I originally began working out last November (2009), but the real change started about six months before that. Though they were small, incremental steps, I slowly but surely began changing my eating habits and sorting out the science behind why things were the way they were concerning my health and what I could do about it. It took me six months because of the tiny effort I put in then, but really it could’ve and should’ve only taken one.
Anyone who knows me knows that I really like mixing drinks. Though I’m no bartender, I have a knack for knowing what liquors, and other beverages, mix well together. For now, I’ll skip details on alcohol and just say certain things need some experimentation, even if it’s breakfast. I then approached how and what I ate with the same attitude and decided to make sense of meals in general from a basic starting point.
Look It Up
In the beginning, I thought about what the body DEFINITELY needs in order to function normally. A few articles, blogs, and books later –simply put- the body’s basic five needs are water, proteins, healthy fats, carbs, and rest. I could be leaving something out but if you’re the expert, please, feel free to add. Of course, hardly anyone goes around shopping for protein and carbs on purpose and neither did I so I sought out the items that would most likely fill in the blanks. Seeing that the Four Basic Food Groups were more than a little outdated, I searched for a more realistic list of essentials. After looking through a few lists and diagrams, University of Michigan’s Food Pyramid seemed like the most elaborate yet clear depiction of what the body needs from most important to least from the bottom-up. One consistent trend amongst all of the lists, they all started with WATER; a nice way to confirm my 1st point and first tip of the week last week.
UofM Food Pyramid
Since I did all of this, all YOU have to do at this point is READ WHAT WORKS. Generally speaking, these essentials include Grains, Vegetables, Fruits, Oils, Dairy, Meats, Legumes, and Water.
Even so, I basically decided that I still wasn’t going to eat rice cakes, carrots and tofu all day just so I could “look the part.” I wanted to still eat cake, pizza and whatever else smelled delicious and so I had to find a way to make this work, for my lazy ass, and potentially yours.
Drink It Up
For weeks, I had read about eating right through blogs and magazines and used my mother’s nutrition books/business (nurse) as a cross-reference to my own experiments. I started by asking questions like, “How could I gain more energy,” or “…get better sleep,” and so on; everything that I found that constituted unhealthy results, I would prick at. My 1st experiment was whether I needed more energy or if I was doing something that was causing me to lose energy. At the time, I chose to start with drinks. Soda, juice, shakes, and others were in the line-up but I decided to focus on soda, my most frequent drink of choice at the time. First, I went three weeks without any Pepsi at all and replaced it with water.
Immediately, I witnessed myself waking up earlier, no longer feeling like I needed a mid-day nap between classes and also breathing better. Since I was a Pepsi fiend, this was far from easy. Then, to make sure I isolated the right substance, I went back to Pepsi, hard-body, and luckily I was right; I began feeling drained and fatigued all over again. I did the same for coffee and frappacinos and kept applying it to other beverages. Not only did I find that I had an adverse reaction to caffeine, I also realized just how much drinks were contributing to my weight gain.
Burn It Up
Soon after, looked up information on water and learned that water helps you burn calories before and after meals and help distribute oxygen to those hard-to-reach places in the body more effectively. If your muscles can stretch and breathe organically, the workouts you attempt will show quicker, more positive results. Evidently, without lifting a finger, I had lost 5lbs in less than a month, just by replacing most of my drinks with water, daily. Now let’s think about that for a second. Without lifting one weight, or running one mile, I lost an average of 8lbs a month. That’s potentially over 40lbs LOST after 6 months! If you were to start doing this, let’s say beginning with Thanksgiving dinner, you could possibly be ready for that early summer trip you’ve been looking forward to just by drinking water more often and less soda/juice packed with sugar and calories. Not to mention, if you’re one of those people who tell themselves that they don’t like water, that’s in your mind and in REALITY, your body is just fine with water. ‘You follow my steps, and you’ll begin to notice just how much your body craves water, especially when you drink it as soon as you wake up in the morning, as you should.
This brings me to my larger focus point which is breakfast. If you want to start losing weight, you have to communicate with your body and give it what it needs, when it needs it; it will figure out the rest. Over a decade ago, one of my school teachers told the class that in preparation for an exam, that we should drink water as soon as we wake up. She said it would awaken our senses and make you sharper for the day, especially when with a full breakfast. Now, if you were like me, the day started at noon at the quads and consisted of a donut, leftover pizza, a nutrigrain bar -to make you feel better about yourself- or just plain non-existent. One week, I decided to eat breakfast consistently, everyday, and I watched my grades rise per assignment, meaning I actually stayed awake at Jerome Library while studying and remembered stuff (classic student tone). In the morning, your system is at its most active and ready to burn calories, so giving it a granola bar is the equivalent of charging your cell phone’s battery for five minutes… Did you really DO something just now? Probably not.
Change It Up
Drinking water and eating a full breakfast within one hour of waking up, alone, helps speed up your metabolism and tune your body into expecting that same type of activity as the day before. You train your body naturally first, then you see the results. This is especially important for the really big folks out there. Don’t catch a heart attack trying to keep up with the skinnys working out at a race horse pace; make sure your “phone” can “pick up the charge” before giving it the juice. Make it all count with nutrition first, then exercise. I know I have a workout portion to my fitness plan, but none of that matters if you don’t take part in the most important piece of that plan, the EATING PART. The sacrifice here is deciding what to eat for breakfast. My choices include eggs, bacon and toast with orange juice on one day and healthy cereal with a bagel the next day. Waffles, sausage, pancakes, home fries, and oatmeal are good places to start.
Whatever you do, change it up, add a fruit and make sure all food included is fresh. You do this and you’ll be ¼ the way there. Breakfast is key to doing it like me. I’m still FAT when it comes to that part, oh yes!!
Contributors to my overall fitness plan
¼ = Water and Breakfast
½ = …….
¾ = …….
1 = …….
EXTRA LAZYfitness Tip of the Week: You can also use fruit as a substitute to drinking water as soon as you wake up. Fruit on an empty stomach gets the stomach ready to burn and acts as a great way to speed up metabolism and improve your appetite
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