Healthy Lifestyle
The other day I had an interesting conversation with my partner regarding my health and fitness goals. This got me thinking about how to lose weight and keep it off, health maintenance overall, and how to maintain a healthy lifestyle and a healthy diet at all times. Last summer I rode my mountain bike approximately 1900 miles from Canada to Colorado. I fell in love with the mountains all over again and a new form of fitness that took me outside. I felt I was able to do this and enjoy it because I was healthy and strong enough in mind and body to get on the bike in the first place. Being on the bike for 40-100 miles a day and packing all of our food also made it extremely easy to drop weight fast. Sure I looked good but I wasn’t necessarily “healthy.” I even developed something called amenorrhea, where I didn’t have my period for three months. You may be thinking TMI (too much information), but that is the reality. I don’t know about you but I want to look good, feel good, and have my body functioning within a normal range. I want to look good, but not at the sacrifice of my overall health.
So, this leads us to the “argument” of being in love with the process just as much as the results. My partner had asked me what my specific goal was in doing my most recent 100-day challenge and I had said it was simply to lose a little weight and feel my best. He stated that he felt I was lying to myself and that I was too in love with the process and not in love enough with the results. He reminded me if I wanted to drop the weight quick I could just get back on my mountain bike and up the mileage. He said if I already knew how to lose weight fast and enjoy riding my bike, why didn’t I just do that instead. He equated my wanting to follow a program to me being more in love with the process than I was with the actual results.
I, of course, as an insecure woman, became upset and accused my partner if thinking I was fat and that I needed to lose weight (laughable and predictable, I know). This, of course, was not the case; he was simply speaking from something he knows has worked for me in the past and something that continues to work for him as he is a healthy, active man who often bikes, skis, hikes, and maintains his weight and health without “working out”. He used to do body pump and was a total gym rat so he has been in both parks, but his lifestyle is different now. Once my initial anger wore off and I came back to reality, I got to thinking why it is so important to love the process as much as the result.
This is so important because it leads us to the tools that teach us how to start living a healthy lifestyle! When you are thinking of overall health and not simply quick results, you learn how to consistently eat healthily, make time for exercise, take care of your mental health, and by doing this, you learn to LIVE a healthy lifestyle, not simply use a quick fix to achieve temporary results.
How do I maintain a healthy diet?
Part of the journey to health and overall fitness is not simply losing the weight, it is learning how to keep it off and maintaining a healthy diet is one way to do that. Many health and fitness experts often talk about nutrition being 80% of the results. I would agree, from experience, that when my nutrition is dialed in, I get the results I want and they become more sustainable. Eat healthy… sounds simple, right?
Sure, in theory, we know what foods to eat and how they are good for us, but our taste buds, cravings, emotions, stress, and so many other factors contribute to what we choose to put in our bodies. So, the key to maintaining a healthy weight is directly related to learning about maintaining a healthful diet during times of stress and inconvenience. My go-to as of the last four years is the daily super-foods I drink, learning a new portion system, and meal prepping my food. When I DO NOT do these things, it is so easy for me to become derailed. It is a slippery slope when we get off track but it can feel so good when you finally figure out what works for you.
Your life doesn’t have to be completely regimented to maintain a healthy diet. I still enjoy hosting friends, going out, drinking wine, eating dessert, but it is so much easier to do all of those things and feel good about it when I know that 80-90% of the time I have a plan that keeps my nutrition in balance. A plan that allows me to ingest over 70 super-foods daily that combines: protein, phytonutrients, antioxidants, adaptogenic herbs, probiotics, vitamins, and minerals as a base for my nutrition. This is a meal plan that provides no ambiguity when it comes to portions and allows me to have a balance of carbohydrates, fruits, plant and or animal proteins, healthy fats, and plenty of vegetables.
Maintaining a healthy diet is about starting with something sustainable, that is how we maintain! If we start off limiting and depriving ourselves, how can we expect to make that routine stick and the results last? Years ago I remember reading a book called, Skinny Bitch, by Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin. A concept in this book that stuck out to me was the idea of depriving yourself of chocolate cake even though you really want it. The authors of this book discussed how if you keep telling yourself no when you actually want to say yes, eventually, instead of just eating a small bit of the cake and moving on, you may completely gorge yourself on the cake and overeat once you give in! This defeats the whole purpose of not eating the cake in the first place, so moral of the story, eat the damn cake!
Why follow a fitness program and workout daily?
The answer to this question is easy, “BECAUSE I LOVE the PROCESS!” That’s right I said it, the process IS more important to me than the result because that is the part of the journey that is sustainable. For me, working out or moving my body twenty to thirty minutes a day is ideal and the programs I follow allow me easy access and something I have been able to sustain minimally at four days a week on average for the past four years! This process has allowed me to drop weight and KEEP IT OFF. This particular process has motivated me and kept me accountable to my goals because I do it with hundreds of other men and women.
Being a health and fitness coach for the past four years lead me to so many amazing people all over the country (including Canada and the UK) who are all working toward a common goal:
- To live their healthiest lives
- To end the trend of obesity.
I log on to my computer or my phone and instantly connect with people posting their progress, encouragement, and motivations either doing the same program as me or doing a program I have done in the past. It is so motivating, especially for someone like me who has major FOMO (fear of missing out) to wake up and see all of your besties have already done their workouts. It is an extra kick in the right direction to get my butt in gear so I don’t fall behind my friends or in my progress. This is the process for me and I am so in love with it! I’m also in love with the results that come along with it, but if I can’t be in love with the process then how am I going to make it part of my daily life?
Your process may not be the same as mine, but try not to get so caught up in the results that you can’t build a sustainable system to support a long term healthy lifestyle. If you feel like you are wanting more recipes, tips, and tricks to living your healthiest life, I have lots more tips where those came from. All of my meal plans include access to hundreds of recipes and short, easy, all levels workouts. If you have any specific recipes you would like or fitness program questions, always feel free to reach out to me. Thanks for reading I hope this information was useful and finds you in a space of heart. I’m just me Sarah Roberts (Savino), MSW, RYT200, TBB Coach founder of team Indie Sols, figuring out what works for me and sharing it with you in hopes that it will make some positive changes for you as well! As always if you have any direct questions or want personal consultation for anything you can reach me at my email thefitphilanthropist@gmail.com or contact me through any of my social media: Facebook.com/sarah.savinoIG- the_fit_philanthropist
Love and Light Always
Sarah