Thoughts On Health & Fitness

It seems that every blogger out there has turned their hand to offering fitness advice at the moment, from the best YouTube workout videos and healthy recipes, to the best workout gear.

I am by no means a pinnacle of fitness inspiration, unless you count my incredible talent for stashing emergency snacks around my bed, but I did grow up with my mum, and even now that I live in London, I speak to my mum pretty much every day, and the woman is like a walking health and fitness dictionary. You can't live with someone like that for twenty years without it rubbing off on you a little. Over the last couple of months I've lost around eight pounds in weight, and the changes I made to my diet and fitness were pretty minimal.

I find it hard to take bloggers advice on health seriously, because I personally think that the most important thing to remember when it comes to health, fitness, weightloss, that kinda thing, is that we are all different. Whilst chemically our bodies are made of the same building blocks, we are all unique, which means different things will work for all of us.

Of course, there are certain rules that hold true for all of us, but for the most part, we all need to shape our routines to suit our own bodies needs and requirements. For example, diets just don't work for me, I can't stick to them, and I end up cheating. I can't do anything that involves calorie restriction, or low carb or paleo or anything. For me, it's much more productive to just make better choices. I try to eat as well as possible, fresh, organic, wholesome produce. Most of my meals are veg based, I try to stick to lighter, leaner meats like chicken breast or turkey mince, but I eat what I fancy. If I've got pizza on the brain, I make my own with wholemeal tortilla wraps as a base, if I want burgers, I make them by hand using lean cuts of meat, and ditch buns for lashings of salad. I eat a lot of sweet potato as a substitute for mash or chips, and I try to cook my own food from scratch as much as I can. Without making any other changes to my diet or exercise routine, I actually lost weight by cutting out premade meals and processed foods. I try to take my own lunch to uni as much as possible, and stopped buying Tesco meal deals!

It took me a long time to realise that you can have sweet things when you crave sugar, you just have to be a bit more creative than reaching for a bar of chocolate or a slice of cake. I tend to opt for things like vanilla soy yogurt with a handful of granola, or fresh fruit, or a homemade gluten free lemon and poppy seed muffins. I make flapjacks a lot, substituting sugar and golden syrup for agave, and they taste the same but are much healthier!

For me, the biggest key to losing weight was cutting out dairy. I'm actually allergic to dairy (but was in denial for a very long time, I love me some Ben & Jerry's), and cutting it out was great for two reasons; one, I stopped throwing up all the time, and two, I lost about six pounds pretty much right off the bat. And it was noticeable too, from about two weeks after I eliminated it, people were commenting that I looked slimmer, which goes to show how effective it was! Cutting out fizzy drinks was a big thing for me too, now if I'm craving a bit of sugary fizz I opt for soda water with either lime or elderflower cordial.

I still order the occasional Domino's, and sometimes my friends and I go chow down at Honest Burger or Chipotle, but by making sure what I'm eating the rest of the time is better, I don't see the effects of the occasional cheat. Like a glass of wine on a Sunday night! 

As far as exercise goes, it was tricky. Your standard cardio activities, running and cycling or using a cross trainer do nothing for me. I'm not sure why this is but I never have. Instead I like to alternate between Yoga and Pilates style work outs, and circuit training. I've gotten into the habit of using exercise as a form of uni work procrastination, and it makes me much more likely to do it!

I guess the point I'm trying to make is, take tips from people by all means, but if something isn't working for you then don't do it! If Acai bowls and spin classes aren't your thing then that's okay! Find what feels good and you'll be much more likely to stick at it!