How I’ve Found My Balance Between a Healthy & Clean Lifestyle While Not Missing Out on The Fun
My whole life has been a constant battle between being either “100% on” or completely “off the wagon”. Between binge dieting, calorie counting, and being on “meal plans”…and eating whatever I want but feeling terrible about it. A few years ago after I broke my leg, my body went completely out of whack and my hormones completely changed from trying to cure my injury.
I gained 30 lbs from not being able to stand really (some were definitely love pounds from being in a new relationship, too) and a year after my injury I was in a place that I never thought I would be health-wise. I was a clean-eating athlete my entire life and would maintain my weight by staying really low calorie and doing very frequent, intense workouts (literally around 8-12 major workouts a week), so this weight gain was really new to me.
Since then I’ve tried a few different more “sustainable” things like eating for my blood type, Whole 30, Paleo, basic calorie counting, etc. but nothing really resonated with me or stuck because it seemed to really restrict my lifestyle and limited me from doing a lot of things that I really enjoy doing. We travel and adventure a lot as well go up North to our cabin (really limits the “meal prepping” capabilities), we like to hang out with friends and have friends over (usually with food and alcohol!), and we like to share a good bottle of wine with dinner a couple nights a week.
Yes, you can still have a healthy lifestyle this way and I was! But I didn’t feel like I was doing enough because I wasn’t back at my “pre leg-break” weight. I was working on this “sustainable” healthy lifestyle by just eating as best I could most of the time, and allowing to indulge myself the rest of the time. But when I wasn’t seeing immediate results I would feel like I wasn’t doing enough and then just completely fall off the wagon.
Until for some reason, something just *clicked* and I decided that I’m going to take it in baby steps. I actually started to enjoy my workouts because I realized that I should be working out for my health and quality of life, not to lose weight. I finally looked at food as nutrition for my body, rather than calories that are making me fat. I decided that if I didn’t work out that day, oh well….my body needs to rest, too and I will work out when I feel like it! If I had a burger and a beer today, it’s all clean eating tomorrow..not because I’m punishing myself, but because I want to feed my body the right nutrients!
I realized that just because I wasn’t the weight I used to be, doesn’t mean that I’m not healthy. If anything, I’m the healthiest I’ve been in my entire life.
I finally realized that it’s all about B A L A N C E. And I’ve found that in two ways:
1. Forming a relationship with food that allows me to incorporate the “not so good” foods, and doesn’t make me feel guilty when I do.
FWTFL
Last June, I started the FASTer Way to Fat Loss Program that introduced me to a completely sustainable way of life. It incorporates intermittent fasting (it’s seriously not that hard, especially when you’re stuffing your face the rest of the day!) and macro cycling. The main objective of intermittent fasting is to get your glycogen levels depleted at least once a day so your insulin levels aren’t always spiking. I totally believe in the glucose/weight loss science (did you read my review of the Body Love book by Kelly LeVeque where she talks about how glycogen levels and stabilized insulin are directly correlated to fat loss?)
It’s also recommended to eat “clean”, meaning eating only things that came from the ground or has a mother + gluten and dairy free as much as possible. Alcohol is permitted within the macros, but recommended to drink only on leg days (Saturdays).
Macro Cycling:
Two days a week (Mondays and Tuesdays) the goal is to get your glycogen levels completely depleted (also recommended to pair with a cardio workout to deplete glycogen even more) so I’ll eat under 50g net carbs (net = carbs-fiber) and basically unlimited fats (herro tons of guac).
Three days a week (Wed, Thurs, Sat), you restore your glycogen by eating your “regular macros”. Honestly, I find it really really hard to make my macros most days…it is a LOT of food. Think 1700-1800 cals, but tons of carbs and protein….it’s a ton!
The other two days in the week are for “low macros” which is 25% less of everything than your regular macro day. It’s a pretty low calorie day (like 1300 calories), so I like to do fish tacos and juices…things that aren’t really macro heavy.
I love the FWTFL because it keeps the days interesting – it’s not just chicken and fish and rice every day. Plus, it makes filling in your macros a little challenge like a puzzle. Which leads me to my next tool for meal planning…
Meal Planning made SO easy with PlateJoy
I recently discovered this app called Platejoy that helps plan your weekly meals and makes your grocery list for you (you can even export it to InstaCart where it pre-fills your cart!). It’s a complete godsend for my procrastinating self, because with counting macros you really have to plan your days ahead or you won’t be successful.
This one is not a meal delivery service, but a meal planning service. So if you’re price-conscious and/or you don’t hate going to the grocery store like me but just need a little planning help so you’re not just buying a ton of stuff at the store hoping you use it but end up throwing half of it out when it goes bad…or spending hours on Sundays planning your week and making your grocery list…this service is for you!
I’ve been using it lately in conjunction with my FASTer Way To Fat Loss carb cycling and intermittent fasting program (writing a blog post about this soon!) even though I absolutely hate the grocery store but they have an option to export the entire shopping list they create for you based on your week to InstaCart! It works great with specific diets because you can choose the recipes and it gives you all the nutrition info and macro breakdowns.
Get a 10-day free trial of PlateJoy
Get $20 off your PlateJoy subscription
So here’s how PlateJoy works:
- Answer a bunch of really specific and necessary questions to get a feel for what you like to eat, your restrictions, how many people you’re cooking for, how you like to cook, and even if you like using your dinners for lunch the next day or not. See some of the questions below:
2. Choose what meals you want planned and how many per week, which you can change at any time. I don’t eat breakfast because I intermittent fast with the FWTFL program and Danny just naturally doesn’t eat breakfast. We also typically just either snack or eat out on the weekends…maybe cook once (or we’re up North at the cabin) and eat out one weekday lunch and one weeknight (we just can’t help it no matter how much food we buy and how much we plan!), so I chose to get just 4 lunches and 5 dinners planned.
3. Check off what you already have in your pantry and choose ingredients that you already have that you want to use up.
4. Choose your plan, get your meals, and either send your list to InstaCart or use the app in the grocery store to shop!
Get $10 off your subscription
And of course…water, water, water!
When all else fails and I did not have a clean day, I just at least make sure I’m getting enough H2O!
I posted this ounce counting water jug on my stories the other day and people went nuts for it…it really helps keep me on track!
2. Finding workouts that I love and enjoy going to, and that fit into my schedule without too much sacrifice
I’ve found a 3-4x per week workout schedule between two things that fit perfectly into my lifestyle, where I don’t have to schedule my entire day around my workout. This makes it so much more enjoyable for me. I also found out about myself that I like working out better in the morning so I’m not anticipating it all day, and I just have more energy in the morning.
Classpass
I started doing reformer pilates at a great studio close to me by the recommendation of a friend and I’m officially hooked! I started taking their other classes as well and I really can’t stay away. I actually enjoy it. My mom used to teach on the reformer when I was in middle school/high school and I remember thinking it looked so boring, but I think the gymnast in me loves the muscle control/body weight aspect of it.
I use ClassPass because it’s actually cheaper than buying classes from the studio and you can roll up to 10 credits into the next week. I like it because if I have extra credits I can always take any other class on the app like yoga, boxing, etc.
Get $30 off your own ClassPass membership here!
Spin Bike at Home
For the other days that I don’t have time to commute to workout for a full hour, I spin for 20-30 mins at home! I try to incorporate it into my work schedule around lunch time – even though it’s super hard to pull myself away from my computer – but even just 20 minutes of some hard climbs does the trick.
I got this spin bike from Spinning.com (owned by MadDog – the creator of Spinning in general). The bike was a fraction of the cost of the Peloton (nothing against the Peloton) and works amazing. It comes with a free year’s membership to Spin.TV which is similar to the Peloton. I’ve also found some free Spin classes on Amazon Fire TV as well.
