Friday, April 19, 2013

Running & Eating

Yup, my mouth is watering, too. ;)

I'll be honest, in my quest to lose weight, I have tried almost every diet possible. From low-carb to no carb, raw foods, 5 small meals, 3 regular meals, even Slim Fast (totally gross and a bad choice in hindsight). Diets are also short term. The weight always comes back, sometimes more than you lost. I have a co-worker who will just say "I'm not going to eat any sugar for the next month" so she can lose some weight. I think she sticks to it (I can't say for sure), but I don't know if it works. Personally, I don't have enough self-control to continuously cut something out. I like food too much. ;) 
Thanksgiving is my favorite meal. Doesn't help that there are always leftovers.

It's a lifestyle change. For me, I try to balance a healthy diet, while still allowing myself guilty pleasures, with exercise. If I want to eat a donut, I will. I try to only eat half, which rarely happens. But I also don't beat myself up over it. Instead, I run a little longer to balance it out. If my pants start to get a little snug, I'll forgo the dessert and add in an extra day of exercise. It's a delicate balance and even my body will tell me when something is off. I notice if I've been eating horribly for a couple days with no exercise, I feel lethargic and just... blah. 

Dearest and I don't eat a lot of meat, maybe just once or twice a week. A normal meal will consist of veggies and some kind of protein, like beans, quinoa, or tofu. We also steer clear of meals from a box, like Rice-a-Roni, Hamburger Helper, Mac & Cheese, etc. It takes work and at first I was not excited, since at the time I did all the cooking. But over the years, we've gotten used to making everything from scratch. 
Produce market haul for under $20 bucks! 

How do you balance exercise and eating? Will you put in a harder workout so you can eat a piece of pie? 

3 comments:

  1. I'm officially hungry now lol!

    We eat pretty clean the majority of the time, but like y'all, we still treat ourselves once or twice a week :) I hate diets too, and besides if you do the quick fix thing, you don't appreciate it as much as if you put in the hard work so you won't really try to keep it off.

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  2. I spent years trying everything you can think of (I was a raw vegan for 5 years!) and finally I found something that worked...balance! I watch my calories and eat clean most of the time, but like you, if I have something "special", I exercise more or eat less later. I'm slowly losing the excess weight I have.

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  3. Lauren, don't those donuts look amazing?! I never thought about the appreciation factor. Whenever I see the scale start to creep back up, I think "oh no you don't! I'm not going to waste all that hard work!"

    Karen, wow! Raw vegan? That's amazing! Balance is really the key to everything: work vs family, running vs cross training, etc. The best kind of weight loss, in my opinion, is slow and steady. :)

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