You sometimes must experience what you are not
in order to become what you are.
This was a while ago for me,
but I remember it well.
I struggled immensely with emotional eating.
I was living alone, my family was 1500 miles
away, and I was in a long distance relationship.
That, and the fact that I allowed my diet to
exclude me from most social situations left
me pretty solitary for many, many months.
Sometimes it would just be too much,
and I would start to stuff the emotions with
junk food. This would make me tired, and
so I would cease going to the gym as well.
Double negative.
The pictures above were from September 06.
I had a bad spell, which lasted about 3 weeks.
My body couldn't handle the barrage at all.
I slipped into a mild depression.
Everyone has a breaking point though.
I gained about 15 lbs, and that was enough for me.
I decided to get back into gear, and set up the
environment to make that happen.
I put some new audiobooks on my ipod,
and got my ass back to the gym.
I did an hour on the elliptical every morning.
This might seem like a big commitment,
but I needed to see results quick, so there was
no time to take it easy. I often went back in the evenings
to lift some weights too, but the key was the morning
elliptical. I started making green smoothies again,
and remarkably enough, once I had the greens back in my
system, the cravings for junk food faded away quickly.
It took some discipline at first, but I attached pleasure to my
workouts by either watching National Geographic on TV,
or listening to a great audiobook, or some music that got me going.
The muscles are all there, whether there is fat covering
them up or not. I stripped the fat and the water, and
made the core shine through. This took about 40 days.
The keys:
Greens.
Seriously, the biggest thing you can do.
Not only because of their health benefits, but because
they have always diminished my cravings for junk food.
I know I'm not alone in this.
Good protein.
Besides leafy greens,
my clear favorite is bee pollen.
Amino acids, raw protein, and good taste.
Supporting organic beekeepers that are helping
to pollinate our food supply isn't a bad thing either.
Goji berries...ditto. Complete protein in a berry. No joke.
Hemp protein.
Manitoba Harvest is my favorite.
Their hemp butter on apples got me through traveling many times.
Meat is dead protein, and dead protein is not absorbed easily by the body.
What gorilla ever ate a steak or a burger?
If you want to eat the flesh of a dead animal, don't do it because
you think you are getting protein. Think about where that idea came from.
And of course...lots and lots of water.
Fill up a gallon in the morning, and chip away at
it throughout your day. It kept me full, and told my
body that water was plentiful so I could finally release
the excess stored in my cells (AND MY FACE).
Consistency is the name of the game though.
People always email me about my workout routine.
My routine is random and frankly doesn't matter.
What matters is that I have made it a daily or almost daily
event in my life. Persistence is the key. Not workout routine.
If you aren't happy with the way your outside looks,
there is no better time to start. Lots of support can be found
online, as well as information and inspiration.
Put on a documentary or whatever you want every morning
and do some jogging in place for an hour.
This done consistently will give you more results than
any expensive trainer or gym membership will likely provide.
Greens, good protein, morning workouts (with audiobooks or tv)
and persistence will make the transformation happen.
Why not try? You have read this for a reason.
You know what can be done.
40 days.
