Here’s why and how I’m working on changing it.
Throughout middle school, I barely weighed 100 pounds, though I still felt the need to go on “diets.” My diets consisted of lettuce, bread and yogurt. This constant need to be “Skinny” probably came from pressure from my peers but even more so from the media. Every other commercial in America seems to be an ad for the “quick or magic fix.”
#1: THERE IS NO MAGIC PILL
This took a long time for me to realize and before I did I had bought three different workout programs off TV and tried “diet” drink mixtures that claimed you’d “lose weight fast.” Since then I’ve learned that the only “magic pill” is diet and exercise. I know this may be common sense for most people, but it took a long time for me to understand this and I’ve met a lot of people who have been in the same position.
In my first two years of high school, I was put on medications that made me gain weight very rapidly. I quickly resumed the terrible habits I had used in middle school. This meant sporadic meals, missed meals, lack of sleep and exercise, and in what I did eat, a lack of nutritional value. Looking back it is very clear to me that not only did those things not help my weight loss goals they most likely made me gain even more weight. However, the biggest problem with this was that it put added stress on my body and really hurt my over all health.
#2: DIET AND EXERCISE GO HAND IN HAND:
Diet and exercise go together, you can not have one without the other. When I was younger I tried a lot of fad diets without exercising. When that didn’t work I tried exercising without eating. I had learned that you needed to burn more calories than you ate (which is correct) and I figured if I started at zero calories I would lose the most weight. Since then I’ve learned that this logic is ABSOLUTELY ridiculous and that a thing called the 80/20 rule exists. The 80/20 rule has really helped me in the fact that I learned, over-all health and even diets begin in the kitchen. You can’t eat a whole box of cosmic brownies and then just go “run it off”
#3: Sleep is just as important:
Throughout both middle school and high-school I had a lot of sleepless nights due to anxiety and stress. Nowadays I am trying to go to bed at roughly the same time each night and wake up at the same time each morning. This schedule is not only good for my body but allows me to get the same amount of sleep each week and perfect my schedule and daily routine. A while ago I learned that sleep is directly related to the metabolism and sleep-deprived individuals are likely to be more hungry and eat more junk throughout the day.
#4: Don’t skip meals/timing is everything:
One of the biggest things I’ve learned through my years of eating sporadically is to NOT DO THAT!!! I try to eat 5 small meals a day and never skip a meal especially breakfast! I also try to eat at the same time everyday. When you don't fuel your body you're metabolism slows down and it kicks into “starvation” mode. When your body thinks you're not going to feed it, it pulls nutrients from your muscle and your fat.
#5: NUTRiTION, NUTRITION, NUTRITION!!!!!!
When my aunt noticed my eating habits in high school she tried to correct them and give me advice but I was too stubborn to listen. “I am healthy!”, I remember telling her as I ate more fried food. I have learned that healthy food is just as much about what is in it as where it comes from and how its processed and cooked. I knew that dairy was healthy and part of the food pyramid so I figured Kraft american cheese slices had to be healthy. When she told me I needed to drink more I figured soda would be just as good as water(It has water in it right?)At one point the whole bottom of the old food pyramid chart worshipped the “breads, cereals, pastas, and grains” group and boy did I love white bread. When I finally came to my senses I realized how crazy this all sounds. I’ve learned that most of what I ate was actually the worst stuff I could be eating; the biggest reason for this conclusion being that most of the foods I ate were highly processed. Here’s a list of things I used to eat a lot and that I am now working on avoiding.
- Processed Foods
- fast food
- sugary drinks (consuming your calories in drinks, even juices, is one of the worst things you can do)
- white bread and for me most products containing gluten in general.
- excessive amounts off oils, butter, or margarine
- Sweets!!!- cookies, cakes , pies
- Even things marked : gluten-free, and low-fat such as low-fat yogurt and gluten-free pretzels are really just traps because they replace one bad ingredient for several others that is just as bad or even worse.
