MAKING THE SCALE YOUR FRIEND

Are you rolling your eyes at me? Putting me in a certain size box telling an excuse to yourself, “Dawn, you don’t need to worry about weight because you’re already small.”   

But guess what? I eat dessert or ice cream almost every day. It’s not that I’m “special” or have amazing metabolism. Because I killed that by the time I was 12 years old by eating McDonald’s Big Mac’s and french fries every week. I grew up in a fast-food generation.

It’s because I know what I’m eating and what it’s made of AND I move my body – most days. I don’t run every day, I don’t work out every day but I try to get my steps in, and I drink A LOT OF WATER.

Honey, how do you think I stay this size after 3 kids? Yes, I’m “about” the size of my dad and mom (shorties), but genetics aren’t everything. If they were, we’d all look the same and die of the exact illnesses our relatives did. It is what you consume yourself with, and what activity you are doing that combat whatever “excuse genes” you are crutching on.

With food and nutrition, you can revamp your DNA within 3 months. We are living organisms that replenish, so what we feed ourselves is what we are supplying our bodies to “replenish” with.

FLIP OVER THE PACKAGE 

See my beautiful friend, I’m your honest friend that rolls my eyes when you stress over not being able to eat XYZ after you’ve read the calorie content on the back of the package. Don’t beat yourself up like that. I can almost guarantee you the half a pan of brownies you want to eat is better for you than a processed 100-calorie packaged treat that can live on the moon for the next 10 years and still have “taste.” Makes sense right?

Why am I right? Well besides almost always being right (sorry just an annoying trait I possess, you can confirm with my husband), it is because processed package items are TERRIBLE for you. Why? Check out the ingredient list if you’re going to flip over the package. You’ll find a laundry list of things you can’t even pronounce, let alone know what it is.

Quick and simple: If you can’t understand what’s in it. Leave it on the shelf!

THE FIRST FIVE

Honey, I’ve been where you are right now! During my last 2 years of college, I realized I needed to do something about the weight I’d gained. I lived on Frozen SmartOnes from Weight Watchers, 100 calorie packs and those baked “air” chips that are as close to eating dried paint chips as you can get. DELISH right? The reality shocker: I didn’t lose any weight eating that stuff. I maintained but mostly gained!

Luckily several years back, my chiropractors opened my eyes to skipping the crap on the top portion of the nutritional label and start reading the ingredient list (specifically the first 5 are the most important as that’s the majority of what you are about to eat). If you don’t know what the words mean, a very high chance you shouldn’t be consuming them.

KNOW WHAT THE INGREDIENTS MEAN 

For instance Maltodextrin  – It is a food additive to enhance flavor, texture and or shelf life. Huh?? I just want actual food! Hold the  “additive!” Maltodextrin has a higher glycemic index than table sugar! This means that maltodextrin can cause a sharp increase, or spike, in blood sugar shortly after eating foods that contain it.

I avoid this as much as possible as it can “help you” overeat to the food. Hmmm…I already have a hard enough time with that on my own I don’t need this little additive pushing me off the ledge for Christ’s sake! My fav Dot’s pretzels contain the “M” word in the ingredients so they are only special treats. Most food that enters my house from the store has to be able to rot at some point. That has been key to being at my high school graduation weight and MAINTAINING it even after 3 babies.

PAY ATTENTION WHERE YOU SHOP 

Another tip is to avoid the center of the grocery store and only shop from the perimeter. Fresh fruits and veg, the meat counter, the cooler section, the freezer section.

For instance, frozen veggies are way better than canned or packaged processed ones. Give each item a flip over the next time you are at the store and you’ll read the canned ingredients are loaded with salt (usually the first thing listed) and the frozen options = veggies – straight up!

My dear mom freaks out on calories or will buy it if it says “low fat” Oh honey! Ahhhhh! Stop! I can’t get her to listen to my advice AND PROVEN RESULTS but I’ve given her the below link to reference. For some reason mom’s don’t listen to their daughters, I’m hoping to break that pattern with my girls. LOL, someone please remind me of that when Kading starts educating me to listen to her!

A LITTLE THIS, A LITTLE THAT

Don’t believe me? Check out The Goal Digger Podcast episode 210 with health expert Kelly LeVeque. {if you don’t have time for the entire episode, tune into around 35 minutes.} I feel this Kelly and I could be good friends. She still binges on occasion. Yeah, I binge more than “occasionally”, but she offsets it with a sweaty workout or going for a run. Not by beating herself up for being human. Preach girl! I’m not one that will ever live off a plant-based diet and all that. I love pizza and baked goods and most other forms of food.

Please make a promise to me, but importantly to yourself, that you won’t fall down the rabbit hole of the latest fad diet and simply make some additives in your eating habits. Yes, I said “add” like the oxymoron of losing weight right??

A FEW THINGS TO TRY

• Eat more nuts – they fill you up since they are protein-packed. AKA you’ll eat less other crap
• Pound the water mama! Drink half your body weight in water. For simplicity, say you’re 150 lbs, drink 75 ounces of aqua. Yes, it makes you pee more but it will flush your body of the crap you shouldn’t be eating. Pretty simple trade-off eh? Plus your body needs it to live.

My Grams was on a water pill medication for her heart and it caused her to have to use the bathroom frequently. She didn’t like that annoyance when we’d be shopping or out somewhere, so she’d avoid drinking any additional water because of the combination. I couldn’t get it through to her that EVERYONE has to GO! And if you drink it consistently, your body adjusts to how often ya gotta go.

START SMALL, BABY STEPS

• If you are a milk drinker kick the skim milk aka “sugar” and go with at least 2% with more GOOD fat (news flash, pasteurized milk is taking out the good in milk and replacing it with sugar since like 1 person got sick on non-pasteurized milk forever ago and then the government regulations killed our milk. Read The Cancer Killers by Dr. Ben Lerner if you don’t believe me. It’s sad. I grew up drinking milk straight out of a bulk tank in the milk house. I kinda like dairy in its real form like nature intended.)
• Yes, above I just told you to drink more fat – that is a good fat for your BRAIN that tells your body to move to BURN bad fat…hmmmm…. To find other good fats to add, avocado is one of my fav’s. The rage seems to be legumes but I haven’t tried or sought them out yet. It might be too fancy for my taste.
• Eat breakfast!! I’m less likely to snack in the morning if I eat the right breakfast, but I make better snack choices by eating breakfast EVERY.SINGLE.MORNING. I have a protein shake (I’m relatively new to shakes, I prefer to chew my calories), otherwise, I’ll eat scrambled eggs, Old Fashioned oatmeal or an egg sandwich. Dream crusher here: cereal isn’t breakfast, its sugar-coated grains, wonder why you’re hungry 30 seconds after downing a bowl?

I grew up eating cereal and would have it for snacks or lunch or dinner. Captain Crunch anyone? Hhhmmm…no wonder I never was losing weight.

• Sleep – yeah everybody says it because it’s true. Sleep. You continue to burn while you are rest – IF you aren’t loading up on empty carbs before bed, but if you listen to the podcast referenced above, you’ll hear that from a real health expert on why that is.

JUST KICK IT

1. POP!!!!!!!!

Just don’t do that to yourself. For some reason in high school I gave up my precious fountain mountain dew and sprite for Lent and never looked back, don’t know why. But it was the best subconscious thing I’ve accomplished. And then I wasn’t a coffee drinker, nor am I today. But I didn’t have a morning energy drink to replace it with back then, so lady, ya got options today to help you through this! No reason to suffer.

So TODAY do yourself a favor and DON’T diet. I’m giving you the excuse to slack on something. HA! Just be more INTENTIONAL with your food consumption. Trust me, the right food will still taste good when you know what you are eating. Make it a lifestyle change than a “diet.” And better yet, you’ll FEEL so much better! Substitute two words lifestyle change for don’t diet and all will be good!