Health & Fitness • Page 3

Starting another Whole30 today, but really hope I can take it to 60 days. Since I've already done 45 before, an extra 15 can't be that bad/hard, right? See you in two months, .

Think I'm going to join a boxing gym as well, need to get back into working out and just running/lifting is so boring to me. Found my Fitbit this morning and will start using that again as well, hope to get at the very least 10,000 steps a day.

 

My cravings are gone, but the amount of food I just like to eat that isn't on Whole30 is a bit of a downer, haha. This is definitely going to affect my normal eating habits in a lot of positive ways, though. I'm just wishing there was a tad more diversity in food at times.

 

Have you been looking up various Whole30 recipes? There's a lot of good stuff and substitutes out there. I know it's harder if you're being as strict as the Whole30 requires (cooking with vegetable oil, not recreating foods, etc), but there's some tasty stuff out there.

 

We haven't. We did go to Costco this weekend and picked up new stuff to kinda rotate in. A lot of smoked salmon for salad I'm excited about.

 

Definitely recommend looking up Whole30 recipes online (Pinterest, Tumblr, etc), just make sure they're Whole30 and not simply Paleo. Nom Nom Paleo has some good ones that are actually Whole30 too. Making the "mayo" which is used as the base for a lot of them is probably the hardest part.

There is some creative stuff out there that tastes good and makes me feel like I'm not dieting -- and it'll help you from getting bored with food.

 

Hey that's awesome! So before I tell you what we did, just know that we're certainly not experts. We just kinda stumbled into it and it stuck.

The First 30 days:
The first thing we did was started with "Why?" I thought it was important to clarify why I wanted to do it. So we watched some documentaries and read some books and decided that we agreed with the statistics that we read and we were making the decision to feel better and live healthier lives. After that we started slow and cut out red meat first (which was easiest because we hardly ate it.) We did that for about 30 days and then cut out chicken, so ANY meat we were eating was just turkey (bacon, spaghetti, anything.)

The Next 60 days
Throughout all of this we continued to learn about replacements and ways to supplement the nutrients we were missing out on from such a radical lifestyle change. As we learned, we incorporated a ton of new foods and learned new recipes over time. Eventually we felt confident and cut out turkey. During that time we also decided that we didn't want to give up eggs or fish. After that, it really become easy. The foods we were eating were rice and quinoa based too, so they left us feeling full but still dropping pounds like crazy. From there it really just became natural to not eat it or crave it anymore.

Now
We still eat mostly plant based, but we never wanted to make anyone uncomfortable (everyone in our families eat meat) so at family functions or stuff like that, we'll occasionally eat it. It shouldn't be their burden to fix us something meat free. I also watched a documentary recently on PBS called In Defense of Food, based off the book. The author puts it really nicely when he says "It's okay to consume it, but treat it as a special occasion, not an every day thing." We definitely see it as a way of living, but we also don't beat ourselves up if we eat it every now and then.

I also read up a lot about Kyoto and other places that boast such high life expectancies and I really think it's because of their plant based diets and low exposure to added hormones and antibiotics. So really, you never stop learning and as we learn more, we continue to evolve our diet.

Sorry that got so long winded.

 

did fairly well. hung out with both roommates for the first time in forever and they talked a while about getting pizza, luckily we all just went to the store instead & I stocked up on cheese curds and jerky instead.

 

This is great! Is it ok to PM you more questions? I don't want to hijack this thread.

 

Totally cool with me!

 

Well done!

 

Been awhile since I've had a real/vigorous workout (not just taking long walks), but super stoked for my first boxing class today -- though I'm sure I'll be incredibly sore after this week.

 

This damn whole30 has turned me into a farting machine. Only true downside thus far.

 

Weird, it actually cuts mine way down -- definitely messes up my #2s in the beginning as well.

 

I'm still regular, but it definitely changed everything about it and it's at a different time than it used to be.

I'm also noticing I have a lot of energy while working out, but don't recover nearly as fast yet. Such a learning curve, health.

 

I started my weight loss journey last June, and have lost just over 50 pounds since then. I have to say that my Fitbit Charge HR and tracking my food daily was the major driving force behind keeping me focused. I started out by walking every day, then by doing Zumba in the basement, and now I've started running or going to my apartment's fitness center every morning in addition to a long walk in the afternoons. Getting 10,000 steps a day is always #1 for me. I also started cooking my own meals as much as possible, and drinking pretty much only water.

After the first 35-40 pounds lost, you could say I plateaued pretty heavily as I haven't lost much since then, but I attribute this to losing focus - I stopped cooking as much, started eating out again more, drank soda, etc., and was walking 10,000 steps a day but not actually exercising. A few weeks ago I got back on track and now I'm over -50lbs down. Not going to lose focus this time, I am going to get under 200 lbs safely and healthily by this summer, and keep going after that. I have about 30 lbs or so still to lose until I reach my ultimate goal of 185. Considering I started this at 264 just last June, I know I can do it!

 

I've had a Fitbit for a few months and adore it. Partly because I want to hit my goals...a day partly because I get a little excited by the many stats you can check out. I've never cared so much about climbing stairs!

I'm trying to get back on some sort of shape and have found the Freeletics app to be pretty fantastic. It'll help kick your ass, you can do all of the workouts from home and there's a great community.

 

Great reading all your stories and great job for losing weight! Very inspirational.

I started my ~journey last year in March weighing 200 pounds (I'm 5'7") and have now lost 50 lbs (as of last week) total. I'm finally back at a healthy weight (last time was probably at least 5 years ago). When I went to uni and moved out I got into a mild depression and had a very bad relationship wth food and gained loads of weight to the point where people would stare, friends would be concerned and family would make mean snarky comments. It was awful but it made it worse; I was in this weird spiral and couldn't seem to get out. Then one day last year something 'clicked' and I managed to stay on a healthy diet for about 8 months (wasn't an actual diet, I just tried to eat healthy and manage my calorie intake).
Then went through a shit time with my parents in the middle of a divorce and basically went back into my old ways from November-January and gained like 10 lbs back and stopped working out bc everything felt like it was too much. Felt awful about myself and started really getting back into negative thinking (I could see my body changing for the worse).

Glad to say I had a good support system and got back into my good habits. Now I've lost that extra weight and then some (partly through the 30 day shred).

What really helped me is the real understanding of how food works, what it does, why you need it, good foods vs. bad foods, calorie intake etc. I use Myfitnesspal to manage my calorie intake (started out with around 1400 and slowly working my way up to 1600-1700 now). My goal is to be confident enough to wear shorts and tanks this summer (bikini would be optimistic).

Would love to hear tips from you guys, recipes are always welcome too (I'm veggie). Thanks!

 

This was probably the most fun I've ever had working out, think I have a new hobby/obsession.

 

Thinking about buying a fitbit just as a motivational tool

 

It definitely helps. For me it makes me just walk around more in order to hit my goal.

 

Yeah I wish it didn't come to a machine telling me how much I walk to actually get up and walk but anything helps.. Does anyone know if it's a good read on biking?

 

Just ordered some food from here to mix it up and for convenience's sake because prep can be so time-consuming and exhausting:

Paleo On The Go Meal Delivery Service

 

Prepping and cooking dinner has become one of my favorite parts of the day. I put on my noise-canceling headphones, turn up my music, and dance around the kitchen while I cook. It makes the whole things go by quickly.

 

It's essentially a pedometer that counts steps (p accurately I might add; I just had to set it to 'dominant hand' just to make it a little less sensitive) but it gives you a good overall idea of your activity. You can add work outs and other activities like biking separately and fill in a time frame; that way it calculates the amount of active minutes. Basically it keeps counting steps while you cycle but you can later adjust that by saying 'I was on a bycicle from x time until x time' and it will readjust.

It does register when you're not walking; for example when you're doing a work out it knows you're doing something more intensive and it will count it towards your 'active minutes'.

That's how I remember it anyway (I stopped using mine bc the wrist band was giving me an allergic reaction a while back so I haven't used it in a while). Hope that helps!

 

You've done so well! 150 is my first goal to aim for - we're the same height :)

I know what you mean about the spiral that you can't get out of. That's been me for like 6 years lol. I'm glad you had a good support system though and you stopped the weight gain in its tracks.