Tuesday, March 14, 2017

How to Eat Healthier Without Going Crazy

I have to start off today's post by saying thank you so much for all the positive responses I received last week on this post. It's nice to know that everyone has their own struggle with a healthy lifestyle and have seen success with lifestyle changes as well!

As promised, I said I want to share some of the things I'm trying out and seeing some positive results with. This will probably be a once or twice a week type post - I'm not going full healthy living blogger over here ;)

For today's post, I'm just going to share the eating changes I've made. It goes without saying that I'm no dietician so this may not work for everyone, but I tried to do a little research before jumping into something.


So whenever you want a new recipe, cute decor ideas for your office, workout routine or the perfect outfit for your new skirt, where do you go? Pinterest, of course. And that's exactly where I went.
Like, c'mon, who wants cauliflower nachos?!
Talk about overwhelming. That place can be really scary. I mean just type "healthy recipes" or "lose weight" into the search bar and try not to freak out. You'll end up eating just cabbage soup for a week or snacking on celery all day. Neither of those sounded appealing to me, so I needed a different option.

A friend of mine had the meal plans for Kayla Itsines' Bikini Body Guide and the base plan for Tone It Up that she so nicely let me peruse. Personally, I found Kayla's guide a little more difficult to use (partially because it's in the metric systems and we Americans aren't always great at that), but I have used some of the recipes.

The TIU plan is aggressive. But, I found it pretty manageable once I got into it. I'm not following it to a T, by any means, I mean look at this yumminess:
Here is what I am doing, though:

Breakfast: The meal plan suggests things like smoothies, egg white omelets with lots of veggies, hearty oatmeal, etc. I hate mornings so this isn't ideal for me. I tried some pre made egg cups, but that was a fail somehow.

I've been eating Belvita breakfast bars and it seems to still be working fine for me. When I'm really hungry, I add a banana.

Snack: My morning snack is typically a piece of fruit - my go to's being an apple or banana. A banana is quite delicious with a bit of natural peanut butter dipped in chia seeds. Try it.

Lunch: This ranges the most for me. I've done leftovers from dinner, quinoa salads (I plan to share some recipes), tuna salad, salmon salad and other meals that are very high in protein.

Snack: The afternoon snack is meant to be the boost for the after work workout session. My current favorite is carrots and hummus or guacamole. I've also gone with celery and peanut butter or an RX bar. And honestly, if I ever miss a meal, it's normally this one because the day gets away from me.

Dinner: Honestly, this is the hardest for me. I'm a huge fan of lots of cream cheese, creamy soups, fried foods and more for dinner. As is Christian. And literally every night we had rice or potatoes with dinner.

The main change I made was switching out our normal rice/potatoes for quinoa and veggies. I've also started making a lot of fish: tilapia, mahi mahi and salmon. It's also given me a chance to try out a few new recipes with chicken and the crockpot. I'll share some of these, soon, too, but my favorite place for these recipes is Skinnytaste! I can't sing her praises enough.

Tone It Up also has a lot of recipes on their website that you can find that are all TIU approved (obviously) and I've made some of those as well!

In addition to these things, I've made a few other changes based on the TIU meal plan:

  • No fruit after lunch
  • No starches after 3p
  • WATER. This was huge for me - I suck at drinking water so I'm tracking it now with my Fitbit.
I think these three things made a world of difference. I thought the starches would be the hardest part, but I've made sure that when I break the rule, I break it HARD and then the other days are much easier. 

There you have it: the main diet changes I've made. I knew I couldn't go full force into "no carbs" or "no fat" or things like that. So giving myself leeway throughout the day, it makes it easier to tolerate the lack of mashed potatoes with my dinner. 

3 comments:

Miranda said...

Sounds like you have a good plan worked out! I find dinner to be the most difficult as well...I'll do my wheat toast for breakfast and salad for lunch, but then if my boyfriend and I don't pre-plan dinner I just want to find something awful to fill up on. We try to eat low carb dinners for the most part, and Pinterest has been a lifesaver in terms of providing low carb recipes that are actually delicious. (What did people do before Pinterest?)

Audrey Louise said...

One of my best friends lost a TON of weight and she told me the key is to eat proteins and other "good things" that your body can burn for energy. If you don't get those nutrients it doesn't matter how much or little you eat- your body will think you're starving.
That said, I SUCK at eating well and exercising. I'm also terrible at drinking water. I feel like THAT should be my first priority...

Unknown said...

These are awesome tips! I found that cutting out bread where I could made a big difference. Also limiting alcohol always helps.