Fitness, Ramblings

Good to Freaking Great {some thoughts on healthy living}

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A big thanks to goodnessknows for sponsoring this post (and contributing to this grad student’s emergency vacation fund!).  

The well-documented link between mental stability and physical activity is one I won’t drudge on about here.  In short, mental health and physical health are intertwined just like the pastel colors in those rainbow bagels I see all over the internet these days.  Basically, bagels are my therapy.  I MEAN EXERCISE.  Yes, exercise.  And by therapy, I simply mean that I am happiest and most emotionally stable when I get some form of exercise each day.  I joke that like a dog, I need walked twice a day.   Even small amounts of exercise (like walking) boost my energy and mood.

Goodness Knows #tryalittlegoodness

Of course this all sounds wonderful, but the truth is that when life gets crazy, exercise is the first thing to disappear from my routine (followed closely behind by healthy eating), and in those high-stress chunks of days, I feel my happiness dissipate — not to depression, but to numbness.  I become numb to the world as I focus with champion-like intention on the task at hand.  You see, I’m what my dad calls a “go-getter” always seeking out some thing, some goal, and hunkering down till I obtain it.  A goal-getter, really.  I know this about myself, and actually, I like this quality.  But, each time, after the smokey stress cloud clears, I look back on the weeks or months that have lapsed and am often disappointed that I let so much life pass me by; that my mission for mindfulness was yet again neglected; that I sacrificed those things that help me be my best me.

Goodness Knows #tryalittlegoodness

I’ve got my sights set on this balanced rainbow bagel of life as I head into what will surely be the most stressful couple of months this gal has tackled yet.  As the great Mr. Tolle, my 10th grade biology teacher, proclaimed: “organization is key.”  And thus, I’ve organized some thoughts on my health goals for the fall.

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Fitness, Food Talk, What I ate

Whole30 – Notes from the Other Side

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In my whole 30 years, I’ve never gone on a diet.  Actually, come to think of it, there was that one time, back in college, when I challenged myself to eat nothing but raw fruits and vegetables for three whole days.  SO.MANY.GRAPES.  I also had a brief stint as an uncompromising calorie counter, and while that helped me limit the amount of food I consumed, it was more about calorie give-and-take, like having a sensible lunch so I could calorically finagle a bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch for dessert.

Diet is a dirty word.  It makes me think of limitations, restrictions, sacrifices and, ultimately, unhappiness.  And thus, I’ve avoided all of them.  Because food is my THING.  My everything, really.  Without it, I don’t know who I am.  And I mean that literally, in the least dramatic way.  Without food, I don’t know how I’d spend my time or my thoughts.  I’d feel empty, physically and mentally.

Over the Christmas holiday, my mom asked my thoughts on the Whole30.  I’d never heard of it, but a little bit of research told me it was basically an extreme 30-day version of the Pal1969415_10102575857932084_8226543047997873534_neo diet meant to help participants nutritionally reset–to find the mix of food and nutrients that made their bodies feel and operate optimally.  This “nutritional reset” idea resonated with me because I’ve been on downward spiral since my big 30th birthday in July.  Lots of travel, lots of fun, and lots of eating with reckless abandon have accumulated in a 7-pound gain I’m not planning to keep.

And so this self-declared carbohydrate connoisseur said yes to the Whole30, and gave up grains, sugar, beans, soy, dairy, and booze for thirty whole darn days.  I was scared at first, mostly because it had taken me a lot of time and effort to find a mix of foods that kept my low-blood sugar in line throughout the day, and I was hesitant to mess with that “magic” formula.  But I went forth and swapped my normal egg and Ezekiel toast for a veggie frittata and roasted sweet potatoes.  Oatmeal got the axe in favor of coconut milk chia seed pudding.  My lunches weren’t all that different–a salad with protein, just no cheese or quinoa as I’d normally use.  Buh bye mid-afternoon protein bar, H-E-L-L-O roasted broccoli and cauliflower rice (OBSESSED).  Dinners weren’t much different either.   Meatballs and marinara over zucchini noodles, mixed greens topped with carnitas or baracoa plus guacamole, stir-fry with ALL THE VEGGIES, burger-salad-what-have-yous.

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Fitness

My Top 5 tools for Healthy Living

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Oh, January.  I love the start of a new year.  It reminds me of the whoosh of relief you get after a huge exam mixed with the excited butterflies of a new relationship.  Once we cross over that line in the sand, we are all bubbling over with hopes and goals and visions of doing things differently in the new year.  It’s no wonder healthy eating and exercising are such popular topics this time of year.

Healthy living has been a priority for me for the past few years, in fact, it’s one of the reasons I started this ole blog (check out my take on healthy living here).  My life struggle is balancing my love (obsession?) of food with my desire to maintain physical health.  It sounds like an oxymoron, but I truly believe it’s obtainable.

As a creature of habit, there are a few tools I use religiously, day in and day out, to help me in my quest for health.

CaptureIf you’ve ever tried to lose a few lbs, you know the first step is getting a handle on the amount of calories you consume each day.  Plus, I’m a numbers girl, so I need to see the numerical nutritional breakout of my meals to understand if what I’m eating is really as healthy as it looks.  I’ve been using MyFitnessPal since 2010.  It’s an awesome tool for tracking calories consumed and burned, plus it has a huge nutritional information database.  I also love that you can input and save recipes to the site (p.s., this is how I compute the nutritional stats for the recipes posted on the blog).  The site also has a weight tracker, goal setting features, and smartphone aps.  It’s COMPLETELY free.  LOVE IT.

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CaptureAt least a couple times a week, I’ll catch someone staring at my hip before they point and blurt “what is that thing?!”  I love my fitbit, and I’ve worn it daily for over a year now.  In a nutshell, the fitbit is a pedometer that tracks your steps, distance, stairs climbed, calories burned, and even how well you sleep at night.  AGAIN with the numbers.  I know.  The newest fitbit model synchs your activity data wirelessly, which I am oober jealous of.  Once the data synchs, you can log onto the fibit site and see how your activity measures up to your goals plus you can challenge your friends.  My personal fitbit goal is to log 35 miles per week and a minimum of 10,000 steps a day.  If I see I haven’t reached my daily goal when I get home from work, I find an excuse to get moving.  I take out the trash, I vacuum, I’ll go to the mall and do a few laps (yes, really).  Whatever it takes to get to my goal.  It all adds up.  Another feature I love:  the fitbit displays random words of motivation.  Things like “WALK ME” or “I LIKE YOU” or “MISS YOU” when you haven’t been moving enough lately.

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