Beginning the New Year

An important fact I've learned:
Your worried for the rest of your life you'll be fighting just as hard to say no to that fourth doughnut let alone limiting your donut consumption to maybe one a month (my food weekness used to be doughnuts)
What I've found is slowly as you make good food choices, your mind and body begin comunicating better about what you need to be eating. At this point in my health, the thought of four doughnuts makes my stomach sick, I could go a month without eating one but if I do have one, I know I can stop at that. Your body will help you make good food choices once you've given it a head start by making those choices with your head and determination. I've come to a point where I look forward to eating salad and vegetables. In fact if  go a couple days eating junk food and few veggies, I got a little lazy in December, I start craving vegetables and feel a need to fill my fridge and dinner plate with them. I stay motivated because I know how good it makes me feel.

An important fact I've learned:
Fad dieting doesn't make you healthy. Harshly limiting diets that substantialy narrow the selection off foods your able to eat and the amount of food you eat isn't healthy and won't help in the long run for example, the grapefruit diet, the onion diet, the cabage soup diet. Fad dieting will often encourage weight loss, fad dieting does not nourish greater health. Healthy eating is a constant journey of learning about the foods your eating and what their doing for you. My interest in staying informed about food stays on the backburner as I go throughout my day leading me to read articles and page through books to expand my knowlege. Sometimes when I find a good book it becomes prominent and I dedicate some extra time to reading and digesting the information. I'll ocationally share a food fact or other health tips throughout my blog.

A helpful tip:
Search for inspiration. I like to read about what keeps other people motivated and assimilate what resonates with me. Often I'll have a couple sentances I use at various times to motivate me to overcome a challenge. For example I read "break through barriers physically and mentally" and throughout my day if I was confronted with apple pie and ice cream I'd repeat that sentance to myself and think of it as a barrier. Find what works for you.

Turbo Jam Day 11

How many times have I tried making a go at a fitness routine or building healthy eating habits now on this blog? I sure read, write and think enough about it, but it's doing it that matters. I'm proud of my eating habits through my pregnancy as I nurished my body well and it rewarded me with extremely minimal stretch marks and a completely flat belly once my little girl was out of it (10lb 2oz not so little I supose) It's the porstnatal health that's getting me down.

I had a bit of coasting health from my highly active lifestyle before pregnancy and then during I kept moderately active and conciously ate well for the baby, afterward though through getting off to a rough start with breastfeeding I heard that I was to thin to produce enough milk or wasn't eating enough, so I started eating everything I could find and all my energy was poured into pumping and feeding babe wich meant a lot of sitting around mingled with resting in between. Now that things are going well I want to find an appropriate balance of exercise, nutrition, and rest.

I've succesfully been eating more veggies, among other foods I munched on a head of broccoli and three leaves of lettuce yesterday and I'm very proud of myself for staying away from some birthday cheese cake. In the eleven days I've been following the beginner turbo jam routine I've only eaten clean for one, and that was yesterday. Today was really bad, I ate a big meal at noon, a cream filled crousant at 2, then an enormous meal at 8. Bad portion control and timing, which as I have come to understand are both important aspects in healthy eating.

I really didn't want to do my workout today, not at all, in fact I didn't do it until 11 pm, when I put babe to bed and decided that I was only going to get one chance to put that X on the calandar saying I did my workout today and that was today so I got up and did it yay me!

It doesn't matter that I've many different starts and read many books, it just matters that I don't give up because with dedication I believe I will make it to health again.

The Abs Diet

It's a very good book for learning what to look for and watch out for on nutrition labels, learning how to space out your meals to optimize their benefit to you, and developing a well rounded basic workout routine. The only downfall I found is preference for chemicals in place of natural fats, for example I don't eat margarine or low fat mayonaise as sugested, and I buy 1 or 2 percent yogurt, milk, and cottage cheese and regular mayonaise because small amounts of the natural fats are a necessary part of healthy eating.

I read the Abs Diet in 2007 and learned a lot, in fact it's one of the things that helped keep me at my prepregnancy 155 lbs, unfortunately I've been maintaining my healthy weight so long I don't know how to loose weight. The change of lifestyle that came with having a newborn has me at 177 lbs that's overweight and unhealthy.

My plan is to read the abs diet again, in the back of my mind I sort of thought I'm still incorporating the ideas from the book into my life, but if I'm honest with myself I know it's not true, my diet and lifestyle needs an examination and redirection. I don't think ten oreo cookies, or ten christmas goodies, or fifteen chocolates throughout my day on a regular basis where a part of the plan.

So, to some extent I followed the eating plan today. Exept for the Trix I had for breakfast... but that's not super bad cause I didn't eat a lot and I've been eating good portions at the right times the rest of the day. I need to do food shopping again soon so I'll be getting all kinds of good supplies for healthy eating on this plan.

Still no progress

Yes, I'm still thinking about being healthy...
thinking has to make it's way into doing yet though

I got pants as a christmas gift, it was a little depressing cause they where a little tight at size 13, while I used to fit between 11 and 12 comfortable. Breastfeeding does require a bit of extra fat so that the hormones can circulate properly and I know I'm required to eat a lot so that my body is being taken care of and producing milk (they sure don't put dairy cows on low calorie diets and for good reason) but that doesn't mean chocolate and ice cream...

I need to eat healthier and get more activity into the day. I realize that I'm not suposed to be training for a marathon or anything at this point but I was out of breath after two rounds of DDR that's ridiculous.

My hopes:
Get the house clean
Declutter my house and my goals. My goals are top heavy in comparison to the time and mental energy I spend on them. I need to stream line them so that I can actually get some of them done.
Work out a daily routine for keeping the house clean
Make excercise a part of that daily routine
Cook low sodium and low fat foods, keep away from processed foods, eat more vegitables

How am I going to do this:
Invite mel over tomorrow to help with house cleaning
Wake up and eat breakfast then do a bigest loser workout
Sit down with my household coach binder and organise it, make a section for thoughts and daily evaluations
Write about my goals and select what I'm going to be working on for the next month

Day 3

I gotta say eating today was great! Compared to the last two days anyway. I ate only good stuff

One thing I have to work on is my eating scedual, part of this whole plan is to eat at regular intervals, that is a small meal or snack every 2-3 hours until three hours before bed. Today I did have three cups of hot chocolate, but I resisted a seven up float and I am so happy I did. I want to comit 90 days to eating the kinds of food and getting moderate excersise that'll give me energy and confidence. I feel so crapy when I eat food and sit around all the time.

Alright, off I go to do my excersise if my little girl will stay asleep long enough.

Excercise:
Jillian Michaels - The Biggest Winner Shape-up backside

Food:
A smoothie in the morning
Brown rice, pulled pork, and veggies
About a cup of pasta in the evening
With yogurt and trail mix for snacks in between

Day 2

So yesterday I had access to good food finally, but ate bad food on top of the good so not that great of a start to my 90 days of healthy eating. I anticipate todays going to be a hard one too. It's Becks birthday and we're having a tea party and watching Jane Austin videos. There's going to be cheescake and other dainties oh nooos.

I'd like to say, since it's a birthday I should make an exception, but my family is so big that there's a birthday every month if not some other party, like Christmas... so that's not going to work, I'll just have to have very small portion sizes and limit how much of it I eat and be sure not to miss my workout today.

I know! I'll make sure to stay filled up on water and eat a good portion of the healthy food available, like tuna and egg salad sandwiches, so I don't have any hunger leading me to eat the bad stuff. Yeah, let's see how that goes.

How did the party go? Well I resisted a cookie before the party, then during the party I feel I was moderate in my intake for the most part though I didn't take just a sliver of cake as I'm suposed to, I took two whole pieces and that's cheesecake we're talking about here. At the end I considered taking one last sugar cookie but resisted, yay me. I also had four cups of coffee with flavoured creamer (I can't resist that stuff it's amazing) and a small glass of wine.

Finally getting back on track

For a while we where so tight on funds that I couldn't afford all the healthy foods I would usually love to be able to buy like fruit and veggies, We where mostly living off the good mercy of parents, going over for meals etc.

Now today I've eaten very well and did an excercise routine to boot.

Excercise: Jillian Michaels - The Biggest winner kickboxing and tomorrow I hope to do another one in that same series.

Food:
Mixed Berry Smoothie
Sole and Veggie Rice
Vector cereal
Yogurt
Pear
Chicken, Crab and veggie stir fry on whole grain noodles
... ok, I had a mars bar =P

After the mars bar I really got track. My husband and I went out to my parents and I had six cookies, a bowl of ice cream, glass of wine and cup of coffee with flavoured creamer.

April 12th

Today I hit most of my needed nutrients, but also had a lot of empty calories, what's new right?

Fruit and Veggies:
1 orange
1 peach
1 mango

Dairy:
2 cups fat free soy milk
2 cups 1% milk

Grains:
1 slice rye bread
1 cup granola
1 cup minute rice
1/4 cup bran

Meat:
1 slice ham
3 eggs
1/2 scoop protein powder
1 piece fried chicken
1/8 cup ground beef'
1 tablespoon peanut butter
1/2 cup sugared peanuts

Drinks:
Large 7-eleven pumpkin latte
4 cups water

Snacks:
1 mars bar
1 7-eleven toquito

So what kind of essential nutrients did I get today?
Protein: 4, should have 3
Calcium: 4, should have 4
Vitamin C: 4, should have 3
Green Leafy and yellow: 2, should have 3-4
other fruits and veggies: 1, should have 1-2
Grains and Legumes: 3 1/2, should have 6 or more

Comments:
Ways this menu worked out well: I had a good variety from each of my goal categories, adding protein powder and bran helped bump me up in those categories
Ways this menu would work out better: It's easy to see what could have been better here cut out the drink and treats... easier said than done.