Shaun and I have mentioned in other podcasts and blogs about having a healthy lifestyle. When I started my current job, I had quite a few people asking me how to start being healthy. Honestly, it’s from a change of mindset and baby steps.
I was always an active kid throughout high school and most of college. My main struggle was finding an activity I loved as an adult that I could keep doing. In high school, I played tennis, softball, soccer, and ran track. I could do all of those pretty casually as an adult if I wanted but it wasn’t ever enough for me. I needed that end goal that high school sports gave me, winning games or making it to state. Besides, trying to go professional there isn’t that much competition as an adult, in my opinion. I played beer volleyball leagues, but those were more fun then workouts in my opinion.
Then, Shaun introduced me into the world of powerlifting. It was a real struggle for me at first, mainly because I struggle with change and learning new things. This, was a completely new world to me and I was so uncomfortable at the gym. I was surround by all of these big, macho men that didn’t need any help and had the muscles to prove it. Here was me, this tiny girl following her boyfriend around like a lost puppy dog. My main struggle, was that there were so many different movements for each body part and it was hard for me to remember every thing about them. So, one day I decided I needed to start taking notes, so I could do it on my own.
Shaun told me that he wouldn’t be able to be there for me everyday for the rest of my life. I had to just man up and start doing it on my own. When, I felt like I could be doing it wrong, I would watch a youtube video on it or would watch someone else at the gym. It was freeing being able to do some of these things on my own for once. Plus, I learned to not give a shit what other people thought of me at the gym. It also helped that all of these men at the gym were way more into themselves than me, so they never looked my way to begin with.
My baby step was to learn the movements on my own and not depend on Shaun. I have heard people say they don’t want to lift because they are uncomfortable at a gym. SO START AT HOME! It is as easy as starting with 25 air squats a day or a few times a week. Watch a youtube video to see the correct form and use a mirror to watch yourself, and slowly work your way up to 100 or 200 air squats a day. You can alternate between push up and crunches, or follow a yoga video from youtube. There are so many places that have these things for free for you to use! Starting with any type of movement and slowly progressing is the best way to start being healthier. After 30 days, it should start feeling like a habit instead of a chore, and you will be able to feel your body get better and better week after week.
So, now we have the active part down, but I never was good at the food portion of being healthy. Luckily, Shaun was on a bad path on his food habits, so it was easier for us to work with each other to get healthier. We first based our diet on the vertical diet plan. We weren’t strict with it, because we have always known diet plans never really work. So we used it to create our food menu that we planned on using for a while, which it has been 3 years now and going well still.
We wanted to make it easy to make, since we both had jobs and didn’t want to spend hours cooking every week. We cook every Sunday and Wednesday or Thursday, and we can get it down to about 2 hours or less twice a week. Breakfast is the main meal we switch up the most. It always contains eggs, some kind of carb and usually bacon or sausage. It can either be a breakfast sandwich, egg scramble with rice, or an egg bake.
Lunch is where things get boring. We have beef and rice just about every single day. We have adapted it over time and now have added veggies, cheese and sometime sour cream to it. Otherwise, that is our lunch menu every day. Everyone tells us, that they could never eat the same meal everyday. Trust me, you can. It takes about a month for you to get over the struggle of it, and now I can’t go a day without it.
For dinner, we try to keep it simple as well. We will either have chicken, steak or ground beef with rice and some vegetables. Every once in awhile, we will have some fun things, but not too often. The main thing about this food plan, is to be strategic with your carbs. We avoid pasta and bread like it is the black plague, and once you don’t have it for awhile, it feels like it is the plague. Other than that, we have some small snacks of nuts, yogurt, fruit and little pieces of chocolate when we need more food.
I’m not saying to change your whole meal plan to follow ours, take a baby step. Try not having fast food one less day a week than what you do now, or take out pasta from your plan. Anything small to help you go in the right direction.
Overall, the main thing you need in order to accomplish any of this is a change in your mindset. You have to truly want a change in your life in order to do it. If you aren’t mentally ready for that, than it will not work out. It is true, when people say it is 70% a mental game. You need to convince yourself why you are doing these changes in order for them to happen.
Keep pushing yourself everyday to improve your life. No matter how small the change is, it could change your life some day.
Keep changing
From your life Tutor
-Sam
Tutors of Life 