Besides a few years in college where I gained FIFTY fucking pounds, (thank the copious amount of beer and hard cider I drank alongside eating really crappy) I’ve always been pretty healthy. I have been a vegetarian since I was six years old and back in the 80’s being a vegetarian wasn’t really a popular thing so it was hard to find things to eat when we’d go out as a family. I lived on side salads at restaurants and at home always wanted cauliflower with cheese sauce on it every night for dinner. Maybe that’s why I have a serious aversion to Cheez Whiz now? Anyhow, I don’t believe in fad dieting. You’ll never hear me discussing Atkins, Keto, or Paleo diets. In fact I don’t know what the fuck the majority of those even are. For me, staying healthy is simple. Everything in moderation. My husband’s favorite quote is “Everything in moderation, including moderation.” And that’s so true! If you have a day where you binge (like your daughter’s fifth birthday where you eat three piece of birthday cake for example), don’t panic. Just get back on track the next day. I find that the more you panic, the more you get into a bad mindset where you say, “Well I already ate 3 pieces of cake yesterday, so FUCK IT! I’m eating ALLLL the cake today!” You can have a bad day, just don’t turn into multiple bad days.
1. Drink a glass of water as soon as you wake up. My husband and I both do this and it just helps get your body going in the morning. And because we have two young daughters who rise with the sun, our water is always followed up by a cup of coffee. (Or a pot in Vince’s case.)
2. Snack, but snack mindfully. I graze all damn day. My parents always told me growing up that I eat like a bird, and I still do. You won’t usually see me clean my plate unless I skipped a meal because I like to snack so much throughout the day. My usual snacks are: clementine oranges, string cheese, apples, and pickles. I know, I sound disgusting. But these items check the boxes for my cravings for sugar, salt, and a major weakness of mine, all things cheese. And they don’t contain a ton of calories or fat so I don’t feel guilty eating them.
3. Veggie it up. No shit, am I right? But you can read that a thousand times and it will do nothing for you until you actually add more veggies in your diet. For lunch yesterday for instance, I had half of a bundle of asparagus. Not just straight up, I’m not a fucking animal. But I used a recipe from Chrissy Tiegen’s newest cookbook “Cravings – Hungry for More” and loaded those sonsabitches up in red pepper, smoked paprika, salt, pepper, and butter and sauteed them for a few minutes. Delicious and filling! And besides the butter, healthy!
4. Don’t deny yourself a craving here and there. I have a serious sweet tooth. I don’t mean that lightly. If I had to pick my “death row meal”, it would be the molten lava chocolate cake from Chili’s with a side of dark chocolate chip cookies and a chocolate malt from Dairy Queen to wash it down. That being said, I do the opposite of what most people do. I don’t save my “treat” for the end of the day after starving myself or working out like mad. I start my day with my treat. TREAT YO’ SELF! (Any Parks and Rec fans here?) So in the morning I’ll eat my sweet as my breakfast. Terrible advice and it also truly grosses out my husband that I do this. But truly, on the mornings that I have a donut or a Pop Tart as my breakfast, it immediately satiates my sweet tooth and then I eat well the rest of the day knowing I haven’t deprived myself.
5. Don’t self-sabotage. Whenever I have tried watching what I eat I become obsessed with counting calories and end up over-eating. The more I punish myself and say to myself how I better NOT have something, that’s allllllll I want to have. So if you are dying for a slice of pizza, eat the slice of pizza and just hit the treadmill an extra 20 minutes.
Funny side note, my cousin Mary told me that she loves chocolate bunnies that you get around Easter. She used to take a bite or two of it when her mom would get her one and then “drown the bunny” by submerging it in a cup of water! I find this hilarious because rather than just throw it away, she has to drown that fucker in water to show it who’s boss. It’s like in that episode of Sex and the City where Miranda keeps eating chocolate cake so she puts it in the trash but then goes back into the trash to get more out. She then covers it in dish soap to ensure she can no longer sneak it out of the garbage. That scene spoke to me on a spiritual level.
6. Workout. Also a “no shit” item. For those of you who loathe exercise, take a long walk. A mile or two goes faster than you know and will help burn some calories. For me, I have never liked to work out and I won’t pretend that I do. I do however, love the stationary bike. We have one in our basement so I don’t have to leave the house to use it which is great. I hope on, put on a Youtube makeup tutorial to watch, and just bike as hard as I can for 20 minutes. I also love You Tube videos of 10-15 minute workouts I can pepper in when my two year old naps or when my girls are occupied playing. My personal favorite is Rebecca Louise. Jessie James Decker has one that is 12 minutes long and I do it twice and it gets every part of your body burning. I can do a separate post on my favorite you tube workouts later….Long story short, get out and move. Our five year old’s school is a half a mile away from our house so Vince and I walk her to and from school. That’s two miles of walking we do without even thinking about it. So if you love to grab Starbucks in the morning and have one nearby, walk there instead of drive. Whatever it takes!
7. Eat dinner early. This happens naturally for me because I am a geriatric at heart. But our kids go to bed at 7:30 and in order to have them both bathed, read to, and my dinner mess cleaned up, I have dinner ready by 5:00. Since we eat dinner at 5 and usually wake up around 6 am, I have 13 hours where I’m not eating and it doesn’t bother me since I’m sleeping a good chunk of those!
8. Buy a smart water bottle that yells at you when you aren’t drinking enough. Okay, it doesn’t exactly yell at you, but it sends you little messages through the day telling you to “Drink up bitch!” (Just not in those exact words.) Here is a great one I personally use from Target.
9. Repent for your sins: On the days you do go overboard, really watch it the next day. I had a few days in a row recently where we were just ordering take out pizza or Mexican food like crazy and I felt like all I had eaten was grease. So when I went grocery shopping I bought a bunch of the veggie steamer bags and lived on those for a couple of days. It felt so much better to eat veggies and I could tell my body was truly craving them after eating total garbage for a few days straight.
10. Don’t buy junk. Simple as that. If you are responsible for the grocery shopping, don’t buy the Lucky Charms or the cookies or the frozen pizzas. If you don’t have it around your house then you can’t be tempted as easily. But DO buy healthier stand-ins. Do you have a hankering for potato chips? Buy some kale chips. Love chocolate bars? Get some of the “think thin” protein bars like these. Trick your mind a little bit so that you don’t feel deprived.
11. Pack your lunch. When I managed my shoe store I was in a shopping center surround by Panera, Five Guys, Which Wich, and the food court at Target. I love Panera because anything made of cheese and bread is going to have my vote. But I knew my ass couldn’t afford the stretch marks to eat there everyday, so I packed my lunch. I love cottage cheese doused in black pepper and would usually have that alongside some cut up pineapple or a fruit of some sort, and a third item like crackers or pretzels to get my carb/salt fix. Regardless of what it was, it was less calories and fat than I would have eaten if I had gone out for lunch.
12. Ditch the soda. This one almost hurts to write because I love Coke. Not diet coke, that stuff is bullshit. Anything that tastes like fake sugar is bullshit. I like true, real coke. But it does bloat you up and contain so much sugar. So I usually drink La Croix or Dasani sparkling water (my favorite is the Strawberry Guava flavor) to curb my craving for something sweet and fizzy.
