Philosophies

Hello, again. With this new fitness kick I'm on, I'm staying away from too many hard and fast rules. If I tried to tell myself I couldn't have any sugar or bread until I reached my goal weight, I would be at Panera stuffing my face with a chocolate croissant before you could say, "addict."

So instead, I'm simply trying to live by a few philosophies about food. And since I hate the word "diet," let's call it my Eating Strategy for Weight Loss. My ESWL, if you will. The first and most general rule of my ESWL is actually an old saying. Eat like a king at breakfast, a prince at lunch and a pauper at dinner. By far, the most calories I consume in a day are in the morning. If I'm craving something bad at night, I do my darndest to hold off until the morning. And then I eat a cookie as part of my breakfast. No, seriously! I can be pretty sure I'll burn that cookie off within the course of a day. What I don't want to do is eat it and then sleep for 7 or 8 hours.

Also, night is the only time I'm concerned about carbs. I eat peanut butter sandwiches and oatmeal all the time, but not at night. The whole Atkins, extreme no-carb thing isn't for me and frankly, I don't think it's healthy at all. However, every weight loss article I've ever read has told me not to do carbs at night. I won't presume to explain the science behind it, I just do it.

Basically the only "rule" I follow for the ESWL is this: no fried food and no fast food. I know that sounds like the harsh rules I was talking about in the beginning, but this one is really not a struggle for me to follow. I've never been a big fast food girl; sweets have always been my downfall. The only time I've eaten fast food in the past is when it's been convenient and/or the people around me wanted to. I've just decided to not participate. Sorry, I'll be "that guy."

I use a few philosophies to keep going to the gym too. One is the shortest, yet one of the truest sayings I've ever heard: The more you don't, the more you won't.

That's it! The more you don't do something, anything, the more it builds up in your head and becomes this big deal. All of the sudden it's a mental hurdle to jump over before you even get to the thing. If I have a hard day in the gym and I don't want to go the next day, I say to myself, "The more you don't, the more you won't." And then I try to do a little somethin' somethin'. I like a saying SVU athletics would use too, "To get what you've never had, you must do what you've never done." So true.

So there you have it. The few simple philosophies I've been using. But don't take my word for it, it has yet to be seen whether or not they work.