For most of my teen life I strived for "skinny" but never got there. What can I say, I like food. Eventually though, 2 years ago now, I finally reached my peak. My peak of unhappiness with myself and my peak weight. I wish I knew then what I know now.
That peak was a pretty significant time for me. I finally realized something really major and something that I hope will stick with me. "Skinny" will get you nowhere. Healthy and fit will actually get you places. Literally.
At that point I started to eat better foods and much smaller portions. I started to run 5 days a week, do Pilates and continued yoga. I've always told myself I don't like to workout and I don't likes sports, but it turns out I really do. I love to run now. I've always loved yoga. Pilates hurts like hell but leaves me so satisfied. And most recently I've discovered kickboxing and I couldn't love it more. I suppose I just needed to find the right kind of exercise for me.
I chose to run 5 days out of the week because I'm not really someone who goes half way. I wanted to feel good and I was going to do whatever it took to get there. That being said, as much as it made a huge difference, I think the biggest thing was cleaning up my plate. I stopped eating huge portions, I stopped eating late in the evening and at night, I put fruit and /or veggies into most of my meals and I drank mostly just tea, water and occasionally milk. I think these things made the biggest difference.
Between April and August 2012 I lost 40 pounds and I've really never been happier with myself. It didn't hurt that this transformation happened just in time for me to go to Europe either..
While I was in Europe the delicious new foods got the better of me and I put some of my weight back on. No sweat though, I was still happy and kept active by walking pretty much everywhere we went all day everyday.
Moving forward to August 2013, my European weight was still sticking around and I was less happy again.
Enter Paleo.
I'm not going to go into all the detail about the paleo diet and what it is, but it is in theory quite healthy-ish. In my opinion. The "diet" focuses on health and natural foods, nothing out of a box or factory. It also has massive amounts of foods that are not considered paleo. Gluten, sugar, caffeine, etc.. Anyways, this whole thing means that most food has to be bought fresh ($$$$$) and the few things that can be bought in packages, cans, etc.. have to be looked at carefully. Read all the labels. All the ingredients. Check, check, check.
Basically what I'm getting at is that in the end paleo ended up being hugely expensive and far to obsessive for me. In 1 month of eating paleo I lost15 pounds, went through the most painful sugar withdrawals and became completely obsessive in a way that made me feel like I had an eating disorder, somewhere I'm not willing to put myself again. That was the end. As far as I'm concerned, anything that pushes that way can't really be that healthy.
That being said, I did learn a lot about eating, food, my body and health. Silver linings, my friends.
Fast forward to now. I think maybe I've finally got it. Food should be healthy, but cheating now and then isn't going to hurt me. Eating is for nourishment and health, but also very social.
Being physically active is hugely important as well, but that doesn't mean spending hours a day in the gym or killing yourself doing cardio.
I do yoga because I love it and I feel great after. I run because it's great exercise and it's quite freeing to just go. Being the aggressive (don't tell anyone!) person that I am, I love to beat the crap out of the bags at kickboxing and get my fitness in at the same time. I love to swim. I love to hike. I like so many things that don't even involve intentionally working out. I've spent this last month going to the gym Monday-Saturday for an hour every morning and I'm mostly just taking away from it how much I hate the gym and it's machines and walls and pressure.
A last, and very important step. I finally took the batteries out of my scale. I do feel like weighing in every so often is good to keep on track and see where you are, but unless you have serious health issues or really significant weight you need to lose, then those numbers on the scale are just that, numbers. I'm going to put more focus on how I feel and how I look in my own eyes. I've also just cleaned out pretty much all the crappy food from my pantry and fridge and I don't plan to put it back.
I think the time in life has finally come for me to focus on being happy and healthy and to get those things from doing what I love.
You should join me.
xoxo
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