Sunday, August 9, 2015

Consistently Inconsistent: Building New Habits

Being consistent hasn't always been my forte. Which is a shame, because it's the key ingredient in losing weight and getting into shape (and for a blog. Note my last entry was in Feb ;).)

But I digress. After trying a couple of different diets and workout routines for the last couple of years (post moving in with my boyfriend-now-husband and gaining weight) I finally cracked the right mix for me.

Intermittent Fasting

Loosing or gaining weight is 80% diet they say. Not sure who they is, or if they is right, but over the last couple of years, I've been weaning off of processed foods (mainly because of my gluten-free allergy) including all cereals, chips, pastas, breads etc. I've tried an all-Keto diet and my body was like: NO. So I've stuck to the cardinal rule, of eating what mother nature provides.

That aside, I wasn't particularly loosing  or gaining weight. I tried using MyFitness Pal App (on and off) and counting calories just made me hungrier because my brain felt lit was being food deprived... which in turn made me crave all sorts of unhealthy stuff. Definitely not sustainable long-term.

When I turned 26 earlier this year, I was determined to make a fundamental change. Essentially, I needed to build a new habit. I came across the idea of Intermittent fasting. Particularly I found this schedule of working out as soon as you wake up and not eating until noon and having your last meal before 8 p.m. My diet was pretty solid, it was just a matter of eating at the right times. This new eating habit has been pretty easy for me considering I never have time to eat breakfast anyway. The key was to workout in the morning to propel my body into burning it's own fat to avoid being crazy hungry before my first meal.

6 months in - I consider this a success.

Fitness Blender

Praise be to the free full-length workout videos by the amazing Kelly and Daniel. Not only are they high-quality, free and list all calories burned- but they even have workout schedules you can buy for like $6.00. Worth!

They make it insanely easy for you to follow-along, play your own music, customize your workout schedule and there is minimal equipment required (mainly a mat, and some dumbbells and maybe the occasional medicine ball.) Primarily, they focus on body weight workouts and do a great job of providing calorie burn estimates, and easy search function for working out target areas (as seen below.)




Highly recommend. Again, this is the sustainable combination that worked for ME, but I'd say there are numerous free diet and workout guides for your personal preference. I found a couple of other free workout vids available on YouTube as well for your perusal. I'll likely upload some before and after pics in upcoming posts. So far, I'm down 10 lbs! Good luck!

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