SmartBells

Snatching Defeat from the Jaws of Victory

2010-05-03T19:28:00.000-07:00

The cycle of self-sabotage and 5 Reasons why you've already broken your New Years Resolutions about getting back on the health wagon.

5. You're OK with living in a cardboard box as long as everyone else is

If you live in campus housing, this might be true in a very literal sense BUT what I really mean is that most of us are ok with looking "decent", with having decent physiques, and with treating our bodies, or diets and our health with only fleeting, half-assed concern. We live in a culture of relativism. As long as our friends are jiggling everywhere, we feel OK with this. Your body is your home. If everyone was chilling in cardboard boxes, living like hobos, would that suddenly make living in a mansion less appealing? The point is, don’t be deceived into getting lax with your plans for self-improvement because everyone around you is stuck in a rut.

Solution: Time to upgrade your body playgirl, ditch the cardboard box and roll MTV cribs style. You don’t have to be a snob and abandon your friends, but you do have to be firm in your resolve, and look for motivation from others who share your desire to change, ie joining an on-campus organization (shameless plug for Iron Maidens, ask about it!)

4. Stinkin’ Thinkin’
What you say to yourself, and to the people you hang with is the quickest way to undermine, or reinforce your goals. Just as the brain is the most powerful sex organ due to its ability to enhance or even create sexual experiences, it also has the power to create or enforce negative experiences. Thinking negative thoughts about your body, about your ability to change less than healthy habits and other self-doubt can severely decrease your probability of success.

Solution: Clean it up. Love your body how it is, embrace it and embrace its powerful and unlimited potential to constantly be improved and pushed.

3. You’re Free Falling

You’ve allowed the gravity of your habits pull you through the past few months. You’re so damned good at justifying why you should treat yourself with pizza and cookies, because you’ve worked so hard. If unchecked, like any other downward pushing force, these habits will override any hopeful attempts at change.

Solution: Defy the laws of physics ☺ Or rather, realize that for every negative force, you have the potential to produce an equally powerful positive force in your life. It may be difficult, but if you get yourself properly positioned, the momentum of habits (healthy ones) can propel you to your dreams.

2. You can’t do math
1+1=2. Got it? Yes…but do you REALLY get it?

Proper nutrition + proper exercise= results

Half-assed diet + lackluster/easy workouts= WTF ARE YOU DOING?

Yes folks it’s that simple. While what I mean by a proper diet and proper exercise can and does vary from person to person, the equation itself does not change.

Solution: Get a tutor. Pick up a “Muscle and Fitness Hers” Magazine, do some research. It’s your body, your time, your life—it’s worth the research.

1. You’re a Sucker for False Advertising

I'm not just talking about the cheesy infomercials promising quick and easy weight loss (trust me if it existed, NO celebrity would have a weight issue). I hope you’re not spending your college dollars on any of this crap. But as a woman, you’re vulnerable to other, more insidious false advertisement. The type that makes you think that being a 00 will make your life carefree. Even if you understand this to be RIDICULOUS with your intellect, your subconscious mind may be falling for those sweet nothings. Setting unrealistic goals, and attaching an undue amount of importance to them can be a recipe to disaster. Don’t beat yourself up for not looking like the girls on the runway. Focus on your own beauty. Focus on being everything your potential self actually is.

Solution: If you find that glorified images of malnourished, prepubescent-esque women make you feel less than happy with what you’re working with, start buying magazines with empowered, athletic women on them. Instead of focusing on “shrinking” yourself down to a tiny bit of nothingness, find out how to maximize and perhaps even grow (muscles!) your womanly physique.

It's a Diet not a Liveit

2010-04-14T12:01:00.000-07:00

Playgirls,
The term DIET in our society, and especially women tends to bring the following words to mind:
Anger, frustration, self-denial, HUNGER, starvation, and finally REBOUND.
Although diet technically is simply a noun meant to label any food intake, in our society it typically means restricting one's food intake with the goal of losing weight.

Now there is NOTHING wrong with changing your food intake (ie SLIGHTLY lowering calories) to create change in your body. The PROBLEM is that most women start "living" their diets.

What a weight loss diet is not:

Meant to stay on for extended periods of time (quick way to eff up your metabolism)
Meant to be necessarily comfortable---no you should not encounter any HEALTH problems (please consult a doctor if you do), but you also may be slightly more hungry. TOUGH, its only for a short period...and SORRY there isn't any easy way to do it...if there was, everyone would be at their ideal weight.
Meant to allow you delicious foods and be a fun experience--if loads of crap equaled weight loss, well....think about it.

Losing weight is meant for a SEASON of your life. That SEASON is until you reach your HEALTHY ideal weight. During that season you can do some, most, or all of the following, as they have been successful.

READ, find out what diets work best for people in your demographic, weight your stats with your lifestyle
COUNT CALORIES, or POINTS or PORTIONS or WTF ever you need to make sure your calories in are less than your calories out. Simple principle, 3500 calories= 1 lb. It gets more complex when talking about muscle loss vs fat loss...but simply speaking, you have to create a deficit of 3500 calories to make your body want to lose 1 lb of lard off your arse
MOVE, ALOT-- you can either hit the gym (which I HIGHLY recommend) and/or create more "burn" by doing things like taking the stairs instead of the elevator or walking an extra mile to class. Please TRY to do some weights....I'll explain more about this in another post. But if you have questions please email me.
Get a friend, a coach, a significant other...SOMEONE who can talk you away from the brownie and diet failure.

After that, I'm gonna ask you to eat healthy, and monitor your weight, but DITCH the DIET.

Stop LIVING on your diet. Yes, I DO encourage healthy eating as a lifestyle. Yes I DO encourage monitoring your portions, and not letting yourself get caught up in the social culture of eating CRAP. But weight loss diets themselves are supposed to be relatively short, but mildly "painful" experiences, so you can return to normalcy AND sanity, and get on with your life.

Think of it as finals period.
You shouldnt cram the night before (the dietary equivalent would be starving yourself to lose quick weight, possibly damaging your metabolism and hurting yourself)

But you should NOT start studying 5 months in advance, it would be COMPLETELY impractical.
You SHOULD pace yourself, study during reading period (1 week or so before the final) a little daily. After the final though...you should chillax

Take this to heart from someone who dieted down 55 lbs.

It's a diet, not a liveit.

Peace

Foods FTW (For the Weigh-in)

2010-04-04T16:06:00.000-07:00

Ok...during the past few weeks I have been finding very very interesting foods to make my diet from hell slight less painful.
If you are a

Bagel girl....try weight watchers whole wheat bagels, english muffins, and whole wheat breads (110 calories vs 350 or more)...throw some reduced fat philly cream cheese (salmon, veggie or strawberry)
Cheese addicts...try laughing cow LIGHT cheeses ...35 cals per serving...thank you GOD
Love potato chips...try POPCHIPS...google them...natural..yummy..great..mmmm
Need your morning muffin fix? Try vitamuffins, vitatops...all natural..and about 100 calories per serving.
Sugar free jello FTW (for the win, or the weight loss...whichever is more relevant)
Try replacing regular yogurt with greek yogurt...it has tons of protein.
Tofutti pops, tofutti cuties (ice cream sandwiches) are lactose free, all natural and can be found in the organic section...yummy
Love PB? ...its VERY BAD ...but try 1. Better'n Peanut Butter (trader's joes or online, or ask me for a sample!) orrrrr PB2 FTW
OMG OMG OMG...last but not least....gotta try Chef Jay's lite bites...order em online...they taste like HEAVEN...and are protein packed and low fat!

Anything you LOVE and can't get enough of...that is stalling your weight loss...I PROBABLY know how to make it alot better for you...I'm working on a healthy version of pad thai at the moment...mmmm :) So email me, or post and ask about it.

Getting off YOUR [food] Crack

2009-01-14T04:45:00.000-08:00

Since it is finals period and ads about fresh baked donuts and cookies to "knock the edge off" are being sent over a bunch of lists, I thought I'd share with you my thoughts on food crack.

Yep...most of us are on some serious crack.

So I was watching A&E intervention last night (yes, I love this show, and you should too).
After watching this show, I am convinced that 99.9% of the human population is addicted to SOMETHING...but probably several things.

Now..hopefully no one is tapping out veins and going to see a pusherman...but...we probably all could use a little intervention.

My anecdotal observations are that most people, especially women have food-crack. It has actually become ingrained into American pop culture that food can make you feel good. Smiley happy, THIN people, scarfing down their burgers, enjoying chocolate ice cream, and munching on french fries.

Yes my astute reader, these are the marketing techniques of pusherman 101.

"Whatchu want girl, I got ben and jerry's, I got gin and juice, I got pizza and chicken wings...I can make YOU feel GOOD"

Somehow, most of us fall for it daily. Like little feigns, we just GOTTA have it. We eat, we smile, we step on the scale...we swear. This continues to be a vicious cycle throughout most people's lives and is typically exacerbated when we look in the mirror and see how much the crap has actually screwed up our bodies.

How do you get off the food crack?
Unlike crack...we actually NEED food to live folks (despite contrary evidence on international runaways).
You DON'T do it by denying yourself food...or even denying yourself treats (all the time).
You do it by becoming aware of what you eat, by jotting down what you eat, and by making small systematic changes that you can be OK with.
The way I see it...what REALLY makes people screw up with food is that they TREAT it like a drug. Not only using it to numb or enhance their emotions, but also just taking what their "dealer" gives them.

Stop just reaching for that "healthy" sandwich that may have all sorts of nasty little surprises waiting for you WITHOUT thinking....

..hey, I wonder how this was made, I wonder what this will actually do to my body. These are questions that you should try to keep somewhere in your brain.

The FDA, the USDA and whoever else has slapped nutrition labels EVERYWHERE because someone...in their infinite wisdom THOUGHT you might want to know what was being put in YOUR BODY!

Food should NOT run your life...but just like you keep tabs on your bank account, on your GPA, on the days since your last salon visit...you need to keep tabs on what you're putting into your body playgirl.

Not one more brownie, not one more cookie, not one more pint of ice cream....now..today...
GET OFF THE CRACK!

Welcome!

2009-01-13T16:03:00.001-08:00

Hello and welcome to my blog!
Here you'll find daily tips on simple things you can do to reach your fitness/weight loss/health goals in college without sacrificing your SANITY, your wallet, or your shameless addiction to that oh-so-predictable teenage drama/comedy/thriller/is-too-stupid-to-fit-any-real-genre.

This blog is to inspire the average woman to forget about being a size 0, and love her body at a size 12. But it doesn't stop there...because let's be real folks...there is life BETWEEN a size 0 and a size 14. It's called SANITY, NORMALCY, and HEALTHY! Let's GET THERE!

I LOVED my body at a size 14/16. But I loved it even more at a size 4. Not because of the number...but because I learned to take care of myself!

SO if you're a size or two larger than you'd like. That's OK...change starts by empowering yourself, by believing that your body is WORTH it. That you are WORTH it.

Now Go girl!