It’s time for a little heart to heart. I’ve been thinking about writing this post for many weeks now. I’ve decided it’s time to change a lot of my bad habits and redefine my lifestyle. I really want to be much healthier and to stop procrastinating. I’ve been reading lots of inspiring books over the last two months like Hemsley + Hemsley and Nourish, as well as some mindful living blogs like Zen Habits and Ashley Neese.
So apart from wanting to live longer and feel great everyday I also want to slim back down to my old size. Due to the stress of my old job and living with a chef trained in classic French cuisine (who eats butter like it’s cheese, true!) I’ve gained a bit of unwanted weight. Instead of fasting and “dieting” I want to approach my weight loss in a long-term sustainable and healthy way.
So why now? Firstly, I love clothes and a lot of the styles I want to wear that express my personal style don’t always look the way I want them to which leaves me feeling a bit awkward and uncomfortable. Secondly, YOLO, yes I just wrote YOLO on my blog *shocked face*. I want to enjoy every day looking and feeling my best. And thirdly, I have a very important event next year (I’m getting married) and I want to look the best I can for my future husband on our big day.
I’ve already started to integrate some new healthy habits into my schedule; I start the day with a few sun salutations, you should check out this video by Yoga Journal if you’re not sure what or how to do these. It’s great for stretching out your muscles, helps combat depression, and it generally leaves me feeling awake and ready to start the day. I’m pretty awful at drinking water so to encourage myself, I’ve been flavouring it with mint, cucumber, kiwi or a combination of all three, next I’m going to try adding strawberries. I’ve also started to alternate between my usual Lady Grey tea and either fresh ginger or mint tea. Another big change has been to cook almost everything I eat at home from scratch.
I’ve read a lot about the 80:20 rule, it suggests that your weight is defined 80% by the food you eat and 20% by the exercise you do. I’m inclined to believe this to be true as it doesn’t seem to make much difference to my body whether I’m running every other day, regularly practising yoga, swimming or visiting the gym. That’s not to say that I don’t think exercise is an important part of being healthy, it definitely is and I intend to work out which forms of exercise fit into my new schedule best and benefit me the most. Given that what you eat has the most impact on size, I want to focus on getting my diet right now. That’s diet in the original sense of the word, what I habitually eat.
So what next? I really want to hear from you, my lovely followers. Is there an amazing recipe you love and want me to try? Have you just discovered a juice you can’t live without and I should be consuming on a regular basis? Or, are you looking for a way to improve your health and diet, and want to share my journey? Please leave a comment, drop me an email or send me a tweet, I want to hear everything!
I’m going to be sharing what I do and try in my Beauty section which from now on will be called Health & Beauty.
Wish me luck in my healthier lifestyle!
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