As many of you know I am a vegan and have maintained my vegan lifestyle for 8 months now. Within the first two months of becoming vegan I lost 10 pounds (awesome!). Starting off as a vegan I was so excited so I ate really healthy. I focused on eating whole foods, eating more raw meals (different salads), cutting out juice and other processed sugars. Well it started off good, but I didn’t maintain a healthy lifestyle. I had all the same cravings I had as a meat and dairy consumer – fried, greasy foods, cheese, cookies/chocolate, cheese and more cheese. I found a lot of vegan alternatives and indulged in those things – one of my favs being fried tofu 🙂 While it’s a better option, anything fried is not healthy when consumed regularly. I also found some yummy non-dairy ice cream, which I enjoyed frequently. I traveled a lot in the last few months, so I wasn’t as strict with my vegan diet and eating on the go just isn’t as healthy as a home cooked meal, vegan or not. So, anyway…. it is possible to be an unhealthy vegan. I’ve felt like the weight I’ve been desiring to lose could have come off a little quicker if I was eating more whole foods and less processed foods.
With my cruise coming up in October and desiring to feel comfortable and happy with my weight, I decided to put myself on a health and fitness fix. I hadn’t exercised consistently in a while!!! Prior to getting married and relocating I was 132 and exercised very often with my (physically fit) mother. My heaviest since being married was 158 last year. Since becoming vegan I dropped 10 and stayed at 148 for a while. At the very least I want to lose all the weight I’ve gained over the last couple years and get back to the size I was before getting married (newly weds eat ya’ll!!). I know with working out, there can/will be muscle gained, so I’m not too concerned with what the scale says, but I do want to decrease my body fat percentage. I’ll share all the specs at the end of my 13 weeks to see if I’ve reached that goal. For now I’m going to blog about my progress. I’m going to share what I’m eating and what exercises I’m doing in hopes that you will join me on this journey! My overall goal is to develop and maintain a healthy lifestyle and feel good physically and mentally. I’ve already started by ditching meat and dairy, so now it’s time to kick it up a notch with some exercise and healthier eating.
I did not blog in July (procrastination smh), so I will share some updates and work on being consistent!
July 6-31 (4 weeks)
Starting weight (7.6.16): 146.5
I set weekly goals for myself, some of those goals included:
- 3-5 raw meals meals each week (this included salads for lunch and whole foods snacks like carrots, cucumbers, bananas, etc.)
- No caffeine
- No eating after 7:00 pm (I struggled with this because of my evening workouts)
- Gym 3-5x weekly
- More vegetables (this is where salads have become my go-to, I just load them with veggies)
- Detox water (by Jillian Michaels)
- Drink more water, no juice
- No processed foods
Each week I set new goals and some goals were continued from the previous week. My gym goals went from 3x a week to 5x and each week I upped the ante. I increased my cardio from 30 minutes to 45 minutes then to an hour and added strength training and increased in weight amount and reps.
Meal Prep
Meal prepping has become my THING! I’ve always seen people preparing their meals for the week and hear great things about how it’s helped to make their life a little easier and it also had health benefits. I’ve wanted to do it for some time now, but have been too lazy smh. But no more! I told myself with this health and fitness fix I would finally get a better handle on my diet and try something new. Praise God for His strength and wisdom because He shared some of that with me! Through Him I’ve been able to successfully meal prep for 3 Sundays consecutively. Because I’m a planner by nature, I’m not sure why I wasn’t doing this sooner. It has truly made my weeks much easier and has helped me eat healthier. When you plan out your meals, you can plan to be healthy! You aren’t setting yourself up for failure. Like the saying, “fail to plan, plan to fail.” It’s so true. I have a goal, so I have to have a plan for how I’m going to get there.
Some tips for meal prepping that have helped me:
- Find healthy and easy-to-prepare recipes (Pinterest for the win!!)
- Decide how many meals you are going to prepare for the week (I did 2-3 different meals for breakfast lunch and dinner. For example: Monday and Wednesday is the same breakfast, lunch and dinner; Tuesday and Thursday is the same; Friday is our “wing it” day. We eat whatever is left over for breakfast, like overnight oats or smoothie, and lunch and dinner is open for eating out)
- Write it out (write out what you are going to prepare, write out your budget and your grocery list)
- Determine what day will be best to do your shopping and meal prep (the first week I did my shopping and cooking in the same day and I was exhausted. The second week I did my shopping on a Saturday evening and my prepping Sunday – much better!)
- Be aware that meal prep takes time
- Get meal prep tupperware (Walmart had some decent selections)
- Turn on a movie or some music and get to prepping!
Food Journaling
This has helped me A LOT! I have the MyFitnessPal app which helps me keep track of meals, calories in meal, fat, carbs and protein intake, exercise and water intake and weight loss. In addition to this app I also have a food journal that I write all my meals each day, snacks, water and tea intake – everything I put in my mouth! Even unhealthy snacks. My motto with this is if I can’t write it or will feel guilty about writing it, I shouldn’t eat it. I keep track of everything and with this I’m able to look back on past meals and see if there’s anything I want to change or maintain. I keep my food journal in my purse and document at my desk after breakfast and lunch and finish up the next morning. I also keep track of my gym goals and accomplishments each day. This helps me stay on track as well. If I write down a goal of 60 minutes of cardio for that day, then I have to do it! It’s been really helpful thus far.
Current
Current weight (8.1.16): 141.4 (I’ve lost 5.1 lbs so far – dab on em!) 🙂
I wasn’t able to do my meal prep on Sunday due to me being out of town, however, I have meals planned out for the week, I have my grocery list and I will be doing my prepping on Monday (today). I will also do better with taking progress pictures – I always forget! Check out my Instagram account for pictures of my food so you can see what I’m eating. I will also do a “What I Eat in a Day” post – stay tuned for that!
I am currently doing 5 days a week in the gym at 90 minutes. This include 60 minutes of cardio and 30 minutes of strength/weights. I’m eating 3 meals per day which includes smoothies, whole food snacks and raw meals. I’m also drinking tons of water – this is so important!
I’ll be sharing more of my progress along the way. Thanks for joining me 🙂
Until next time…
