Hows your health? I want to live a healthier lifestyle

During my first year of marraige I gained at least 15 pounds. It snuck up on me slowly and I didn't realize it until one day I looked in the mirror and realized my clothes no longer fit and my body and face had lost their definition. When I was in high school I was in amazing shape. I ran every day and did weight training a few times a week. But I never really ate well. I was pretty healthy, but with unhealthy habits. Fast forward into marriage, abandoning my daily exercise routine, and continuing to eat poorly and its no wonder I gained the weight.

Once I realized how it happened, I started watching what and how much I ate and made sure that I exercised somewhat regularly. It helped, I lost the extra weight and felt better. But I still had unhealthy habits that I hadn't broken, and for a few years I yo-yo'd between eating really healthy and eating very poorly.

A couple months ago I decided it was time to really focus on living healthier. I'm not overweight and don't have a specific goal weight in mind. But I could feel that my body was weighed down, sluggish, and not where it should be. Additionally, a number of bad health things run in my family (like heart disease, breast cancer, osteoperosis, high blood pressure, etc). I set a goal to live healthier. I figured I can do my best to improve my chances of not having serious health problems by eating right and exercising. Plus it comes with the benefit of feeling better, being alert, and having more energy on a day-to-day basis.

The two main parts of my goal are to eat better and exercise regularly. Everyone knows that we should try to do these things, but we have so many excuses and its easy to ignore.

Food: I've been focusing on eating more veggies and fruits each day, and cutting back on the amount of carbs and sweets I eat (because I was eating almost completely carbs). My biggest motivator is reminding myself that food is fuel and trying to pick things that will fuel my body in a good way.

Exercise: I used to run all the time, but I injured my knee this past year and it hasn't fully recovered yet. Instead, I've been doing interval and circuit training at the gym. It was easy for me to fit into my schedule because Jeff normally goes to the gym after work, so I started going after work as well. And I've been consistent! I even made the top 10 users list for June!!

Progress so far: After almost 2-3 months of eating healthier and exercising consistently, I feel great - physically and mentally. I'm determined to keep it up. I've been roping friends into it so that I'm not alone in my quest to be healthier ;] I'm not on a diet or a exercise fad. I'm working towards a healthier lifestyle. One that is maintainable and enjoyable.

I would love for you to join me!

If you have any recipes you want to share or ideas on how to prevent giving up on your goals, please share them in the comments below! What are your biggest challenge related to food and exercise?


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Sugar Withdrawls

For the last few weeks I've been feeling completely and utterly BLEH. For the last few months I've felt off, but since Single's Conference I've just felt horrible. Jeff and I volunteered at Single's Conference as chaperones. The first night the dinner that was served by the conference center was penne pasta with chicken in a broccoli alfredo sauce. It was delicious, but a select few of our group got sick. One girl threw up, a few others had tummy aches. I got really bad indigestion and then nausea. Since then, no matter what I eat it I get bloated and really bad indigestion and tummy aches. Now I'll admit I haven't been eating great. I eat way to much sugar, lots of breads and chips and other crap. I eat because I'm bored or whenever I crave anything. So its no wonder I feel like junk.

In the last few months I've heard about multiple different food plans (diets if you must) to help people eat healthier, eat based on heritage (eat for your blood type), identify foods you have an intolerance to (elimination or rotation diet), cleanse, renew, etc. etc. So I started looking at these and its really crazy how food can affect you. Since these past few weeks I've been feeling like crap, I decided it was time to figure out what I eat that my body can't handle. I was looking at the elimination diet first. The premise is that you cut out the majority of foods that are commonly allergy or intolerance triggers in people. You eat a very basic food plan until your symptoms go away, then add one food back in each week or so and see how your body reacts. Its a great way to figure out what foods individual people react to. However, since it is designed for the general population (not specialized for individual people) it cuts out everything! I started reading the list of what you can't eat, and compared it to what you can.. and came to the conclusion it would be impossible for me to try at this moment. You can't have any dairy, wheat or breads, pastas, legumes, chicken beef or pork, most fish, most fruits, etc. Basically you eat lamb and pears - exotic but not cheap or easy to follow. (I don't think I've ever tried lamb...) I was also looking at doing a cleanse, but just for a weekend (not a whole week or 10 days like some people do). It seems like the most common one is the water, lemon, maple syrub and chili pepper mixture.

Anyway, I really wanted to start identifying whatever was causing me to feel so yucky. Monday I decided I'd start by cutting out breads, chips, sugar, and processed foods to see if that helped at all. The first few days were rough. We have tons of bread/chips/desserts in my house and (knowing I couldn't eat them) I wanted to eat them even more! I went grocery shopping on Tuesday and bought lots of fruits and veggies and some dried fruits (which I reasoned would be my replacement for chips and desserts). I figured I should add something else into my food groups and so I bought some cottage cheese too. I hate cottage cheese. I've never been able to stand the texture of it. But I decided to give it another chance. I was able to fight it down with fresh blackberries. I hadn't really felt any different yet, but I figured it would take more than a couple days to allow my body to catch up.

Last night we went to my parents house for dinner [Happy Birthday Mom!]. We started talking about trying to eat better [they tried to do the elimination diet but couldn't stick to it] and my mom told me I might have a dairy or lactose intolerance (because she does, and her mom did, and so on). So I decided to cut out dairy as well, and today was my first day adding that into the mix - no milk, cheese, etc. I had a smoothie (homemade) for breakfast and then some roasted pepper tomato soup from trader joes for lunch. But partway through my soup I realized it was really creamy... and when I looked at the ingredient list - voila! First ingredient was milk fat. So today didn't work. But I plan on continuing with my cut out stuff and see if my body BLEH goes away.

Until then, I'll make it through. I turned down icecream last night and opted just for berries, and again today at work. I can do this! Hopefully I'll be able to identify what I can and can't eat!

In honor of not eating sweets... I'll be posting my recipe for Blueberry Cupcakes with Lemon Whipped Cream Frosting... to share with all of you! Check back!