Day Thirty-Two: The Bad Days

You wake up in a nasty mood, don't know why. Maybe it was because you didn't get great sleep last night...someone might have kept you up. Someone else might have gotten good sleep, but it wasn't you. You're tired, you're cranky, you're hormonal, you get ready for work & you hate the way you look. You hate the way you feel. You hate the world in general today, & there's no valid reason why. You've felt this way before, but it's been awhile...

You get to work & nothing goes your way. People are nasty. You hate people today.

You eat something that you know isn't good for you. You justify it. I've had a bad day...maybe you don't justify it out loud...maybe you don't even realize what you've done. What have you put into your body today? A cup of coffee and a doughnut? Not even a multivitamin, "For real!!"...you say to yourself. "Oh well, the day is shot anyway. Have I had any water? No? Okay, a diet coke will do...I'm tired, I need energy. My goodness, I feel like crap. There's no way I can work out today, not with the day I've had. I wish today just didn't happen."

Oh, for the love of bad days. Let me tell you, there will be many. You're not the only one, we've all had them, let me say it again....WE'VE ALL HAD THEM. And, you will have many more. It's the way of life. So, you ate crap...and it was a Thursday. There's not a person out there who hasn't done it.

You have three choices. 1) You can deny what you've done, justify it by saying that your diet was better than anyone else's that you work with even though it was crappy, and continue about. 2) You can shame yourself by making yourself feel even more horrible for doing what you did. 3) You can accept that you reverted back to your old ways, hold yourself accountable, forgive yourself, & move on.

I hope you made the third choice.

How does this work? You realize that becoming healthy is a process. Even if a switch flipped in you on Jan 1, it is still going to take time for the "new you" to become the "new you". Sixty days from now, you'll recognize what is going on & make the decision to go spend some time on yourself, maybe a little more than normal. You'll recognize that contaminating your system with junk, soda, or stress only makes a bad situation worse. Right now, though, you must forgive yourself & realize that this is a process. Where you are is not where you are going to be. You will have bad days, WE ALL DO. You will have days where you fall short of your own expectations of yourself. WE ALL DO.

Hold yourself accountable. How do you do this? You do two things: 1) You journal about why you ate emotionally. This is important, because the only way you can stop eating emotionally is to recognize the triggers & how you've habitually responded. 2) The second thing you do is switch one of your cheat meals out for the day that you screwed up. Why? Because screwing up costs you, & that's part of holding yourself accountable. You don't get 3 cheat meals because you ate emotionally that day, you still only get 2 for the week.

Now that you've held yourself accountable, you FORGIVE yourself. Then, drink a liter of water to start cleaning out your system, take a multivitamin and a TUMS (or 3), & realize that tomorrow's another day.

Try: Leeks. In the produce section somewhere around leafy veggies, you'll find these awesome stalky things. I love to make veggie soup using these instead of onions. To make veggie soup, remove the outer stalk of leeks, chop them up width-wise & saute with generous amount of olive oil & fresh garlic in a large soup pot. Then, add veggies (I like carrots, celery, fresh green beans, fresh chopped spinach). Saute until carrots are slightly softened, then add generous amount of water. Add bullion, pepper, & onion powder to taste. Sometimes, I kick it up with a touch of cayenne. Bring to boil, then simmer for about 45m. Serve with lightly toasted warm Ezekiel bread with Earth Balance Buttery Spread.

Day Thirty-One: Reflection

Thirty days ago, you made the decision to change your life. It came in the form of a New Year's Resolution. If you're story is like mine, then your decision wasn't easy. It probably took a lot of pain to come to the conclusion that you needed to make some changes. Only you could make them. There was no magic pill, there was no immediate surgery, & nobody in the world could do it for you. It is time to reflect on what you've accomplished thus far.

The hardest part is the first 90 days. Experts say that it takes 30 days to make something become a habit. I think that when it comes to life changing experiences such as this, it probably takes a little longer to get it ingrained. It wasn't until day 90 that it felt natural for me.

You went from denial to acceptance. You wrote a love letter to yourself accepting all of your faults & giving thanks for everything - the good, the bad, and the ugly. You've been educated on how to buy foods, how to cook nutritiously, and you had the opportunity to cook a meal with 5 distinct colors using no canned vegetables. You learned about the importance of water, & how much is enough without going overboard. You learned what inputs you need to obtain deep, natural sleep & why rest and repair days are so important. You learned about what sugar really does to your body, and how to engage in cheat meals if you're a sugar addict. You learned why you shouldn't ever allow fast food to enter your body. You learned about guilt, getting your needs met, & realizing that you are worth every minute you spend on yourself. Most important of all, you learned how to listen to what your body is asking for & started giving it the natural solution it is requesting.

I hope that you have found these last 30 days to be amazing. I hope that you've seen a difference in the way that you eat, drink, sleep, look, and feel. I hope that when you step on the scale, it shows you to be 4-5 pounds lighter than you were a month ago. I hope that people comment on how good you look, how clear your skin is, how much you glow. I hope that you've found a support network of people with the same interests to help keep you in the right frame of mind. I hope that you've been able to find a place to find local produce and unadulterated meat.

I hope that you never go back to that place where you were. I hope that you stay focused on taking care of yourself, regardless of how difficult it may feel at times. I hope you feel balanced, and if you don't, I hope that you begin to see a little clarity as to what is out of balance in your life.

Do: Take some pictures of yourself, read your love letter, write a love letter, reflect on what you've accomplished. You're beautiful, & beautiful things are happening. Smile.

Day Thirty: Supplements

I thumb through a fitness magazine & see ads for Cytolean, Mitotropin, Hydroxycut, AMP Whey, Protein Rush, Atro-Phex, Xpel, Myofusion, Complete 7-Day Cleanse, Safely Slim, Acai...it's ridiculous. It's a fitness magazine, after all, so shouldn't everything in there really make you fit? Not so much.

"Eat natural foods" means that what we consume comes in the form of raw food that we either consume raw or cook to kill bacteria. If you close your eyes & imagine your supermarket, you walk into an area that has produce on the far right or far left of the market. Spend lots of time getting to know the fruits & veggies, and put many of them into your cart, especially the ones in season. In produce, move to the back of the market where you'll find cheese, milk, meat, butter, greek yogurt, & eggs. Sometimes, you'll even find raw nuts where produce gives way to meat. Keep moving around the market for 100% whole wheat bread. When you do have to venture into the aisles for things like olive oil, spices, & peppers, don't stay long. This should be your shopping route to purchase natural foods.

Supplements are not natural food. They are substances that chemists conjured up & marketers put into print with promises to make you thin, cut, & ripped in 30 days. It's unrealistic. If it sounds like a waste of money, it's because it probably is.

Vitamins are a little different. If we're getting all of the vitamins we need because we're consuming nutrient-dense natural foods that are primarily plants, then we don't need the vitamins & they come out of our body in our urine. However, there are times when we may be rich in one vitamin & poor in another because of our food choices that day or week. I choose to take a multivitamin for this from GNC called, "Women's Ultra Mega Active". I don't really know if I'm any more healthy by taking it, but I'd like to think that I am. I feel it's like sand filling in any little cracks I might have missed.

The other substance I like is spirulina powder. I put it in my morning shake a 1-2 times per week. It's a blue-green algae that has a high amount of protein, & it's a complete protein containing all essential amino acids. I like this because I prefer to get my protein from plant sources versus animal sources when possible.

Utimately, the best diet is a natural one, & we should strive to make our diet as close to nature as possible. Avoid temptation to buy substances that aren't natural, often they're loaded with caffeine, and many times the FDA removes them from the market altogether.

Do: If you're taking supplements, consider their cost vs benefit to you. Try to get all of your nutrients from your diet, filling in with a multivitamin if necessary.

Day Twenty-Nine: Jackie Warner's Fitness Tips

1. Be a smart consumer & read labels carefully. Fat free products are loaded with sugar. Fat does not make you fat, sugar does.

2. No overcomplicated diets. They have high failure rates because they don't teach you how to eat properly.

3. Never skip meals. When you start to feel hunger pangs, you become a fat storing machine. Eat 3 small meals & 2 snacks a day.

4. Don't juice. Blend fruit instead. Juicing takes out the fiber & leaves you with the sugary juices.

5. Sugar is the devil. Sugar throws our body into an immune suppressed, non-working state of chronic fatigue, depression, & hormonal imbalance. It is the leading cause of disease & depression in the US. To break the addiction, remove all refined sugar from the diet for 5 days straight, & have 2 cheat meals on the weekends.

6. Clean house to remove junk. Stop buying addictive junk food & then hating yourself for not resisting it.

7. Deprivation doesn't work. When beginning a diet, add healthy foods for the first two weeks. Your body will begin to naturally reject the bad food.

8. Crunches are a waste of time. If you carry a large amount of weight in your mid-section, you will just build muscle under fat, thus making you appear bigger. To lose belly fat, combine a healthy diet with resistance training.

9. Eat the good, then the bad, then the ugly. Good = fruits/veggies/lean protein, Bad=starches/bread, Ugly=dessert/alcohol

10. Satisfy oral fixation with herbal teas. Late night munchies? Brew a cup of decaf tea, it will satisfy that oral fixation.

11. Water helps you lose weight. Three liters daily doubles your energy, increases your metabolism, & clears your skin.

12. Eat whole, natural foods.

13. Don't be afraid to lift weights. Cardio is the slowest way to lose weight. Resistance training burns more calories & speeds up your metabolism.

14. ONLY do intensity cardio. Forget the heart rate monitor, unless you have a heart condition, your cardio should be intense enough to feel your muscles burning. Raise ramp to max uphill incline & do a slow walk for 2 minutes, then lower ramp & run hard for 2 minutes. Take 1 minute to bring your heart rate down. Repeat 4 times for a 20 minute session.

Day Twenty-Eight: The Victim

"You stopped doing weightwatchers, how come?" I asked. "Time & money, just like everything else, Mariah." was the response. "Time and money, how so?" I could tell I was pressing by her sigh. "I do for everyone else, and that leaves me not having the time or the money to take care of myself."

There are usually two central reasons why someone plays the victim. The first is due to caretaking, the second is engaging in avoidance behavior. When someone does this, they're often doing a little bit of both.

Caretaking is a notion that I discuss in Post Fifteen. It is the thought that one needs to self-sacrifice their own needs in order to meet the needs of others. They derive self-worth from doing so, and it can lead to controlling or manipulative behaviors. Often, one doesn't feel that their sacrifice is truly appreciated, and so there might be a martyrdom complex that arises. This is articulated in the conversation above, "I do for others & not myself..."

I definitely engaged in this behavior when I felt that my husband & children didn't appreciate the sacrifices I'd made when I gave up my body to have children. The truth is that I didn't, I gave up my body when I chose to eat poorly and stop exercising consistently during & after my pregnancy. Usually, buried somewhere way below the emotion is the truth, & it often takes immense self-searching & accountability to locate it. Caretaking's roots are in poor self-confidence, not selflessness.

The second reason I describe is avoidance behavior. Often, we don't want to do things like eat healthy or work out. We'd rather scarf down the hotdogs & mac-n-cheese that our kids didn't finish while watching Dancing With The Stars instead of taking a dancing class at the gym & cooking nutritiously. We use excuses to cover up our true desires. Again, it takes self-searching & accountability to uncover the truth & be honest with ourselves.

Why do I mention these types of behaviors in a Nutrition & Fitness Blog? If someone is always the victim or avoiding the truth, it will often affect their health. Our mind/body connection is strong, & we must improve both together. We can never get all of the good stuff in life that we deserve if we don't work on ourselves. We will try out a class, then quit. We'll feel guilty & then act the martyr. We'll eat emotionally. We'll make excuse after endless excuse, lying to ourselves about what we truly want. If we've engaged in these behaviors, we must begin to talk straight with ourselves, believe that we deserve the very best, listen to what we're saying, & question it when it really isn't the truth. It takes courage.

Do: If you find you can relate to this post, read either The Language Of Letting Go or Codependent No More by Melody Beattie. In your food journal, write down the things you've been saying & the messages you've been sending yourself and others. Look deep down for the truth & be honest with yourself when you locate it.