Kettle Bell Workout - Lower

Day 17

Boy, am I sore today. My back muscles are still pretty tender, as are my triceps. This might seem a little odd to some, but I love being sore. It makes me feel like I have actually accomplished something. It makes me feel like I am getting stronger and if I continue down this path, good things are sure to follow.

Yesterday I did great with my eating and I am really starting to see how much more energy I have when I exercise and eat right. People always tell you that, but it’s hard sometimes to get your butt off the couch and just do it. Every time I have started a healthy lifestyle change I always feel so great, in fact I feel great up until the point that I falter and let my sell fall back out of what I had created. So far, this blog has really helped me stay on track with my goals and it gives me a sense of accountability. I don’t think many people read this, or even know I have this going on and that is ok with me. I am trying to make this blog something that keeps me motivated. I also want this to be something that I can look back on and see how far I have come.

Anyway, back on topic. Today I am going to be working on lower body and other abdominal exercises with kettle bells. There won’t be any rocket science moves here, they are all pretty easy. With the exercises being easy, it will be important to maintain good form.

The first exercise will be a basic squat holding the kettle bell at shoulder height. The important thing about the squat is you want your back to remain straight and your knees to stay in line with toes. It can be very harmful to your knees if you don’t keep good form.


The second exercise I will do it the lunge. Much like above, good form is essential. You still want to keep your knees in line with your feet and maintain good posture throughout.

For a more challenging exercise, I will do the one leg dead lift. For this, you will start with one food planted on the ground and leg straight (but be careful not to over extend your knee – there should be an ever so slight bend in the leg so your muscles are engaged and you knee is protected). Your other leg starts slight behind you. You then lower your body to the ground (with a straight back) and lift your back leg at the same time. Once you have lowered as far as a straight back allows you, come back up and bring you leg back down, again, at the same time. This will not only work you hamstrings, but due to the balance aspect, it will engage your core muscles as well.

Moving into the abs workout, I am going to attempt the Turkish get up. To start you lay flat on the ground (hopefully Skeeter will behave this time) with your arms extend straight over your head, with the kettle bell. You will then essential stand up and move into a lunge then reverse. The picture below can explain it a lot better than I can!

The next exercise will be the kettle bell swing. This will work pretty much the entire body, but will focus on the core and lower. For this exercise you essential swing the kettle bell between your legs, then bring it up to about shoulder height, maybe slightly higher. The important thing to remember is to not let momentum do all the work. You really want to engage your core and legs to bring the kettle bell up. Naturally, it will take some momentum to get the kettle bell up, but if you lose your form, the target muscles might not get worked.
The last workout for this section is the halo. To start you want your feet a little wider than hip distance about. Bring the kettle bell over your head. Then you will do circles (like a halo) around your head in one direction. Once that direction is complete, reverse and do the same number of small circles in the other direction. This will work you core and lower back.


This is definitely going to be a tough workout today and I am planning to go to hot yoga afterwards to relax and re-energize. Full update tomorrow!!

Upper Kettle Bell Work Out Update

Day 16

I started my day off with another smoothie yesterday. I just can’t seem to wake myself up early enough to make anything much more elaborate than that. I did boil eggs on Sunday to have a fast breakfast the rest of the week. The good news is, this morning I was able to get up and eat two hard boiled eggs and two slices of turkey bacon. I also splurged slightly and got a triple grande skinny vanilla latte (oops)!

I got kettle bell exercise in and boy was it interesting. For starters, I recommend that if you have a cat named Skeeter who likes to be involved in everything you do, lock him up if you plan on being on the floor or using the kettle bell. As you can see, he wanted in on all the action!

Anyway, overall the work out was great and pretty tough. I need to go purchase a lighter weight kettle bell for some exercises due to my strength not being up to the 15 pound mark. The windmill in particular was too difficult for 15 pounds. I was able to get one set on each arm before I had to change to my 5 pound free weight. The 15 pounds was putting too much pressure on my shoulder and I was a little worried that it was going to just pop out (at least that’s what it felt like)! The great thing about kettle bell exercises is that most of them can be done with free weights as well. The grip might be a little different, but the same muscles are being used.

Today I am feeling a little soreness in my lower back muscles, which is awesome!! That is the love handle/muffin top area that I don’t necessarily have as a major concern at the moment, but it’s something I want to prevent!

By the end of the work out I was pretty sweaty which, again is a good thing. With only six exercises I felt that I could really focus on each one and make sure I am going them correctly and still get it all done in 30 minutes or less. Time is valuable, so the fact that you can get a great strength training work out in such a short time is nice.

I also went to hot yoga last night which just calms and relaxes me.

Overall, it was a great day and I felt really good with what I accomplished. By doing the exercises I ate healthy and actually enjoyed it. Hopefully I can keep this up!!

Tomorrow I will give the run down on lower body exercises using the kettle bell.

Have a great “healthy” day everyone!!

Weekend and Upper Body Kettle Bell Workout

Day 15

Well the weekend is over and overall, I did….ok. I always find the weekends to be the hardest to stay on track and focused on the healthy life style that I am trying to get accustomed to. This weekend was especially hard.

I love my future mother-in-law’s (MIL) cooking! The funny thing is, she doesn’t like to cook. I think the reason it is so good is that it is pure Midwest home cooking! That said, there is NOTHING healthy about it. On Thursday night she made enchiladas. They were so good and I will be making them again for Andrew. The good thing about them is that they were super filling and I only ate one, until Andrew’s dad pushed the plate my way….then I had another half of one. I had a serving of rice and some delicious homegrown tomatoes! I tried to fill up on the tomatoes and I think that helped my urge to eat more enchiladas!

On Friday I did pretty good as well. I had an English muffin and banana for breakfast and a grilled chicken sandwich for lunch. Then came the rehearsal dinner. It was a cookout style dinner with hamburgers, potato salad, etc. I did pretty well, until the sundae bar open. I only had one scope of ice cream and put some peanuts on top to make me feel better about the calories I was eating.

Saturday came and I had another English muffin for breakfast…..and then we went to Connie’s (future MIL) family reunion. The food was oh so good, and I indulged quite a bit. The good thing is, when the wedding came around I didn’t eat very much because I was just not hungry after the huge lunch we had.

The wedding was a blast and I was so glad to hang out with Andrew’s friends (which I have come to consider my own friends as well). I always have a great time with this group and the wedding was no exception. We are all pretty spread out, and I wish that we were closer and could do reunions of this sort more than just weddings! The next time we get together will probably be our wedding and I know that we will have a great time there as well!

On to this week’s topic. I recently purchased a kettle bell and I am very excited to learn how to use it. I have some experience with them, but the exercises I do are mostly the ones I have seen others do at the gym. I want to get three kettle bell workouts in this week. I know that you should alternate your works outs (i.e. upper body and lower body) so I want to get an upper body and abs workout in tonight. I am also planning on going to my hot yoga class, so hopefully I won’t be too wiped out.

I first exercise in my upper body routine will be a floor press that will work the chest muscles. My like bench presses you start lying on the floor and alternate pushing the arms up with the kettle bell in hand.

Next I will do an alternating shoulder press by standing and raising the kettle bell over my head.


The last upper body exercise will be the tricep press. This is pretty much the same as a free weight tricep press, except you hold on to the kettle bell.



Now, on to abs. The first exercise in this series will be the windmill. In this exercise you start with the kettle bell raised over your head. You then reach down to the floor with the opposite arm, keeping the kettle bell raised to the ceiling . This will work the obliques.

The next abdominal exercise will be the figure eight. In this exercise you pretty much move the kettle bell in a figure eight motion around your legs. You have to alternate the hand you kettle bell is in while you are doing the motion.


I will end the work out sit ups holding the kettle bell to my chest to give more resistance.

I plan to do two sets of 12 reps of each exercise list. Wish me luck! I will give a full report tomorrow!

Weekly Update

Day 11

I am happy to announce that I am still soda free for almost two weeks AND I have been able to get a good breakfast in every morning this week. I definitely think breakfast will be a much bigger challenge for me to continue past this week. I have made a point to keep it up, mostly for the blog, and am getting a little worried that I might fall short once the weekly goal has changed.

Due to my fear on that, I have decided that once a week I will give an update on all my past goals and how they are going and challenges that I may be facing. The important thing about falling off the wagon is making sure they you get back on it quickly! That is usually where my issues arise. I tend to slip just a little and instead of recovering and letting that be a one- time incident, I keep going down the path of destruction and end up, well, where I am now, frustrated and confused on where I went wrong.

My first week goal was a pretty easy one; don’t drink soda of any kind. I have maintained that goal, but it hasn’t always been easy. As I have mentioned, I was never an extreme soda drinker, but I usually had on 16 ounce bottle of some sort of diet soda for lunch most days. I figured that drinking so little soda in a day; it shouldn’t be that hard right? WRONG! Currently, I am experience pretty intense headaches right around lunch time and my suspicion is the culprit is the caffeine that my body is craving. I typically start my day with coffee and skim milk with a pack of Splenda (and that is one thing I won’t be giving up, I still have to function) but I never realized how much my body was depending on the mid afternoon caffeine that I was giving it in the form of diet soda. The good news is that with two Aleve and time, the headaches are becoming weaker. I know that they will eventually stop, but it has made me wonder about my headaches in the past. Typically I would pass them off as just a headache but I am starting to see now that some bad habits could be causing me “pain.” I put pain in quotes because it isn’t debilitating, just annoying but never the less it is pain. I am proud of myself for not giving in to the temptation for soda, even when I realized the culprit for my daily lunch headaches. Once I get past these headaches I don’t see any huge obstacles coming my way. The only real issue I can see is going somewhere that only soda is being served. In this day and age, I don’t see that being a huge problem, but if it occurs, I will just have to take it on at that time.

My week two goal, as you have read, is to eat a healthy breakfast every morning. As I mentioned earlier, this is definitely something that I can see falling. The lack of wanting to wake up and make breakfast some days is going to really get me, but I am going to work hard to make this happen, no matter what! Even if the option is dry cereal or a breakfast bar of some sort, there is no excuse anymore to skip breakfast or fall into the unhealthy trap again. I think that continuing to blog about this will make me more accountable for keeping up the good breakfast habit, but I want to be realistic. There are going to be times that I just don’t commit to a good breakfast. I just need to let that be a one day occurrence and fix the issue the next day.

This will be the last post this week because we are going to a wedding this weekend, which screams unhealthy. I will give a full report on Monday!

This is the exact kettle bell that I bought!

Next week is going to be all about…….kettle bells!! I just bought my very own kettle bell because I have heard they are a great workout. The only problem is, I really don’t know how to use it. So I am going to look up all the different ways to use the kettle bell and my goal will be to do the exercises I find three times a week. As I go through this journey, this isn’t a goal I intend on keeping. I am going to be learning a lot of different exercise, but I want to keep the kettle bells in the rotation.

Breakfast Ideas

Day 10

I stuck with another smoothie this morning and it was, again, delicious. I was going to try and make a delicious egg white breakfast burrito, but they are currently doing construction on the main bridge to get to work. This is going to create some challenges on my quest for healthy breakfasts! Basically I am going to either have to get into work around 6:30 every morning or sit in traffic for an hour…I choose to get in early, which means I might be even more rushed in the mornings. I need to commit to waking up 15 minutes early to prepare better breakfasts, but having a quick 3 minute smoothie in my back pocket isn’t a bad thing!

This brings me to my post for today. One of the main reasons that I am not a huge breakfast fan is due to the fact that there aren’t a lot of fast options that I can make work during a hectic week. I love to cook and breakfast can be so amazing when you have the real time to make it happen, but when I wake up and need to rush to work, let’s face it, I need something fast.

Today I am looking into some quick, easy and healthy breakfast recipes that I can use to during the week to meet my goal of having a good breakfast every morning.

The first thing I found is a Peanut Butter Waffle. After heating up the waffle, spread two tablespoons of peanut butter on top and your done! This will add a lot of protein to your breakfast and will hopefully fill you up until lunch!

Another great morning recipe is steel-cut oatmeal with blueberries and almonds!! All you have to do is heat up the oatmeal according to the package instructions, throw in some blueberries (or my favorite, raspberries) and slivered almonds and you have a good heart breakfast that will for sure keep you full! I like my oatmeal on the sweet side, so I would probably add a packet of no calorie sweetener, like Splenda, to give it a little more sweetness!

Something I tend to make often is smoothies. Typically, I make these after a workout or for a low calorie snack, but I am starting to realize how good they can be for breakfast. I mentioned a new recipe yesterday and another favorite of mine is just plain old strawberry banana! I take frozen strawberries, plain low fat yogurt and a banana and blend until smooth! It’s great!

For a short time I did Weight Watchers and even though it wasn’t the program for me, I gained a lot of knowledge and tricks that I still used today! One of those is a cupcake/muffin recipe that is great for a snack or breakfast. All you need is a premade cake mixture (like Sara Lee or Pillsbury) and a can of pureed pumpkin. Mix those two together with just a splash of water and bake according to the cake instructions. These are so delicious, very low in calories, high in fiber, and will definitely fill you up!

Boiled eggs are also an option. Typically for this, I will boil all the eggs on Sunday, before the week starts, so they will be available to me throughout the week. I like to make a rough chopped egg salad with three boiled egg whites and only one yolk. The yolk is the “bad” part of the egg, but gives a lot of flavor and texture to the salad. I then add a tablespoon of low fat mayo, salt and pepper to taste then spread on a whole wheat English muffin or toast. This is another good breakfast that is pretty quick and adds a lot of the “good” stuff into your diet.

I think the main thing I am taking away from today is that there are a ton of options for quick and healthy breakfasts once you really sit down a think. I have found that planning is an absolute must! I knew that I was going to have a smoothie at one point this week, so I already had all the ingredients I needed. I tend to make bad decisions when it comes to breakfast when I just don’t have everything I need to enjoy a good breakfast. Keeping a box of high fiber (low sugar) cereal can also be the key for those days when you have jut forgotten to go to the grocery store.

Bad Effects of No Breakfast

Day 9

Good news! I stuck to eating a good breakfast this morning! The reason this is such good news for me is due to the fact that I was completely rushed trying to get ready and out the door. There was a huge storm this morning, so it wasn’t very light outside when I was trying to wake up (this always makes it harder for me). I was going to just throw a waffle in the toaster (which with other items might not be so bad) but I told myself that I was going to make a little more effort. I made the best and most filling smoothie every! I really don’t know the exact proportions of everything I threw in there, but the run down is as such;

Dark Chocolate Almond Milk
Peanut Butter
Plain low fat yogurt
Banana
Ice

I got the inspiration for this from my good friend Sara, who is always whipping up something special in the kitchen. I can’t believe how full I felt after drinking the smoothie (on the go no less). Lunch time came around and I wasn’t even hungry. This just goes to show that taking an extra 5 minutes in the morning to whip up a breakfast isn’t that hard and can be very filling and delicious!

In trying to find some motivation for having a good breakfast every morning, I decided to start my research with the “bad” effects of skipping breakfast.

The first key negative effect is that there is a link to skipping breakfast and obesity. One of the main reasons for this is due to the fact that if your skip breakfast you are more like to snack and consume larger meals throughout the day.

Another issue that comes up with skipping breakfast could be fatigue. This one impacts me directly! I already have issues with mood swings and irritability, but having something make me tired to create even bigger mood swings and irritability is no good thing. No eating breakfast can make you body feel tired and therefore increase the occurrence of the above issue. I don’t know what scientific proof there might be for this, but my theory is that eating breakfast when you wake up allows you to sort of ease into the day. Typically, when I wake up I am rushing to get ready and, if I eat anything at all, it’s in the car on the way to work. Making a good breakfast, and sitting down for even 5 minutes to eat it, really relaxes me and gives me a chance to breath in the morning. I have to agree with this impact that not eating breakfast can bring a tired feeling today your day, and for me, create an all around bad mood.

Another effect I found was reduced cognitive and memory skills. Most of this research was focused on children and there are some that don’t believe not eating breakfast impacts adults in the same way. I have to say that I can see how skipping breakfast can lessen these impacts of adults. I think the main reason they might not be seen as much as in children is due to the fact that we, as adults, don’t necessarily learn new skills on a daily basis. We might expand our current knowledge on a topic, but most of us aren’t sitting in class all day growing out cognitive abilities. I would think this relates to the tired effect. If you are tired, I can’t imagine your memory and cognitive skills will be at their sharpest.

Overall, I didn’t find a TON of information on the bad impacts of not eating breakfast. This might be a similar case of my moderate diet soda intake. It isn’t necessarily bad for you to not eat breakfast, but it isn’t a healthy way of living. I will find out more once I research the positive impacts of eating a healthy breakfast, which I have a strong feeling will have a lot more information!

Breakfast!!

Day 8

Well the weekend was a success, kind of. I didn’t have any soda, which was huge because I ate out a few times and was able to resist the, what used to be, automatic gesture to get a diet coke. I didn’t exactly eat very healthy, nor did I work out, but I made better decisions than I have in the past, so it’s all about the baby steps!

The blog is a good tool to keep me accountable and it makes me really try to get things going in the right direction. I am glad I stuck to my week one no soda goal, but the hard part isn’t over yet. I have to keep that goal in the back of my mind until it becomes second nature to go for the alternative.

This week, as I mentioned Friday, is going to focus on Breakfast. I love breakfast food, but I don’t always do a great job of making the healthy choices and eating it at all. My goal for this week (and all weeks moving forward) is to eat a healthy, balanced breakfast every morning. I am going to research all different aspects of breakfast and try to become more aware of healthy options that are out there.

This morning I didn’t wake up as early as I wanted to, but I knew that my goal was to eat a better breakfast and that I did blog readers. I fought it the whole way, but I had two egg whites scrambled, two slices turkey bacon and coffee with sugar free French vanilla non-dairy creamer. I must admit that I was not going to make breakfast because I was short on time, but I had to get it done for the blog. So far it is 10 am and I am still not hungry from my breakfast! I think I could have added a little more to the breakfast to round it out a little more, but for my first attempt this week, I think I did pretty dang good.

Some of the main questions that I want to answer this week are; why is breakfast “the most important meal” of the day? What are some quick and easy recipes? What is a balanced breakfast? What is the downside to not eating breakfast, or not eating a good breakfast?

I know that eating a healthy breakfast is a crucial part to a healthy lifestyle, but I just don’t understand why. After this week, I hope to answer all of these questions and more!

Day 5

Well, I made it through the work week with no soda! I will consider that a small victory, but I still have two more days to complete the whole week. The weekend is typically the worst time for me when it comes to being healthy, so I am hoping that I can stay committed to not drinking soda and make it the whole week!

Today, I am just going to go through some of the feelings, thoughts and roadblocks that I had and some that I might feel will come up moving forward. At work, it isn’t that difficult to resist soda when I bring my lunch. The main reason for that is because when I go to heat up my lunch, I don’t bring any money with me. This is good for me because it lessens the urge to buy a soda. I did really well this week of bringing in my lunch, which is not only financial beneficial, but also helps my waistline. My worry going forward are the days that I forget my lunch or just don’t bring it and how I would be able to resist the soda when I am forced to buy something. That is when I typically get in trouble. I haven’t had to deal with that yet, but I know that is something I need to be careful with.

My main complaint this week with no soda is that I never felt that my thirst was completely quenched. I know that is odd with the amount of water I consumed, but let’s be honest, I just want more sometimes. I know I gave a lot of options in a previous post about other things to drink, but sometimes there is nothing like a nice cold Diet Coke. I need to start preparing a little more and bringing more variety of beverages to work. I just get bored with water and it gets hard to drink when you are only doing it for the sake of drinking water. I do worry a little about this as well. Getting bored is the worst thing when it comes to me being healthy. It is when I tend to deviated from my plan and begin indulging in my bad habits. As I move through this process, I am going to have to be more inventive and constantly come up with new ideas of food and beverage options to continue my healthy habits.

The last thing that generally concerns me is the ability to sustain not drinking soda. Typically, I begin drinking soda again once I have lost some weight and gain confidence. I think that a soda here or there won’t really hurt anything. The truth is, based on my history; this needs to be a long term decision to avoid soda entirely. There are always other options available, even if it is just water. It’s almost like soda is my gateway drug. As soon as I start drinking it again, I start allowing myself to indulge in other unhealthy habits and soon enough, I am back where I started and upset that I let myself fall back into my old self.

I won’t be blogging over the weekend, but will give a full report on Monday about how it went. We are going to visit a friend and there are sure to be some soda challenges that come up!

For next week, I think I am going to focus on breakfast. Breakfast is something that I truly love, but often times do a terrible job with eat the right things. Sometimes I skip breakfast, which I know is not good for me, and most times when I do eat something, it isn’t very well balanced. My goal for the week, along with continuing no soda, will be to wake up with enough time to fix myself a solid, well balanced breakfast. As the week goes on, I hope to research why breakfast is so important and some new ideas on how to make sure I am getting what I need in the mornings.

Wish me luck over the weekend!!

Bad Side Effects of Diet Soda

Day 4

Another day down….another soda not had!

Overall yesterday was a really good day for me. I had one slip up with some chips and salsa. Basically I have been trying to find a specific salsa that is supposed to be fabulous for the last two or three weeks. I went to the store last night to pick up a few things and low and behold it was there, so I just had to get it! Well, I indulged a little, but was able to stop myself and move away from the bag of chips!!

As I am trying to get diet soda out of my daily routine I really want to know if it’s necessary. Could drinking diet soda really impact my health? I did some digging and found some interesting information on the internet about the effects that only 2 servings (that’s one bottle) of soda can do.

Something I never thought of is how diet soda might be affecting my kidneys. According to a 2009 Nurses ’Health Study, drinking only 2 servings of soda a day can reduce our kidneys ability to filter blood by almost 30%. When you think about what a small amount of soda that is, I am shocked. When you go to a restaurant and order soda, the serving size is probably at least two, and how many people get a refill? I know I do, almost every time! Bottom line is, while the impact might not be permanent, it is still a factor to consider when choosing what I want to drink on a daily basis!

Another surprising impact of diet soda is that it could actually cause weight gain. Yes, I said that right, weight gain. The main question here is how can a zero calorie beverage create weight gain? From what I have read there are two main reason that this may be the case. First, is that some people make the assumption that is they are drinking diet soda; it won’t her to “biggie” size their French fries. I have to say, I am guilty of this. You figure, why not? In this situation, you would almost be better off to get a regular soda and keep the fry size to a small! The second reason diet soda might cause weight gain is due to the sweet flavor almost tricking your body into expect calories. Having the sweet taste of diet soda and no calories for our bodies to expect can increase our appetite, and much like above, make us eat more than we normally would. After reading this I realized how true this is! Sometimes when I get hungry I will grab a diet soda from the vending machine and still be hungry.

The next effect isn’t all that surprising to me, but diet soda can damage our tooth enamel. The acid content in the soda can eat away at our tooth enamel which cannot be replaced! If this happens too much, tooth decay can become an issue! Gross!

The last major impact I found is bone loss. For women especially, this is a side effect that scares me. My grandmother has osteoporosis and it is something that I just don’t want to experience. The phosphoric acid essentially removes the calcium from your bloodstream and bones have to basically give their calcium to your blood in order to maintain a constant level.

These are just a few of impacts that diet soda can have on your body. I am no expert and can’t validate any of the information I have found online, but the research I have done is enough to make me shy away from my diet soda consumption.

I have done really well so far this week and the real test will happen over the weekend why it is a lot easier to grab a soda and run. As far as food has gone this week there are a few things that I could change with my snacking issues, which we will talk about another week, but overall I have made better decisions.

That’s all for today! Tomorrow will be the last day of my soda week and so far, I think I have enough information to keep me away from soda for a while! Let’s hope this is one habit I can break!

Soda Replacement

Day 3

Another day down with no soda! I was never a heavy soda drinker, maybe one per day, but I am still counting this as a success. It is the small goals that you can meet that will build confidence to continue forward. I have tried in the past to focus on my end goal and, clearly, it hasn’t worked out for me. I think this is mostly because I have nothing to get excited about in the near term. If I have a bad week I get frustrated that I will never reach my end goal. For now, that is why I am setting short, weekly goals that I can meet and feel proud about.

Today I am struggling with what I can replace soda with. The amount of soda I am drinking isn’t going to create weight gain, and truly isn’t an unhealthy habit, but I am hoping to find better alternatives outside of just plain water. There are some days that I crave water and can drink it so easily, there are other days, like today, that I just want more flavor and substance. When I get to this point, I usually grab the diet cherry soda and feel fulfilled for the day. There are a few things that I have tried in the past that I really like and will start to stock up on.

1) Crystal Light – Crystal Light really hit is big when they introduced the mini packets of juice powder that you can simply pour into your water bottle and shake up for a nice change to the water routine. The thing I love about this is you can get a lot of flavor for only 5 calories. Also, Crystal Light has a ton of naturally refreshing flavors like lemonade (several varieties) and fruit punch, etc.


2) Mio – This is a pretty new product and it is right near the Crystal Light. This stuff is pretty awesome because it has zero calories per serving, which is pretty awesome. Also, the reason I love this stuff is you can put as little or as much as you want. If you are looking for just a little flavor then a little squeeze will do, but if you want something more intense, you can add more. It is really up to what you what you want in the flavor intensity scale.

3) Diet Green Tea – There are a ton of brands that have diet green tea and I like them all. The important thing is to make sure you get the diet. Regular bottle green tea is PACKED with sugar and calories. There are also flavored varieties and hot green tea is a great substitute as well.

4) Milk – I personally like skim milk (which is a good thing) but I need to drink it more often. This would be a great substitute for dinner when water just isn’t going to cut it. You will get a good serving of calcium and studies have shown that an 8 ounce serving of milk a day can promote not only weight loss, but healthy lifestyle in general.

5) Juice – this is a good option, but again, you have to be careful about the calories. They make a lot of low sugar juices these days, and I would recommend those! Juice can be loaded with sugar and calories, so keep an eye out for deceiving products.

The main thing I am taking away from this post is that there are a lot of ways to have a tasty drink without drinking soda. It can be hard sometimes, especially with how convenient it is to pick up a soda, pretty much everywhere. Preparing for the day is really a must. I have started carrying around crystal light packets so I can have something more than just water at any time.

Water

Day 2

This is not a diet, I repeat, this is not a diet. This is an affirmation that I have to keep telling myself today. I am tired of going on diets and I have said it before but I need to really believe it, this is a lifestyle change. If I want to be healthy and get away from this natural desire for unhealthy foods, I need to realize that diet implies a onetime thing, being healthy needs to be for a lifetime. I have decided that I am not going to come up with a weight “goal” because then it becomes, again, a onetime push to get where I want to be, and at this point I have been there and done that. It just doesn’t work. I think if I can continue to work towards a healthier lifestyle, then I will eventually be at a body weight that I am comfortable with.

I have scheduled a physical with my doctors, couldn’t get in for over a month, to go over my current health stats and identify any areas that he might see that I need to focus on. I want to emphasize that this is to become healthier and not just to lose weight. Technically, I am in the right weight range for my height, being 5’10’ does have some advantages, but I know that some progress can be made.

I was able to resist soda yesterday and take in a lot of water. The saying goes if you are thirsty, you are already dehydrated. This is my number one issue. I am thirsty a lot of times during the day, but for some reason, I don’t drink enough water. There are so many good reasons to drink water, especially over soda. Obviously, water is good for weight loss yea, but it can give you more energy, cleanse you body, and give you healthy glowing skin, just to name a few.
I know that I need to drink more water and finding ways to ensure this happens is something that I have never been good at. I found a few tips on the internet that might help me stay focused and on track.

1) Drink a class of water as soon as you wake up on the morning (I haven’t been able to do this yet, but I plan to start this tomorrow and try to continue through the rest of the week.)

2) Drink a class of water before every meal (Not only is this supposed to help you get your water intake, it also can help you to eat less during your meal because you will feel “full” faster. )

3) Drink a class of water before you go to bed (I know that this is a good rule of thumb, but I will be honest, I don’t want to wake up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom – I like my sleep…BUT I will try it none the less. )

4) Keep water with you at all times. (I thought his one would be easy for me because I love water bottles and have way to many, but I am struggling to not only keep a water bottle on me, but to actually drink it!)

I didn’t get a workout in yesterday because I had a meeting than ran over and I missed my yoga class. That is 100% the worst excuse ever, but I let myself believe it none the less. I thought I could go for a run, but to be honest, as soon as I got in my apartment, I didn’t want to leave.

Dinner last night was pretty successful…until the snacking happened. One of the major things I need to learn about becoming healthy is how to stop the snacking, or in the least, have better snacking options available. I have some saltines in my cupboard and as soon as I got bored, I went to eat them. As I mentioned yesterday, I knew that I should be eating them, but for some reason….I couldn’t stop! Luckily, saltines are THAT bad for you, but still, it is extra calories that I just don’t need! I also had a smoothie with dinner with plain, non-fat yogurt, frozen strawberries and a banana (again, not bad, but was it needed…maybe not).

Part of the reason I am doing this blog is to really learn more about how to eat better. I tend to starve myself on about 500 calories until dinner comes around, then I am so hungry that I eat more than I need to eat dinner. Hopefully, as time goes by I will learn a little more about what is right and what is wrong with my eating habits!

The Journey Begins

Day 1

Well, here we go again. My life consists of yo-yo dieting. I feel like I lose weight only so that I can gain it again, only so I can lose it again and the cycle just doesn’t stop. I don’t get why I can’t figure it out and lose the weight and keep it off. I know what my problem is; I am addicted to foods that are not good for me. Even when a food is good for me, I indulge in it to the point where it becomes bad. As soon as I have one bite of a greasy French fry, it’s over. I know it might seem crazy that I say I have an addiction to food, but there is no other way to describe it. I know that eating a bag of chips is bad for me and as I walk to the cupboard to get the bag, I know that it’s wrong and I say to myself, you shouldn’t be doing this, but I do anyway. What is it that makes me do that? There has to be some sort of addiction or high that I get from the food that outweighs the consequence of gaining weight. It’s hard to explain the feelings that come from eating to those who don’t have a problem. I wish I could eat anything and not feel guilty. I wish I could make the right decisions without having to think about them. How do you get to the point where you don’t have to consciously make an effort to eat right?

I am going to try and take a different approach. It is clear that I need to re-train my brain to be healthier and live a life style that I truly want to live. I am going to set weekly goals for myself, not so much weight loss goals, but goals for a better, healthier life in general. I think what this mostly boils down to is I have created a lot of bad habits in my life surround food, exercise and all things healthy. I get on a kick then I stop and don’t do it anymore. Experts say that it takes 21 days to break or create a habit. Each week I am going to list a habit that I would either like to form, or break. I am going to document my difficulties, triumphs and feelings throughout the process.

In addition, each week I am going to research once aspect of health and try to gain as much knowledge as possible so I can better understand why it is so important, not only to eat healthy and exercise, but what does it all mean. What is protein and why do we need it? Is it healthy to be a vegetarian? How much exercise is too much exercise? These are the kinds of questions that I want to find answers too!

My hope for this is to eventually become a health nut. I want to be one of those people that people think of as healthy. I want to be able to give advice and share in the struggles that people going through what I am right now. It boils down to living this live style isn’t making me happy. I now that thousands of people share my feelings and inner turmoil of wanting a change and not quite knowing how to make it happen. This blog is mostly for me, to be a constant reminder of where I am and how far I will have come, hopefully.

This week my habit to break will be soda. I typically don’t drink a ton of soda, so I am hoping that this will be a relatively easy habit to break. I never drink regular soda, growing up my mom always had diet so it’s just what I like. I typically drink it because I just want something more than water and juice has too many calories. This week I want to get to the bottom of the question, is Diet soda really bad for you?