Sensible Diet Fail

sensible diet fail

Haha. I just had an *interesting* experience with a “sensible diet”. Or perhaps a more fitting expression would be “experimenting with disciplined eating”.

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Here’s some background.

I wanted to know how my attempt at intuitive eating has affected my weight, so I weighed myself a couple of weeks ago. I discovered I weigh 156 lbs, which is basically the same as five  months ago when I weighed 154 lbs.

I think that’s actually a good result, because I definitely ate all kinds of fattening foods in the beginning. Then in October and November I had a difficult time with all the stress and recurring migraine attacks, so I wasn’t very focused on healthy eating.  I could’ve done much worse.

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Nevertheless, the problem was that I was/am really itching to start losing weight, so I decided to start eating in a more disciplined way. So I started tracking my foods with the help of a Finnish service.

Below are a couple of example shots from the service. Te text is in Finnish but you probably get the gist even without  translation. The green balls in the middle monitor the quality of the diet: the amount of veggies, the proportion/amount of fats and protein in the diet, treats (i.e. empty calories) and the amount of fiber in the diet etc. [Read more...]

Best Wishes,

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Healthy Lifestyle Stress?

healthy lifestyle stress

Is your lifestyle making your life better?

Reading Lauren Brooks’ recent blog post titled “I’m Only Human” brought to my mind my own struggles with healthy living.

Supposedly we strive for a healthier lifestyle in order to make our lives better, but often we get the opposite effect.

If you’re interested in healthy living and weight loss (and aren’t living under a rock ), you must have noticed there are numerous healthy lifestyles to choose from these days: vegan, low carb/slow carb, raw food, paleo, primal, low fat, no-grain,  gluten free …. you name it!

Ain’t it cool: dozens of ways to make yourself lean and optimally healthy (if you just follow the dictates of the lifestyle).

Or alternatively, they can make your life miserable.

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I have never suffered from an eating disorder, but I’m certainly prone to obsessing about food and health. If I happen to read a book about the advantages of a specific healthy lifestyle [Read more...]

Best Wishes,

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Fitness Goal Setting Tip – Don’t Fly Blind!

Photo credit: Flickr / stevenharris

I just learned a lesson in fitness goal setting.

For some reason I had forgotten how important it’s to track your progress toward your goal – and got reminded of it this week.

Like some of you may know, last October I set myself a goal of being able to do 10 consecutive military push ups by 31st May, 2012. I even had a plan on what I was going to do to reach my goal, but for some reason I forgot it’s equally important to track your progress toward the goal. (A really basic mistake!).

Because I had a rough few months at the end of the year, I had basically let my goal slide. – I did make several attempts to start training for the push ups last fall but I never seemed to get my act together. I think part of the problem was that I hated admitting I wasn’t doing very well, so every time I thought about having to do my push ups I just felt reluctant and a bit disgusted at myself. [Read more...]

Best Wishes,

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Emotional Eating – A Prime Example

Impotent rage

I had a little tete-a-tete with emotional eating last Wednesday.

And I think it also happens to be a good example of modern stress reaction and my (almost) successful way of responding to it. :-)

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In the beginning of last week, I had to write three applications for three different authorities at the same time.  In addition to filling in 3 forms and writing several accounts to clarify my situation, I had to hunt for more than 20 different documents to add to those applications. Because I haven’t been filing my papers too well lately, my task proved to be much more difficult than I expected.

I had thought I would get everything done by Wednesday noon, but that time came and went and my brain was slowly but surely getting unglued. At some point, I sat on the floor with stacks of papers surrounding me from every angle, seething from rage. [Read more...]

Best Wishes,

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Nagging Won’t Motivate Healthy Habits

Photo credit: Flickr/soundfromwayout

I had an interesting discussion about healthy habits with my mom. For the umpteenth time, it started me puzzling over what does and does not motivate one to stick to healthy habits.

My claim is that nagging is an extraordinarily inefficient way to motivate healthy habits in anyone.

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My interest was sparked by a discussion with my mom last week.

I was sitting at a table removing the remains of my old make up when my mother laughed at me (kindly!) and remarked how funny it is to see me remove make up in the morning. I readily admitted that I have this bad habit of not bothering to remove my make up in the evening*.

And I added  that my dental health needs improving too, because I don’t always brush my teeth in the evenings not to mention flossing them regularly.

Then we started wondering why some people stick to healthy habits and what motivates that. [Read more...]

Best Wishes,

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