Fitness Journal – How to Take Control of My Diet

Since I have started my fitness journey I have been thinking of ways to manage one of the main factors that has always pulled me down: diet. Once it comes to food I am just not strong enough to resist my fettuccine alfredo with shrimp or fried chicken with all of the fixings. Or a decadent chocolate cake with six different types of chocolate with a heaping scoop of strawberry cheesecake ice cream. So I have been racking my brain as to how I was going to get my diet under control so I can finally see some results. I have taken these few steps to overhaul my diet so that I don’t have any excuses for my diet anymore. We have to start with baby steps before we dive headlong into the big leagues. I tried that one time and I was miserable for at least six weeks just completely converting to veganism for Lent. So now that I’ve learned my lesson, let’s start with these baby steps!

Slowly cut out the sugars… or replace them!

One of the biggest problems once it comes to dieting is that it cuts out any and all sugars that your body has gotten used to from your previous horrible diet. When you deprive your body of something that it’s been used to for a long time, you’re going to go through withdrawal, which isn’t fun at all. Instead of abruptly cutting it out, slowly cut it out. Or do what I did, replace them with healthy sugars. It’s no secret that I have a big sweet tooth. What I’ve done is replace those wonderful, decadent chocolate snacks with healthy fruits with natural sugars or low-fat yogurts that are also high in protein or calcium. If you are going to slowly cut out your sugars, do it in increments. Be smart about it and you’ll do just fine.

Actually eat some vegetables!

It is also no secret that I ABSOLUTELY hate vegetables with a passion. They taste horrible and it’s difficult for me not to gag when I smell them being cooked. So I’ve started trying different vegetables despite the horrible taste. One of my new favorite things to cook is butternut squash. It is such a versatile vegetable and it can also count as a carb if you don’t feel like whipping a carb out. Squash in general is just a favorite of mine and I just roast it in the oven with salt and pepper with a little bit of olive oil, nothing fancy. I’ve always loved asparagus but it’s just expensive so I never really get it (but I absolutely love it!). And I have no aversion to lettuce once it comes to salad. I just like eating everything else aside from the salad so I have to be better at eating the lettuce. But once it comes to vegetables I have to at least eat them even if I don’t want to because they are the key to losing weight and making your body happy.

Water is the key!

One of the reasons why people have trouble losing weight is because they don’t drink enough water. Water weight is one of the main reasons why people have difficulty losing weight or why they gain weight in the first place. People retain water weight when they don’t drink enough water because they’re body is holding onto that water until you get more water into your system. So in order to get rid of that water weight you have to drink water on a regular basis so that your body doesn’t hold onto it anymore and you can sweat whenever you work out so you can actually lose weight instead of maintaining or gaining. So water is key if you want to lose the weight and keep it off.