Where's the Fitness?

Enough of the emotional mental junk, right? Granted, it does say "perspective" in my title. The fitness part is smallish at the moment, but getting better. So there's two parts to this outside of the mental exercises of positivity: 1 - Meals and 2 - Exercise.

The Meals
I used to meal plan all the time and I loved it, but the shopping was becoming too expensive for us and I kept falling off the wagon keeping it going. So the big change I made was finally venturing out of our small town to shop at one of the bigger, cheaper chains. All of a sudden I could get healthy food for the week without breaking our pocketbook. It still amazes me going to our little town's grocery store and how much we get for $100 and how much we get at the other store for $100.

So I started meal planning to make sure I was including lots of vegetables in the meals and steering away from certain types of food.

I also spent time pre-prepping things, like jar soups, salads, and fruit trays with healthy dips. I could grab a healthy lunch and go. My daughter could grab a fruit tray for a snack instead of chips. That 1-2 hours of prep made all the difference.

We also got rid of the snacks. I kept some popcorn and occasionally we had tortilla chips or pretzels, but we stopped buying snacks. If we wanted a snack, we could get some fruit out of the fridge or some other healthy option we have on hand.

We've had a week or two where things were too much and we couldn't make it work, but that happens. The going out to eat all the time has stopped. WWSWD? Not go out to eat so much! No more swinging by McDonalds or going to Taco Bell three times a week. The extent of our fast food was Subway once a week, Taco Bell Thursdays (after my daughter's gymnastics), and every other Friday is Date Night, so someone brings home take out. I even stopped doing Friday lunches with my coworkers, because I was struggling to find healthy options at the places we were ordering from.

I didn't have to cut out things like donuts or cakes or whatever, because I'm not a big sweets person. Wasn't a big bagel fan, either. Pancakes and waffles, sure, but in moderation. I was trying to cut out of large amount of "carbs." Breakfast became a microwaved egg and egg whites with spinach and bell peppers. Paired with yogurt. Lunch was these power soups in a jar. Healthy proteins and vegetables. Lots of green and other colors.

Gluten was something else we were cutting out of our diet, shockingly unconsciously. I guess that goes with some of the unhealthy carbs. We started using rice flour instead of flour when making some of our dishes.

I also started serving the family. This way I could manage portions sizes and provide fillers like salad instead of having to go for that second helping of mashed potatoes. Leftovers I tried to portion into mini-meals for later. Again, instead of just a free-for-all. It probably sounds like lots of work, but I'm pretty quick in the kitchen.

Another change was switching back to completely drinking water. A coworker blew my mind in October and gave me a water bottle. He got it at a conference and knew I needed to have it. When he gave it to me, I did actually cry when I got back to my room. I don't have a whole lot of moments of thoughtfulness and this just... blew my mind. I wasn't a big aluminum water bottle person, but I was so taken with the gift I thought it was be kind of lame of me if I didn't use it. When I got home I washed it and tested it. Wow! The water stayed cold and the metal didn't make me cringe. All of a sudden I had phased out all of the flavored waters and other things and I went whole hog into drinking almost exclusively water. I have one vice... I drink Sugar Free Red Bull... my vice. Back off.

This whole side of things was a mental shift, again hinging on the WWSWD. Mind games with myself to stop the unhealthy habits. Again... what would a healthy person do?

The Exercise 
In October I started to arrive earlier than usual at work and I was walking the hallways. I'd run up the stairs and walk down the halls and run up and down ramps. It was quite a bit of exercise when you timed yourself down to 5 minutes per circuit. I could change up my route when I was bored with something. I was getting 3 miles out of this every day. Plus those stairs are amazing cardio.

During the school day, I stopped just going down to the copier on the floor below me. I would go to the copier on the other side of the school or I'd print there. WWSWD? Well... they'd go to that copier (because that was the closest to their classroom). I mean... I don't think they actually do that, but that's not the point. It was forcing myself to walk instead of just taking short cuts and sitting in my classroom. Remember... what would a healthy person do? They'd take some time during their prep to get a little bit of exercise and stretch their legs.

The irony as I run past it.

I would make a circuit to the office. Then I'd go back up to my room and come back down and stop in by my friend on the other end of the school. Whenever I would go back up to my classroom I'd circle around to the back side of where my part of the building was, taking the long route. I even got a little jogging down the ramp in and up another ramp into the music wing. The phy-ed class wouldn't care and maybe I could be just swift enough to not be known. Besides... it wasn't like anyone was going to yell at me.

A coworker offered to help me with a fitness plan and offered additional ideas for switching things up to change the plateau. I never did get to do the weights with her, but there were other things atplay at the time. But one of the things she mentioned was amping up the running. In another post, I'll be talking about how I changed things up with basketball.

All I did was make little changes. WWSWD? Not be lazy... even though... the person sure did spend a lot of time sitting on a chair during phy-ed classes. Sadly, there's no way to walk my routes without passing by the gym. This caused problems with my students who were in there at the time, but I had to squash that REAL quick.

Next step... get this going at home during these winter months, especially over Winter Break. That's going to be a whole new mental shift as well.