Reset - Helpful Ways to Boost Your Weight Loss Journey
After a good cry, I decided to get my shit together and start putting my previously laid pieces together to put my plan in action.
You'll notice that the more you get older, the more of a change in routine you need to do for a more effective weight loss. That's where I am now. I've previously done 2 successful weight loss bumps that lasted a few years but obviously as you can tell I ended up back - even worse - than when I first started. The only reason why I didn't keep the weight off was stress and depression but third time's the charm, right? Let's make it the final weight loss journey.
Here are some changes in my routine that I wish I would've made in the beginning. Let's not dwell in the past and focus on the future! Here are my new additions to my weight loss journey.
Bluetooth Waterbottle
Necessary? Probably not. You could literally track your own water intake, right? Well, it's beyond that. Sure, it's doable but this has made me more conscious of how hydrated or dehydrated I am. Added bonus is that I can connect it to FitBit so I have a better visual in the app itself. Of course, you need the official HiDrate app for it to sync first. It has really helped me. Only con is that I wish I bought a bigger water bottle. These things aren't cheap! I bought mine on Amazon for over 60 bucks. I still plan on upgraded and handing down this one to my son sonner than later.
My goal here is to drink half my weight in ounces. I'm currently 185 pounds so that means 93 ounces rounding up. That's my goal to reach every day. Most days I don't make it but otherwise my intake is usually no less than 60 ounces.
Tracking Foods
I've also decided to track my meals in the FitBit app as well. It sucks how everything is a subscription nowadays. My Fitness Pal used to be completely free and I vividly remember using it 10 years ago to scan my foods and track my macros. When I downloaded the app today, it is all behind a pay wall. I am NOT made out of money!!! Sad but that's the way it is. Bye bye, My Fitness Pal.
This also goes into my next segment:
Eat This Much is an app that automatically assigns you recipes to eat for the day with so many awesome features like customizing your diet and swapping out recipes for alternatives. It is great with tracking your macros as well. I am terrible at organizing. When I am finally at that point where I want to start meal planning I nearly had another mental break lol. Not funny at all it was frustrating as fuck. Eat This Much made things sooo much easier. You can also set up My Pantry where you input all the foods you have and you can set the meal planner to base it off what you have on hand. Other cool features like getting a grocery list after you customize your meals for the week. Amazing. I just started it and it is an absolute life saver!!!!
Choosing a "Diet"
Now this is super tricky because I homecook all my meals. No, I am not fat because I fry everything up. I try to be mindful of what I cook. I don't fry foods (and if I do it's less than once a month). In general I thought I was okay but I think the real villain here is sweets and carbs. I love both. I make my own cookies and cakes and obviously excess sugar turns to fat. I love pasta and that also turns to fat. I've scaled back a lot since then but I get cravings every now and then though. It's a real mental struggle so I am alone with my thoughts in the day time.
I've looked into better "diets" using that term loosely since that term gets a bad rep. I've been thinking of getting into keto or mediterranean. My goal is to find recipes I know I will love. You can't force yourself to eat healthy if you don't like it or else that will just backfire hardcore. So that's another thing to be mindful of.
Recipe Managers/DIY Cookbooks
I've lately been using an app called Copy Me That where you can save recipes across the internet and even sort them into collections. It has saved me from pulling my damn hair out when I seek out the source. When you go to a recipe blog it can be such a pain in the ass to scroll down because sometimes that "Jump to Recipe" isn't effective. Sometimes it's slow to activate and others it ends up never jumping to the recipe and here I am staring at the computer screen like a dumb ass for 30 seconds. THE ADS!!!!! All the fucking bulk on the page slows down and has often prevented me from effectively scrolling down the constant novellas so I can get to the damn recipe. AND WHEN I DO!!! Depends on the blog but when I stay on a page for too long, it randomly glitches out and it tells me to reload the page. Just so many frustrating things on why I literally hate going to recipe blogs.
Copy Me That has saved my sanity. There's other apps like it like Paprika but CMT is what I came across first. I even bought the lifetime pass for the extra perks. Wasn't even a lot.
This also comes to me physcally writing it down and putting it in my DIY cookbook. I hate looking at screens all the time so that's what I ended up doing. I also get free Bon Appetit issues every month and I often go through those and tear out the recipes I want (neatly as I can) to also add to them. I have multiple binders in their own category and it's super cute.
Motivational Posters
I haven't started yet but I want to make my own motivational posters. I have a lot of paper, a lot of markers, a lot of stickers and saved a bunch of inspo from google images to copy from. I could easily buy them but...I'm too cheap. I struggle so much with depression and self loathing. Just all around negative thoughts so I think this may help me. I go through a lot of ups and downs. What sucks about me is that it takes so much energy in me to be in a happy mood but only a fraction to get me depressed and stay in that depressed hole for a very long time. It's like my energy gets drained soooo quickly and the powers that be just don't want me happy. I'm still trying to fight the good fight though so that's why I am still here.
Some of it is toxic positivity though. One I came across that I found particularly in bad taste is "Excuses is for people who don't want it bad enough". There can be a lot of factors out of people's control for why weight loss isn't easily achievable. Ugh. That definitely sounded pretty bad handed despite it meaning to motivate. Most of the quotes I came across are much more uplifting. I just want uplifting quotes like "Eating Well is a Form of Self Respect" kind of thing.