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Saturday, June 2, 2012

Status update - What works for you?

I finally feel like I am back in control again.....

Late 2011 to early 2012 when I gained majority of my weight, I went out and sort advice from a couple of personal trainers, began to hysterically read various fitness/health blogs, blogs of fitness models and people who have lost all the weight and succeeded on their journey.

This had both a positive and negative impact on me.

Positives
1. I learnt that your body wont change simply by doing excessive amount of cardio. A balance between a clean/healthy diet, resistance/weight training and cardio is required to get you to whatever goal you need to achieve.

2. I have a better understanding of what a healthy diet/clean eating consists of.

3. I am able to train effectively without spending hours and hours in the gym.

4. I have a solid idea of what my goal is and have broken them down into smaller intervals.

5. Healthy fat loss doesn't happen instantly, it's definitely not a fad diet but a lifestyle.

6. Numbers on the traditional scale do not matter, it's all about lean mass vs fat mass

Negatives
1. I almost found myself obsessing (with a little exaggeration) about other people's progress and found myself comparing myself to them. This made me feel impatient with my progress and constantly bashed myself emotionally as to why I couldn't look like them or achieve what they did.

2. Because I wanted to be at my goal then and there I actually put myself in a state where I didn't want to train or eat healthy (I know this contradicts itself, but I guess I began to eat emotionally and I'm normally not an emotional eater). I gave myself excuses to eat badly at any event, birthday, just going out, holidays etc.

3. Lost a great deal of motivation and my enthusiasm for training was at a very low. It's so easy to fall off track!

4. I was given different food plans by various people that didn't work for me. By all means they are great trainers and hold great knowledge in terms of health and fitness. However, it just wasn't working for me (probably due to my history)

I've stopped all the crazy stalking and comparing. Thank goodness! Why was I deliberately torturing myself? Who the heck knows! I guess I am just human....
By stopping all this madness I have been able to comeback to a healthier mental state.

Changes that I have made
1. Listen to your body -  Instead of eating the way other people tell me to eat or making sure I eat every 3 hours to the minute and second(even if I am not hungry) I eat when I feel I need too. By that I don't mean I skip meals (I never skip a meal) or let myself get extremely hungry. As this is when you are vulnerable to eat mindlessly as your sugar levels dip and start to crave(still eliminating bad habits =S). Instead I listen to my body  and now I generally understand when it needs to be fed. I always fuel my body with the necessary macro break downs(for my daily needs), making sure every meal I eat is clean and consists of a balance of fats, protein and carbs. I will also slightly alter what I eat pre and post training, depending on what my training consists of. If I find myself craving it only means I haven't fuelled myself correctly and need to reassess.

2. I have slightly altered my workouts as well - I'll always include some sort of cardio/resistance cardio/HIIT daily as this is crucial to fat burning and include a weight session.
Personally with weights I've always written down a workout schedule for the week for eg; legs day 1, chest and back day 2, arms day 3 etc but it's hard to guesstimate how your body will recover from a certain workout. You might say you do chest and back day 1 and then arms day 2 but find the DOMS are killing you from day 1 that you can't do arms so you choose to do legs. So instead of saying I will do this a certain day. I'll plan out the weight sessions I have to do for a week and decide on the day what I can and want to do. This is just personal choice I have made for myself, and it works for me.

3. Mentally - This has taken me a while, and it is the most important of all. I'm not going to achieve my goals by whining, comparing myself to others, telling myself that I can't do it or procrastinating on the matter. That will get you no where.
I am back at a place where I am loving my workouts and the wholesome food I am eating. I guess I can see the hope again and the confidence in myself that I will achieve my goals so long as I really want it... and that's what keeps me motivated to keep training and doing things right!

We all have different goals, different needs and different bodies, hence, not one training or diet program will work for everyone. You need to LISTEN TO YOUR BODY, keep a healthy diet, train like you really want it and record your progress. Figure out WHAT WORKS FOR YOU and it'll only be a matter of time before you reach your goals.





3 comments:

  1. Another great motivating post!!

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  2. Karam you are doing so well. You sre motivating me more n more each day
    -beth

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  3. Thanks beth! you are doing might fine yourself =] Keep at it..you go this.

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