"E" stands for Eating and Exercise - Managing your Habits. Wow, where do I even begin with this topic? For many of us, managing either is hard but managing both is a joke!! I guess I will start with exercise because for me that is the easier of the two.
I think the number one thing you have to do is evaluate where you are at right now. If you don't do anything now except daily activities, try adding in 10-15 minutes of walking. 10-15 minutes that's it - for now! And it doesn't matter where you walk!! Walk out side, walk up and down stairs, walk at Wal-mart, walk circles around your house - it doesn't matter as long as you are consistently moving for 10-15 minutes! If you know that you can go out and run 1/2 mile - then for goodness sake go do it. You have to know where you are right now, to know how you can increase your movements to make improvement. I personally like group exercise classes. They give me someone to compete with and I have someone to tell me what to do. I certainly can't (don't) motivate myself, but if someone is telling me what to do I am a lot more likely to keep it up. If you don't like going alone, find a friend or someone that you want to be friends with and ask them to exercise with you. This helps to keep you accountable. You are a lot more likely to go do your workout if you know someone is waiting for you!
Exercise is such a mental thing. I know that some people physically CAN'T exercise because of injuries, illnesses, etc., but you have to be careful not to let yourself use your hurts as an excuse. Guess what? It hurts me to exercise too sometimes, but I do it because I know that I need to in order to be healthier. Your level of exercise may not be what mine is or it might be more than mine, and either way that does not matter at all!! Do what you can do. You just have to do it. You really do have to have a change of heart and mind when it comes to exercise, if you have never really consistently exercised before. So much of exercise is telling yourself that you can do it and that you will do it! The more you try, the more you will succeed. It may not look pretty at first (OK seriously it probably WON'T look pretty at first), but just remember that you will get past the awkward stage. This is also another good reason to have an exercise buddy; so you can laugh at each other - it takes the stress off!
Time, or lack of it, has got to be one of the most popular excuses not to exercise. It really doesn't take a lot of time to have a successful workout. Just doing more than you are doing now is all you really need. If you can strive to get 3 workouts that last 30 minutes in each week that is a great healthy start. I am a 3 a week consistent exerciser. I have a really horrible time doing more than three workouts a week! My goal right now is to do five per week. So far I haven't been able make that goal, but I am still trying. Once I get to that goal where I have 5 days of exercise, then I have to build on that and strive to make it an every week thing. And then once I meet that challenge, then I will have to take it to the next level to keep pushing myself and challenging myself. So evaluate where you are and increase, just a little bit - you don't want to go crazy at first, to get started with an exercise program. Most likely, you will learn to love it!
Now on to managing food. Eating is the hardest thing for me to control! We live in a world that encourages XL portions, extra helpings, unhealthy, yummy food, and I tend to take full advantage of that! What I am beginning to learn is that, Just as a parent will tell a child NO to protect him and keep him safe, we also must tell ourselves NO to keep us healthy. This is a foreign concept almost! I mean if I want it, I'm darn well gonna get it! There is no saying NO! That has to change. If I don't use some self-control, and give up some of the foods and portion sizes that I want, I will never win this battle with my weight. I know that God is here to help me, but I also know that I have to do my part!
I don't believe that any food should ever be completely "off-limit", because if it is you are going to want it that much more! I'm just saying choose wisely and limit those unhealthy food to only eating them occasionally! Just like with exercise, make your changes gradually if you need to. If you normally have dessert 2 times a day, seven days a week cut it down to once per day, four days a week. Wow, just look at all the calories you have cut out, while still enjoying dessert. And then cut it down to only once a week, and then maybe only to once every other week. Have lots of color on your plate; Green beans, yellow squash, sweet red peppers, orange carrots. Green kiwi, yellow bananas, red strawberries, oranges, purple grapes. Eat only lean cuts of red meats. Trim away excess fat before cooking. Grill, broil, bake. Use healthy oils like Extra Virgin Olive Oil and fats from nuts. Use non-hydrogenated margarine/butter, reduced fat milk,cheese and yogurts.
You really can eat anything, just limit how often you eat the unhealthy stuff. Choose the healthier foods first and most often. And one of the hardest things for me to do - limit your quantities. If you have to, pack away your dinner plates for a few weeks and use salad plates. Use measuring cups and spoons and even a food scale until you have a better visual of how much to eat at each sitting. Restaurant portions are not normal, healthy portions!!
So how do we turn all of this into reality? It goes back to telling ourselves NO. No to chocolate, potato chips, and dessert everyday. No to extra full plates and second helpings. It goes back to having the responsibility to ourselves to want to have a healthier life and making choices that show it. It's not fun, it's not easy, but it is necessary. I know a lot of the right answers, and the healthy foods that I should choose. So for me it is all about NO. I have a secret, that may not be much of a secret to some, but I LOVE MCDONALD'S!!! And man does it ever show!! Does being healthy and making healthy choices mean that I can never eat at McDonald's again - of course not. I just have to make wise choices to not eat there everyday or even every week. McDonald's has recently become my occasional restaurant choice!
So managing your eating and exercise habits is mainly about evaluating where you are at right now and improving on that. The changes don't all have to happen overnight, but you do need to work on gradual, consistent changes. This is the healthy way! This is the way to lasting, lifelong change!
