May Makeover

Hello all of my beautiful readers.

Wow! Its been some time since i have given this blog love! I have no real reason for this other than being very busy with an office re-location, and just not feeling all that motivated in many aspects of my life.

During May I decided that I would take on a "May Makeover".

Feeling fat, frumpy and horrible, I decided to take a more full on clean eating approach. I created a secondary instagram account and started posting what i had for every meal, so that I would be accountable for what i put in my body! I think I did a PRETTY good job only forgetting occasionally to post. I followed a number of other great accounts that were very inspirational and gave me some fantastic ideas for meals.

So how do i feel?

Well I forgot to take measurements, so i have absolutely no idea in that respect. My weight did not change though. I feel that i'm stuck in a bit of a rut, unable to get into the groove and make real progress on how I want my body to look, and how i want my health to be.

I had a great time experimenting with different recipes, and gosh some of the foods i tried were delicious!! (Check it out over on instagram @maymakeover and if you have any questions about recipes, give me a holler). I do believe that i want to continue on this journey, because most of the time, I did feel better internally.

I find that i work best when I have a very specific plan for what I need to do. I believe that I need to change my diet up a bit more, if I am going to start seeing results.

• I am a fruit addict, and although it is very good for you in many ways, it is probably contributing far too much sugar to my diet, they are natures lollies after all! During Summer I could quite easily down 2 punnets of blueberries a day, but the selection is far slimmer at the moment, which makes it harder. I will try and cut down my fruit intake and enjoy more vegetable snacks
• During the colder months, I find that I eat more. Though I have been eating "cleaner", my portion sizes, number and type of snacks and calorie intake has probably been a little more than it should be based on my BMR. I am going to try and eat 3 meals, and a few sensible, well-timed snacks a day.
• Soft drink is my vice. Since I was about 16, I have consumed an unreasonable amount of diet soft drinks. When i lost a significant amount of weight, I found it was helped keep me sane, and feel like i wasn't missing out on sweet things. As we all know, it is basically liquid tar, and not the best thing to have on a regular basis, its addictive qualities do make it hard to give up however. I am going to try and reduce the amount i drink, and go off of it slowly. I drink green tea and coffee, so I don't think I will have the same caffeine withdrawal as Isuffered on the detox.
• At the moment I don't really eat that much bread, rice or pasta and generally the wholemeal varieties when I do. During May I even switched to gluten, wheat free bread when I could, and found I really enjoyed it. When i do indulge, mostly on weekends, I tend to binge a little, which is also stunting my progress. I will be trying to have more accelerator (12wbt term)/low carb days to shock my body. Reducing carbohydrates helped me lose 4kg in 6 weeks earlier this year.
• And lastly. MORE WATER! I have not been drinking nearly enough and it has so many benefits. It flushes out toxins, increases energy, boosts immune system and improves skin complexion (to name a few)

I think that I'm going to try and get back into a better routine for exercise too, as that is what I have really been missing, and it always makes me feel so much better. The class that I have been doing 2-3 times a week has become a little stale, so I'm looking for new ways to shake up my routine.

I tried a class, at the gym downstairs from my new office - Train Reaction! (check these guys out on Facebook! https://www.facebook.com/pages/Train-Reaction-Fitness/117617971644786?fref=ts) Jason and the others were very welcoming and the circuit class was intense. Three days later, my chest, back and arms are still in agony, it was one hell of a workout. I'm hoping that its something I can get into on a more regular basis, just have to sort out my current routine, as I am signed up to a few different things already.

If any of you have some more great tips for helping shake up your diet OR exercise, comment and continue the discussion below.

xx