Yay

Today was a great day! 🙂

I was talking to my brother about how hopeless I felt about maintaining a healthy lifestyle. It’s almost embarrassing to have this blog because it’s like a document of all my failures.

He told me if I want something badly enough, I should just stick to it.

He said: “You want results to show overnight and they just won’t. You need to commit to a healthy lifestyle and tell yourself you will stick to this lifestyle even if you don’t see any results one month from now. And one day, it will all fall in place and you will notice.”

This motivated me (and him, simultaneously :P) and I decided I will eat clean today. Maybe I won’t tomorrow, or the day after that, but today I WILL.

The doubts immediately swarmed my mind, the negative thoughts said: “You don’t have the self control,” “What’s the point anyway, you are past the point of no return.”

And I did get tempted during the day but I am proud to confess, I ate clean all day! And almost like destiny, my roommates decided to eat vegetarian today so all of us ate Tofu.

Breakfast: Chocolate Shakeology
Lunch: 2 Tofu Spring Rolls with Peanut Sauce
Dinner: Tofu and Veggie Stir Fry

I also did a T-25 workout!

I feel pretty great going to bed. I don’t know about tomorrow, but today, today was great!

Another Beans Edition: Kidney Beans

I thought why not talk about another bean today like I did so yesterday. Today I had kidney beans. I am not the biggest fan but it does have the usual benefits of legumes:

– good source of protein and fiber

– lowers risk of heart disease

– stabilizes blood sugar levels

A New Look At Fast Food

I got a fresh look at fast food today on Sharee Hansen’s Funeral for My Fat, Eating Clean blog. If this doesn’t stop me from eating fast food…I don’t know what will.

The picture shows the decomposition of “normal” food like a watermelon, and an order of fast food :O

Weight Loss Inspiration: Meet Stephen Odom

Photos courtesy of Stephen Odom and Mitch Frink Photography / Via mitchfrinkphotography.com

I had been wondering a lot about what keeps people motivated to continue on their weight loss journeys and I stumbled on a Buzzfeed article that shed some interesting insight.

In Here’s How This Man Quit Drugs, Alcohol, And Junk Food and Lost 125 Pounds, Stephen Odom listed six things that helped him:

1. Rewarding oneself: This made me think about how my restrictive diets every time I try to lose weight always leads to me craving and breaking to those foods. For Odom, it was junk food, for me it’s things like buttered toast.

2. Focus on a short term goal: He so aptly says that looking at the macro weight loss picture of “I want to lose 125 lbs” would seem so daunting, it would demotivate anybody. So instead of saying “I want to lose 15 lbs,” I should start saying “I want to lose 2 lbs this week,” and take it one day at a time.

3. Start small: Gradually eliminate unhealthy food from your diet rather than going cold turkey, Odom says.

4. Cook healthy meals you enjoy: I enjoy cooking but healthy food usually tastes pretty bland to me and I can’t keep it up after two weeks. So I’ll need to do some research on this one. Any website tips?

5. Do actions that build your self-esteem: Odom replaced running to food for comfort with “esteemable” actions like cleaning his room or riding his bicycle when he was feeling down.

6. Reward yourself: Again, instead of restricting yourself, enjoy those things you think are weaknesses (but in moderation).

I am going to try to approach my journey using Odom’s tips. I’ll let you know how it goes 🙂

My Aversion To Meat

Two weeks ago, after beginning to watch a lot of documentaries about food, health, and fitness for this blog for class, I started to get sick of the sight of meat.

In a weird way, it was like everything came together in one moment.

Firstly, I was junior head of the environment club in middle school and high school so I am well aware of the environmental detriments of eating meat. Secondly, I love animals. I did not, however, realize how my love for them could be linked to choosing not to eat meat until I watched videos of the mass production and torture of cows, chickens, pigs, goats, etc. on farms. I was crying through these documentaries. Finally, as I have gotten older, I have really begun to embrace living a life that is consistent with my values. All of this came together and I woke up one day and the sight of meat made me nauseous.

I was afraid I would feel weak without the protein from meat but, on the contrary, I have felt more energetic. My midday slump has gone away. I don’t feel the urge to take afternoon naps anymore.

I was cooking a beef stew yesterday for the family I live with. It didn’t feel right not to taste the food I was cooking for others, so I thought I will just have a tiny spoonful. As soon as that spoon hit my tongue I started gagging and I had to spit it out. It was gross and impressive at the same time 🙂

I think, for me, meat is history.

Fitness App Alert: Fooducate

Everyone! Download Fooducate! It has changed my life.

Fooducate has taught me so much about the food I eat. I have started to make better choices because the app clearly tells me whether something I am about to eat is healthy or unhealthy.

All you have to do is scan the barcode or search the name of the product you would like more information about. The app rates the food on a scale of A to D. The best part: it tells you why something is rated the way it is. From added sugar to controversial ingredients used in pet food that has made its way to our own diets (yes, this happens).

Take today, for example, I was at the store and I grabbed a bag of frozen veggie burgers. Gluten-free, 0 transfat; it looked healthy from the description. But I scanned the barcode, just to check, and the brand was rated a C+. I was surprised and immediately clicked “Why?” and turns out that particular brand of veggie burgers was highly processed. Of course, I put it back and spared my body the junk I almost put in it.

It is a very satisfying feeling to learn more about my diet. And whenever I have questions, I post on the community section of the app and get a ton of replies. The app also provides healthy alternatives, health recipes, and health tracking.

And it’s free! 🙂

I Am “Fed Up” With My Diet

I just watched the documentary “Fed Up” and it left me disturbed.

Fitness Tip: Watch/read health and fitness-related documentaries, blogs, and YouTube videos. They help me stay motivated and educate me so I make better choices.

Fed Up (2014) is an advocacy documentary that links the worldwide obesity and Type II diabetes epidemic to increased levels of sugar in our diets. The documentary discusses the addictive qualities in high sugar foods and government’s failure to monitor the food industry.

“Fed Up” claims the high sugar content in foods make it addictive.

Contrary to the documentary, some critics argue that the culprit is increased calorie intake not sugar consumption.

Whatever the correlation may be, my takeaway is to watch both my sugar and calorie intake.

I was disturbed to learn about the amount of sugar “hidden” in products at grocery stores, especially in “low fat” products. “Fed Up” states companies hike up the sugar content in their “low fat” products to make up for the loss of taste. And sugar comes under so. many. names. It is easy to miss if you are not well-versed in reading food labels, like me.

I have officially started to pay attention.

I do firmly believe one thing the documentary claims: exercise without a nutritious diet won’t get you far. I also wonder why we have moved so far away from the way our ancestors used to consume food. Everything seems to come out of a can or box today.

Fed Up is available for streaming on Netflix. Here is the trailer:

Everyone has a different takeaway from “Fed Up,” what was yours? I’d love to discuss it in the comment section below.