Healthy Changes

     In the past about 8 months, I have made some pretty significant changes in my diet and activity levels. I went from eating eh, ok and not exercising to eating lots of fruits, veggies, and proteins and running upwards of 5-8 miles a day. Its a huge change but I promise it did not happen over night. A lot of people have been asking me what I've been doing to lose weight but for me, I have learned that it is more important to be healthy rather than skinny. Due to all the questions, I thought I would write a blog post about how I have improved my health over the last eight months.

     First things first, don't starve yourself. In fact, you're just causing more problems. If you're hungry, eat. Ignoring your body and not feeding it causes your body to think its starving so when you do eat, it hoards all the fats and calories more than it would have if you would have just eaten. Just eat- but only until satisfied, not stuffed.  But on that note, eat healthy. Its so important to get good carbs, proteins, fruits, veggies, and so much water all crammed into your diet. Eat real food, not weird weight loss shakes and meals. Doing that is only making you unhealthy and chances are as soon as you quite these special drinks or foods, you will gain the weight back. Changing your eating habits won't happen quickly, it will instead take a lot of time and practice. What worked for me is the 20:80 rule. I know a lot of people only have "free days" once a week but when I was that restricted, I felt restless and wanted bad foods even more. Instead, I ate good foods 80% or the time and used the other 20% for less healthy eating. This also prevented me from splurging and eating horribly for a whole day.
     The next important thing is exercise. Run, bike, lift weights, do strength exercises. All of these are so important in being healthy. I don't know much about ratios of cardio to weights, but I do know that they are super important. I personally run for about 45 minutes and do weights for another 30-40 minutes. Find what works best for you and I promise you will start to enjoy your work outs everyday. I, the girl who hated exercise, now love my time at the gym because its a time to unwind and focus solely on my body. Everyone needs and deserves this. Our bodies are amazing things and they deserve to be taken care of!

Now for the exciting part- the results! I'm timid to post this because I hate that I let myself become so
unhealthy, but it is such a motivation for me to keep going and working hard.

 

     Isn't it crazy what 40 lbs. can do? the top picture was in October and the bottom was in February.

 

 

So..... my secret is.

 

Nothing. Eat well and exercise. Make healthy choices and always keep working, even when you don't see results of feel defeated. Change will come only if you are persistent! Not only will you see the change, but you will feel it! I have more energy and I have more confidence than I used to. I have a better attitude and I am much more able to work through hard things without giving up. Getting healthy is the best decision I could have made for myself.