Happy Sunday everyone!
I hope you can do things today to set yourself up for a successful week ahead! If you haven’t tried some recipes I have posted, I encourage you to go through and give some a try!
I am slowly running out of tidbits to share with you! If there’s anything nutrition/fitness/health related that you’d like to know more about or have questions on please let me know below in the comments and I’ll be happy to address it this week!
Happy Saturday and third weekend of the challenge!
Today I wanted to briefly talk about weight loss! I know this is a main and common goal for New Year’s resolutions and it could also be an expected outcome with this challenge!
Weight loss is different for all people because we are all so different! Sometimes it can actually take a few weeks for weight loss to begin and can take even a few months to notice changes if you’re not constantly weighing yourself. I know many people want the quick fix but weight loss is a process! You need to be maintaining all the right things on average for a length of time to notice changes.
As mentioned in a previous post, to lose weight you MUST be in a calorie deficit. To speed things up you could also pay more attention to your exercise - lifting weights will speed…
This is definitely related to the problem that many of us do not get enough fiber BUT, similarly we do not consume enough vegetables. Only 10% of Americans consume enough vegetables each day and I’m sure this is very similar for my Canadians! This is likely because we gravitate towards easy, “convenient” or “tastier” foods.
We should all be consuming around 2.5-4 cups of vegetables a day. This measurement is mainly for raw vegetables, cooked vegetables would be 1.5-3 cups/day. Half of our breakfast, lunch & dinner should ideally be colorful and filled with fruits/vegetables and this is rarely the case for many!
How can we increase our vegetable intake without just eating plain old, boring carrots & celery? Here’s a few ideas;
⁃ mix cauliflower rice into your regular rice
⁃ add vegetables to smoothies - spinach, cauliflower & zucchini blend in very nicely and don’t alter the taste of the…
Just like that we’re halfway through the January challenge!! Keep up the great work & determination and keep trying to work on your self-discipline!
Going off of yesterday’s topic, I mentioned the realistic reality of not being able to give 100% everyday. This ties into what I would like to talk about today - the idea of black and white thinking.
For some reason, when it comes to our health & fitness, many of us have black and white thoughts. For example, if we’re traveling and don’t have access to our own food/gym, we may as well just eat all the bad things we can find that day. Or, because it’s a weekend day - we HAVE to have a cheat meal because that’s what you always do. Or, you’ve had a bit of a cheat day on Saturday so you might as well go the whole weekend and restart…
Definitely tried to keep this mentality on our holiday! Was not a no added sugar vacation... but tyring no to throw out every prinicpal and still made lots of good food choices and got a couple beach walks in each day. Home now and back at it. Have loved these challenges and am just going to extend the days. I have essentially followed so many of your tips since the very first challenge and love it!
Sugar Free Star
Keeping my daily walk and increased steps goal, as well as strength training each week was a game changer for me in addition to following your dietary guidleines and recipes. Never thought it was possible to lose the weight and keep it off! I continue to do these challenges because they are great reminders and so motivating!