occasionally include some rice or pasta with my supper, but that's becoming more and more rare. I could almost got to a vegetarian diet pretty easily I guess, but leading that kind of lifestyle is not that important to me.
The results...
The results speak for themselves with this change in diet. Without increasing my exercise at all, and continueing with my job that ties me to a desk all day long, I still lost weight. In fact, over the course of a few months, without even thinking about anything but my diet, I dropped from 196 pounds down to a stable 174-176 pounds. I also lost 2 inches on my waste, again with no exercise at all. The other interesting side effect is that I have more energy. I do wake up in the mornings easier and feeling better in the mornings. It does appear that this has made it easier for me to start my exercising, which I'll discuss in the next couple days. The other important thing is that I cut out coffee from my normal daily intake as well. This was not a tough thing to do because I wasn't dependant on it like a lot of other people. I will still have a cup socially if someone wants to go out in the evening or on the weekend, but it's not something that I even think about any more during the week. I also do not drink much alcohol any more, which has also added to my weight loss.
Future dietary goals...
I'm not too sure what more I can really do in the diet. I think I'm very comfortable with things as they are. I've added vitamin supplements to my diet now. After a lot of research, I do feel it's important to have a daily multi-vitamin. There are always going to be things that you are just not getting. I also include Vitamin C and D supplements, as well as Coenzyme Q10. I don't want to be one of those people that preaches the need for vitamins, but I think everyone should at least be taking a multi-vitamin each day. Do some research yourself and see what might work for you.
Now that I'm single, the one thing that I don't want to start doing is living that bar/lounge lifestyle again. I don't go out for food often, and certainly will not go to a fast food restaurant any more. It still appears that a lot of the people I know live this lifestyle and (apart from the cost of it) this no longer appeals to me. I think it's part of the reason why I find myself sort of reluctant to constantly go out when invited. If you don't have friends that have similar goals with their diet, then it becomes challenging to stay fixed on your own goals. Keep in mind that I do fail from time to time, or cheat I guess, but because I worked hard initially to stick this diet, it's now more a habit and not so much work. I won't punish myself if I get slightly off track, it's just not worth pressuring myself like that
Thoughts?
Be well...
K
posted by Kelly at 7:57 AM
1 Comments:
hi, my name is Erich, I´m from Mexico, and I´m an amateur photographer, and I used to call my blog exposures...that´s the title...but it calls tonytherobot.blogspot.com
people just don´t see a relation between the pictures and the name of the blog...I hope to start to work in a profesional way soon and make a .com site, but until that my blog it´s like my portfolio...I see that you don´t use your blog anymore, so, I wanna to ask you the name, you can change your blog´s name, and I can use it...just for a few months, I promise, let me use the exposures.blogspot.com name...I´ll be very grateful...thanks
this is my e-mail:away_in_the_sky@hotmail.com
I´ll be waiting for your answer..
thanks!
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