Something I've wanted to improve for a while is my health & fitness regime & there's no better time to start than at the beginning of the New Year. I don't like diets & I even hate the words 'diet' & 'dieting'. For me, this is something I'm not able to maintain & they are never very effective for me. I needed a plan I was able to stick to. I decided to develop a plan that was unique for me & something I was able to keep doing even once I've lost the pounds I want to lose.
Here's what I've done.....
Food
First, I needed to think about what I was eating & if there were any habits I could change to make my diet better. I downloaded a calorie counting app on my phone & have been tracking what I've been eating on a day-to-day basis. The app I use is called 'Lose It!' & it's super helpful. Once you download it & create an account it asks you for details, such as, your height, weight, goal weight & gives you a realistic time frame for you to lose those extra pounds as well as giving you a set amount of calories to stick to each day. I also find tracking my food helps me see where I'm going wrong & finding healthier alternatives. For example, some days I was drinking a large cappuccino which is a massive 400 calories. I decided to swap these large cappuccinos for a large cup of herbal tea instead, which is zero calories.
Next, something I have been doing for a while is making sure I'm cooking my own meals from scratch as much as possible & cutting out fast food. Cooking from scratch is a good way to include fruit & vegetables in your meals. I always make sure I'm including at least two fruits or vegetables in all my meals so that I'm getting my 5 a day at least. I'm also trying to eat them as an alternative snack to chocolate & other fatty foods, which can be difficult as times when I just want a biscuit with my cuppa.
Sometimes it can be difficult to come up with meal ideas that are healthy so there are a few websites I use for inspiration. BBC Good Food, this also includes nutritional information on there page too which come in very handy. Another page I find useful is Buzzfeed Tasty on Facebook. They have a variety of nice recipes & now also have an app for your phone so you can look for ideas on the go. Finally, I love to use Pinterest to pin ideas onto a food board. Every now & I again when I need some cooking inspiration I go on Pinterest for ideas.
Exercise
I've never been the most sporty person & sometimes I'd rather just be in lazy mode than exercising but I decided I needed to change my attitude on exercising. Rather than exercise feeling like a chore, I change my mindset & looked at it in a positive way. Now, it's something exciting that I enjoy to do. I chose to focus on cycling & swimming. These are sports that I enjoy doing & I always look forward to doing them. I've started cycling for an hour three times a week, sometimes four if I'm feeling extra motivated. Sometimes I'll switch to swimming if I fancy a change. With this I've included some workout exercise to tone up muscle. For workout videos I find YouTube has some great ones, plus if you have the YouTube app on your phone, you can do them wherever you are. At the moment, I'm loving the YouTube channel XHit & have been doing these videos each day to tone up my arms, stomach & bum (click for links to the videos).
The future
By making these small changes & by including them in my every day routine they no longer feel like chores. They have just become a part of my day, like going to work or showering. I plan to give myself eight months to lose the extra pounds I want to get rid of but it will be easy to continue using this plan after those eight months because it will have become my daily routine.
I will be include some posts on health food & drink recipes I've found.
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