picture from blog.generalmills.com
It wasn't until a couple of years ago that I started making some changes. I'm not talking about A diet. I'm talking about changing MY diet.
First....let's start with WHY I even bothered to make changes....
One, I was getting back into the habit of working out and, as most of us all know, you can't out-workout a bad diet...so, I knew I had to make some changes to my eating habits in order to lose any weight.
Two, I've had this conversation with quite a few people recently and, how healthy can all of these processed foods be for us? It seems like every other day when I hear of another person I know who is diagnosed with cancer....You never heard of cancer back when people ate what they grew....There has to be some kind of correlation here.
Now....I'm not going to go all "clean eating" on you. I DO still eat processed foods. I just try to limit them.
So....back to these changes. I knew that cutting out all processed food and jumping into 100% healthy eating was not going to work for me. That would be more like a diet. A diet is usually temporary. I wanted changes I'd stick to.....so I had to do this a little at a time.
Step One:
I found out how many calories I SHOULD be eating during the fitness program that I was doing. I then downloaded the free app, My Fitness Pal, and started keeping track of what I was eating....no changes, just seeing what I WAS doing.
Step Two:
I made some adjustments to get myself into the right calorie range.... removed the potato chips or cheese-its at night and added an apple with peanut butter during the day...I also rarely had soda.
Step Three:
I started eating breakfast. This was hard....but I started with just an English Muffin with some peanut butter and, although it took some getting used to, I did get to the point when I was actually hungry for it.
Step Four:
This is when I tried Shakeology, because I heard it would help curb the junk food cravings and I needed that at night. It also gave me a consistent, healthy, lunch instead of the frozen Lean Cuisines, or Kind Bars, or whatever random thing I grabbed. BTW - at this point, I am still allowing myself a couple Oreos or something sweet after dinner.
Step Five:
More small changes....I changed to a whole grain English Muffin instead of Thomas'. My snacks and lunch include Shakeology and only foods that have one ingredient (eggs, apples, bananas, kidney beans...)
Where I am currently at....
Well, I now actually USE the Nutrition Guides that come with my fitness programs.....however, I give myself a little leeway at dinner time. I still eat healthy throughout the day....and dinners are not necessarily UNhealthy, but I may have the cheese and broccoli rice that only requires me to boil water and dump the package into the pot, or chop suey with store brand Elbows and canned tomato soup. I also still have my Oreos. When we can, we will get fruits and vegetables from a farm stand. We also get our meats from a farm that we know well. Could my diet still use improvements? Absolutely! But those changes will be made when I am comfortable with making them.
Curious about making some healthy changes to your diet? Email me at coachmomnteach@gmail.com
