#healthy changes

[every-morning-dasha]

Dopamine sources: sweets VS exercises.

Spoiler: sweets and exercises work the same to better your mood. 

👉🏻 Find more information about dopamine sources here.

[ingridhodel]

Active recovery yoga workout! 😌‬

‪Move ya dang body Streak day 228

Program Day 11/21

[vegan-slothbabe]

5/5/2020

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

Today was another good day. I am definitely feeling it tonight which is why I’m soaking in the tub right now (yes while I write this 😉) hoping to relax my muscles.

Breakfast - Chia banana pudding. 410 calories.

Lunch - Veggie wrap made with spinach tortilla, spinach, cucumbers, bell peppers and quinoa. Plus I had Harvest Snap mango chili flavored. 313 calories.

Worked out on my exercise bike, was able to get 11 miles today. After my workout I went for a nice walk with my daughter to stretch out my legs.

Dinner - Veggie nachos made with a potato carrot cheese sauce with tons of yummy veggies. I didn’t really track this but I am guessing it was around 500ish calories.

I didn’t eat the entire plate just mostly the veggies and sauce. Had quite a bit of chips left behind.

Snacks - Energy drink. An after workout supplement. Cantaloupe. 130 calories.

Calorie goal - 1400

Calorie intake- 1300-1400

Calories burned - 1,114

I am beat, super tired honestly. Ready for bed haha!

[acosmicmouse]

What to Eat

This is what I have done in order to find foods that help me lose weight in a healthy, sustainable way. Every once in a while, when I feel like I need to shake things up a bit, I go back to these steps and re-evaluate what I’m eating. It also helps me to make sure bad “little” habits that aren’t “that bad” don’t creep up on me. The scariest part of gaining weight, to me, has always been how slowly these bad little habits add up and take over. When I reach my goal, I plan on continuing to do this so that that doesn’t happen again.

Make a list of all the foods you eat on a normal day-to-day basis. (Don’t include things that you have on rare occasions.)

Put a star next to the foods that stick out in your mind as being very enjoyable. It’s very unlikely that attempting to suddenly cut out these foods from your diet will be a lasting change. (However, once you start to change the rest of your diet, these foods might not taste as good as they once did and you will start to find other favorites. Example: my favorite food and biggest problem used to be fried food, especially fried chicken. Now, not only is it not my favorite, I don’t even like it anymore. I don’t like how it tastes and it makes my stomach feel awful. This took time with a lot of small changes, but it is possible!) If the foods you’ve starred are good for you, that’s great news! Try to focus on eating more of these things. If they are fattening however, figure out how often you really need them. Don’t try to cut them out completely, but perhaps you want to reserve them for a special treat. The long-term goal is for most or all of your starred foods to be healthy foods.

Of everything on the list that is left, cross out the foods that you didn’t enjoy at all, especially if it made you feel like crap physically. These might be things your friends or co-workers push onto you. It might be something you eat out of convenience. Or it might be something you eat just out of habit. You don’t need these foods in any way. Eliminating these foods will cut out a significant number of calories, and you will be unlikely to miss them after you cut them out of your diet. When you do, you will realize that it is better to eat nothing than something that you don’t enjoy.

The foods that are neither starred nor crossed out are what I call “meh foods.” These are the second easiest to change, because you don’t feel very strongly about them. If they are already healthy, great! If not, think of different things to could try to replace them with.

After you’ve finished your list, try to see if there’s anything missing from it. Try new things in order to fill in the nutritional gaps.

The whole point of this exercise is to take a step back and look objectively at what you’re eating. Having a candy bar every day after school (like I used to do) can seem not so bad in the moment--it’s only 250 calories! But when you’re going through this list, really think about each food you write down. Is it helping you get where you want to be? Is it helping your body thrive? If not, ask yourself why you habitually eat this particular thing. For me, the answer was almost always simply “because it tastes good.” When I got it through my head that other foods that are much better for me also taste good, it got easier to  eat those things less and less...and eventually hardly ever.

See my current list below the cut for an example. Hope this helps! ♡

⛥Southwestern Vegetable Soup (Good for me, I’m happy this is a favorite.)

⛥Butternut Squash Soup (Good for me, I’m happy this is a favorite.)

⛥Asian Sesame Salad (Good for me, I’m happy this is a favorite.)

⛥ Steak tips. (It’s not often that I have this, maybe once every week or two. I think at this frequency it’s a good thing to have. I don’t think it’s something I should have all the time. The problem is with the sides. Eat all the steak first, and order vegetables for the side.)

⛥ Jericho Mountain Chicken Wrap (Not the worst. At least the chicken is grilled and there’s plenty of vegetables and mushrooms. Remember, it’s okay to eat the filling and leave some of the wrap if you start getting full.)

⛥ Butternut Squash (A good side dish that I really love. I feel good about this.)

△ Turkey, Lettuce & Black Olive Sandwiches (These are great, but I need to remember to ask for light meat because the regular size is way too much and I can never finish.)

△ Bananas

△ Pomegranate

△ Broccoli

△ French Vanilla Coffee, Black (I do enjoy this coffee a lot. Some days I’d much rather indulge in a caramel latte, but I need to stay away from those except as a very special treat. Having one almost every day was expensive and sooooo much sugar. But for the love of God stop drinking it at dinner time, you know you’re gonna be up all night.)

△ Green & White Tea (I’ve been using it as a mental cue that the meal is concluded. After eating I can sip on my tea, rather than picking at random snacks.)

△ Tater Tots (Not the best, not the worst. But I could probably find something that is better for me.)

▽ Toast (Switched to whole grain oatmeal bread and now white bread tastes so boring, go me! Just have to be careful not to have 23,340 slices. Still, I have to try to find other things that have more nutritional value than bread.)

▽ Peanut Butter Sandwiches (Replaced bread with whole grain, but I think if I had a half of one it would be better. Peanut butter calories add up real quick. However, this is a good choice if I know I’m going to have a busy day and not much time to eat. Better to have this and be satisfied, that wait until I’m murderously hungry at the end of the day and devour a horse whole.)

▽ Larabars (Not so bad but still calorie dense, save for when I don’t have time to eat a full meal.)

▽ After Eight Candies (I chose these to keep around because of their size. Not so bad if I just have one. Better to have one 50 calorie chocolate than a huge candy bar or bowl of ice cream or some other big, dense desert. I have to make sure I don’t get too hungry before dinner, or I will want to eat waaay more than one. I’ve been thinking I mostly enjoy these because of the minty flavor. Maybe I can try having a mint tea after dinner and see if it has the same effect.)

✄ Sweet tea. Daaaamn. I used to be obsessed. I still love sweet tea, but it’s not as necessary to my soul’s vital essence as I thought. I find unsweetened tea almost as rewarding now, and it is time to switch it out.

✄ Chips! Why do I even bother?! I don’t really like them. They add way more calories to lunch. I get full before I’m done with my real food anyway, and the last thing I need is these taking up room.

✄ Peanut butter crackers. Not the worst. But has little nutritional value. I can find something better. Maybe bring a banana to work in case I want a snack.

✄ Those free cookies that come in our office supply deliveries need to be someone else’s problem from now on. Not today, Satan!

✄ Things my coworkers give me that I don’t even like and need to leave for someone else to enjoy: twizlers, woopie pies, cookies, had candies.

[ambermontgomery]

Today I’m quitting smoking. Quit laughing! I’m serious this time!

I had started stress smoking when I got my first job at nineteen and like most people at that age I was going out with my friends and co-workers, some of whom who also smoked, it became a social habit as well. Before I knew it every phone call, car drive, night out, stressful moment, social setting, or moment of boredom found me with a cigarette between my lips. I was hooked. Hooked bad. 

Everyone knows the quitting methods. The patches, lozenges, and now-a-days we have prescription medications to help curb nicotine cravings. We all sat through the same talks with our teachers in primary school, right? I remember being horrified after those seminars at school and going home begging my parents to quit smoking.

“Cigarettes make you die, Mommy!” I remember telling her and bawling my eyes out.

Of course, my parents didn’t quit smoking. Years later Dad quit cold turkey when he got really into bodybuilding, but my mother has stubbornly held on to her Cowboy Killers to this day. This is where I petulantly say that I don’t want to be like my mother. It’s the truth, though.  I don’t want that to be me. Let me tell you why.

I lost my Paw Paw to lung cancer that was caused by smoking cigarettes all his life. I was thirteen and I still miss him terribly. You would have thought that it would have been motivation enough for me to not even dream of picking up a cigarette. Yeah, I thought so too when he passed away. It stinks to be wrong on that subject. You know what’s even worse? I developed asthma in my twenties, and I continued to smoke!

I want to feel better and I want to be the very best version of myself that I can be. Part of that is giving up this habit of putting harmful stuff in my lungs and choosing other ways to cope with the every day stress of living. It’s a one day at a time process, but I am committed to it.

This is for ME. 

I’ve made several half-hearted attempts to quit smoking before. I can say that my heart wasn’t really in it for the long haul. I tried to quit smoking because I knew I should, but I didn’t really have that drive to quit that I needed. Well I can honestly tell you that I have that drive today, and moving forward, to quit smoking cigarettes.

A recent doctor’s visit found me walking out of the office with a few prescriptions to fill. One of which was my inhaler for my self-imposed asthma, and another was a low dose medication that helps curb nicotine cravings. How sad is it to say that I gave myself asthma and continued to abuse my body with cigarettes?

I began taking the medication eighteen days ago and have noticed a significant drop in my nicotine cravings but that urge to smoke was still there. I have smoked for so long that the hand to mouth gesture is second nature to me now. I was still smoking! How could I fix that? I’ve talked to friends who have successfully quit smoking, read a few blogs and articles with helpful tips and tricks on quitting smoking and even called that helpful quit line. All of these said the same and different things.

So, what did I decide to do about it? Well I’m now the owner of one of those nifty vape pens. Not one of those modified ones, they are a bit too hardcore for me. I know this because I’ve tried them before. I opted for a Juul device and got their starter pack of Juul pods with it to let me try four of their flavors. I’ve got to say they are kind of awesome! I’ve been using it since last night and this morning I woke up and told myself that I wasn’t going to have a cigarette today.

It’s bedtime now and I haven’t had even one. I must admit that my Juul is sitting right next to me as I type this, ready for me to grab it at a moment’s notice. We’ll see what tomorrow brings.

Goodnight, ducklings.

[franfromfattofit]

[struggledevelopsstrength]

Put in the work and you’ll see results.

1/9/19 vs 4/10/19

195 lbs vs 172 lbs

I have never felt better.

[positively-difficult-blog]

Day 3

Down ~2 lbs in 3 days. I’m not going for weight loss by any means but leaning out a little from eating better and being more active is super rewarding!