French Fry Fitness
a girl on a mission to have her cake & loose weight too. leave questions and comments in my ask! feel free to submit! follow the twitter? ♥
^^^ that. Give it weeks, or better yet months. But you will get there. Its a slow painfully process, and at times you will screw up. But it will be worth it.Unfortunately I see so many girls who can’t grasp this concept and it comes from the fact we live in a world of such instant gratification. People need to realise there is no fast fix for weight loss! It takes a lot of hard work, dedication and persistence. These sorts of changes take time and are rarely instantaneous.
Don’t look at weight loss as something you just have to put up with for a few weeks. Look at it as a lifestyle you plan to follow for the rest of your life.
This is a great video demonstrating some basic yoga moves that promote weight loss.
Anonymous asked: I'm looking for an effective, yet healthy way to loose weight and keep it off. Any ideas?
Dear Anon,
The most effective way to lose weight is through diet & exercise, as cliched as that may sound.
I personally lost the most weight (20 pounds) when I banished all the processed & (bad) fast foods from my diet and tarted going to the gym at least 3 times a week.
When I wanted to lose weight, I ate less Wendy’s Burgers and more Panera Salads, or less cold cut subs and more grilled chicken wraps.
Also I removed ‘excessive’ sugars from my diet. I started drinking unsweetened iced tea, and started using stevia or ‘sugar free syrup’ to sweeten my coffee.
I’m not a fan of ‘low-carb/high-protein’ diets because if theres one thing I love it’s pasta. So I changed a lot of my grains to whole grains. Better yet, I discovered Ronzoni’s Garden Select pasta which has a full serving of vegetables for every cup!
That leads me to my next point: if you want to lose weight the healthy way, you must eat your fruit and veggies. Be careful with the fruit because, although they can be high in fiber (which keeps you fuller - longer) they can also be high in sugar, and sugar turns into fat.
When I was trying to lose weight I counted calories. There are apps and websites like livestrong.com that can help you identify how many calories you should take in in order to lose weight. However, know that it is not the end of the world if you surpass your suggested number of calories. It’s okay - especially if you are working out that day. You must reward the body with a nice protein shake or salad after working out in order to nourish the muscles.
As for work out routines, I like cardio - running, ellipticals, ski machines, or the stair master; but you can’t just do cardio alone. You need to mix it up with weights in order to tone, as well as lose weight.
A good example of my work out schedule would be:
- day 1: Cardio
- day 2: Weights
- day 3: Yoga/ Pilates
![matchstickmolly:
Super-Sly Ways to Slim Down Your Portions
1. Use a smaller bowl and think of them as standard size. Who came up with bowl sizes anyway? They’re hardly suited to everyday portion sizes. If you start small, you’ll end up eating less, AND you can be one of those ultra-positive people and think “my bowl of ice cream is full to the max!” instead of “I have one lowly scoop of Chunky Monkey in here, OMG so deprived.”
2. Start with half. Of course it’s okay to have an entire bagel, but only toast one half to start. After you’re finished, if you’re still hungry, go ahead and toast the other half if you want to, no problem. Starting with half just prevents you from wasting food or feeling guilty if you do in fact end up full from the first half [and you might surprise yourself that you are, in fact, full from the first half!]
3. You’re not “wasting” food. The habit of finishing everything on your plate is a bad one—it forces you to override the ‘full’ signals your brain is giving you and stuff yourself even though your body is telling you to stop. This will make it harder later to figure out if you actually are hungry or not. Just because you eat the food you’ve been served doesn’t mean you’re not wasting it—you’ll just be w-a-i-s-t-i-n-g it instead [Ohmygosh so clever.]
4. Act like a three year old. You don’t have to eat the parts of a meal or a snack that you don’t like. Having a piece of toast but don’t really care for the crusts? Cut them off and don’t worry about it. Why put something unhealthy in your mouth if you’re not enjoying it? Think that whoever invented pop tarts could definitely have left off those filling-less, cardboard-y edges? Me too. You don’t have to eat them. Only like the peanut butter cups out of your ice cream? Feel free to dig them out and throw the rest away. Make sure you’re enjoying your indulgences 100%.
5. When you go out, split a meal with a friend instead of getting your own. Eating out is one of the biggest triggers for stuffing myself, personally, because if I paid for it, I’m going to eat it. But splitting huge restaurant portions with a pal ends up with both of us feeling satisfied, but not so stuffed we want to stay in bed and die.
6. Another eating-out trick to try is skipping dinner altogether—just get an appetizer and a dessert. The appetizers are always yummy, perfect for two to share, and thenyou get to have dessert, which is really all you want anyway.
7. Make “small” the standard. When you order a cheeseburger at a fast food restaurant, make it a small. Same with getting a sugary coffee drink, or some fries, or an ice cream cone. You really aren’t sacrificing much, you still get to enjoy a treat, you just don’t start out with so incredibly much to finish. Plus small is cheaper, so you can buy one of these.
8. Get a bowl of chips [or some other delicious snack] rather than bringing the whole bag with you when you have a snack. You can always have more, but you’ll know how much you’re actually eating, instead of “somewhere between most and all of the bag.”](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lu3hdy8SN31qcwijgo1_r1_400.jpg)
Super-Sly Ways to Slim Down Your Portions
1. Use a smaller bowl and think of them as standard size. Who came up with bowl sizes anyway? They’re hardly suited to everyday portion sizes. If you start small, you’ll end up eating less, AND you can be one of those ultra-positive people and think “my bowl of ice cream is full to the max!” instead of “I have one lowly scoop of Chunky Monkey in here, OMG so deprived.”
2. Start with half. Of course it’s okay to have an entire bagel, but only toast one half to start. After you’re finished, if you’re still hungry, go ahead and toast the other half if you want to, no problem. Starting with half just prevents you from wasting food or feeling guilty if you do in fact end up full from the first half [and you might surprise yourself that you are, in fact, full from the first half!]
3. You’re not “wasting” food. The habit of finishing everything on your plate is a bad one—it forces you to override the ‘full’ signals your brain is giving you and stuff yourself even though your body is telling you to stop. This will make it harder later to figure out if you actually are hungry or not. Just because you eat the food you’ve been served doesn’t mean you’re not wasting it—you’ll just be w-a-i-s-t-i-n-g it instead [Ohmygosh so clever.]
4. Act like a three year old. You don’t have to eat the parts of a meal or a snack that you don’t like. Having a piece of toast but don’t really care for the crusts? Cut them off and don’t worry about it. Why put something unhealthy in your mouth if you’re not enjoying it? Think that whoever invented pop tarts could definitely have left off those filling-less, cardboard-y edges? Me too. You don’t have to eat them. Only like the peanut butter cups out of your ice cream? Feel free to dig them out and throw the rest away. Make sure you’re enjoying your indulgences 100%.
5. When you go out, split a meal with a friend instead of getting your own. Eating out is one of the biggest triggers for stuffing myself, personally, because if I paid for it, I’m going to eat it. But splitting huge restaurant portions with a pal ends up with both of us feeling satisfied, but not so stuffed we want to stay in bed and die.
6. Another eating-out trick to try is skipping dinner altogether—just get an appetizer and a dessert. The appetizers are always yummy, perfect for two to share, and thenyou get to have dessert, which is really all you want anyway.
7. Make “small” the standard. When you order a cheeseburger at a fast food restaurant, make it a small. Same with getting a sugary coffee drink, or some fries, or an ice cream cone. You really aren’t sacrificing much, you still get to enjoy a treat, you just don’t start out with so incredibly much to finish. Plus small is cheaper, so you can buy one of these.
8. Get a bowl of chips [or some other delicious snack] rather than bringing the whole bag with you when you have a snack. You can always have more, but you’ll know how much you’re actually eating, instead of “somewhere between most and all of the bag.”
Who’s the enemy, fast food, or ourselves?
While watching Dr. Oz the other day, I took notes as he introduced some magical herb that when added into our meals, could cut our calorie intake in half. However, when he cut to a commercial break, my mouth began salivating as the newest double-bacon-heart-attack-on-a-bun from Burger King rolled across the screen. 30-seconds later, Dr. Oz is back on his rant about how fast food is the devil and we should all cook our meals at home.
I look at the clock and it’s half-past 11; if I don’t leave now I’ll never make it to class in time… so much for packing lunch.
Even though the media drills images of disproportionately thin women, and super ripped beefcakes as attractive human beings, they still try to convince you to go to Taco Bell to buy a $5 Big Box meal because it’s a ‘great deal’. We all know it’s easier to buy fast food. Heck, just this afternoon I as I was rushing to class, I drove past a Wendy’s and purchased my grilled chicken salad with a medium unsweetened iced tea (something I could have easily made at home) for a whooping $7.50!
Every time you step into that sub shop, buying that seemingly harmless whole-wheat tuna wrap, your hard-earned money is going down the drain. Livingsocial.com released a survey that claims that the average American eats about 5 dine-in, or fast food meals each week! That’s can add up to 250 meals each year! That’s money that you could be spending on a gym membership, a new pair of shoes, or even on gas. If you spend $8 on fast food every day, within a week, that amounts roughly $50, or $200 a month! The thought of how many pairs of Steve Madden pumps I could buy, by simply brown bagging it is enough to get me into an apron.
So what can we do to fill our bellies and not empty our wallets? How can we eat healthier with out breaking the bank? The answer, my friends, is cooking.
An article in The New York Times, states that claims such as: “it’s more affordable to feed a family of four at McDonald’s than to cook a healthy meal for them at home” are simply propaganda we lazy Americans put into our minds to get out of the tedious task of cooking. As a matter of fact it isn’t cheaper to eat these unhealthy foods. An info-graph shows that an order for a family of four — 2 Big Macs, 1 cheeseburger, 6 chicken McNuggets, 2 medium and 2 small fries, and 2 medium and 2 small sodas — costs about $28. Whereas, a meal of chicken, potatoes and salad with toast and milk not only has better nutritional value, but costs half as much, only $14.
Sure many of us ‘don’t have the time’ to cook, while we rush to work or class. After all, time is money, right? But should your hard earned coin be going towards wraps, salads, or other foods you can easily prepare at home? Chefs such as Rachael Ray, host of ’30 Minute Meals’ on the Food Network, shows us how easy it can be to make tasty, nutritious meals at home in less time than it takes to go out to eat. More importantly, unlike fast food, meals at home can be prepared ahead of time, or even in excess, to accommodate busy week schedules. Come on, a little leftovers never hurt anyone.
So, next time you find yourself lusting over that new iPhone, coveting thy neighbor’s new Michael Kor’s bag, or crying because you don’t have enough cash to fill up your gas tank, remember that tuna wrap you bought for lunch every day last week… it may have filled up your belly, but I’m sure a couture handbag lasts longer than 24 hours.
