3 Things I Did to Jumpstart My Path to A Healthier Lifestyle

Earlier in the year I was attending school full time, which outside of my family and work, took up any extra time I had for myself. When school ended abruptly in March I wasn’t sure what I would do with the extra time I had. I considered school to be my form of self-care for the moment and when that ended I felt a little stuck. A few weeks had passed and I started to put pressure on myself to figure out what was next. 

At the end of April I was thumbing through a few pictures I took from a family trip to New Orleans that month and noticed the amount of weight I gained. It was a complete shock that, that’s how I looked in photos and couldn’t imagine how I looked in person. The camera really does add 10 pounds, lol. After looking at those pictures it was clear to me what I needed to focus on next. Loose  weight. 

I quickly put a plan of action into play and started the process to work with a personal trainer. Although getting a personal trainer seemed like the best  idea at the time, I wasn’t being realistic with my self. Before I hit the gym I needed to make some life style changes. First I needed to change my eating habits because about 50% of the weight I gained was from eating whatever was available. So I started meal prepping my lunch and came up with healthier meals for dinner for my family and I. I didn’t just start with lunch and end with dinner, I become more aware of what I ate for breakfast. Since this is my favorite meal of the day as well as the most important, I decided to be a bit more conscious of what I put in my body at the beginning of the day. 

I had heard great things about Skinnytaste.com recipes so I decided to check it out and boy was I impressed. Usually you’ll find about 1 or 2 good recipes from a site like this, but that wasn’t the case here. Every recipe has been a hit! Gina the creator of Skinny Taste, creates weekly meal prep guides for breakfast, lunch and dinner and they all are easy to fix and really affordable. 

   

I also downloaded a calorie counting app to help me monitor my calorie intake. The app MyFitnessPal is easy to navigate and is owned by Under Armour. You simply create an account, answer a few question and it will calculate your the amount of calories you need to have daily. It also offers discounts for when you hit your daily, weekly and monthly calorie goals. One thing you should know about me ladies, is that I love a good discount. 

Since making an effort to change my eating habits by meal prepping and making healthier food choices I’ve lost 10 pounds in a months time and I feel even better. Once I got my eating habits under control, it was time to get active. 

I committed to exercising at least 3 times a week for the rest of 2019. That meant I would either hit the gym or the local hike n bike during the week. I also made a promise to being gentle with myself by deciding not to make it a big deal if I don’t get to either of the two. Often times we as women can be extremely hard on ourselves when it comes to obtaining weight goals . While I am determined to reach a certain weight by the end of the year, I’m not going to put all of this unhealthy pressure on myself to look a certain way. It's all about how I'm feeling rather than how I look.  It's been two months and things are going great. I've lost more weight, but more importantly I've made real changes with my health that I can now stick with. I still have a ways to go but now that I've created and formed some healthier habits that will last me a life time.

Tell me ladies, when it comes to obtaining and maintaining healthy habits concerning our weight, what’s something that works for you?