[MUSIC PLAYING] What would be your three top tips that you would give to someone who wants to adopt a new healthy lifestyle?
First and foremost, I think prayer is so important. Just ask God to give you the strength and all that you need to get through this, and to resist those temptations. I mean, God will help us to resist temptations.
Keeping a food journal is also very important. Keep track of how many calories that you consume, and how many calories that you burn.
I just total up the difference each day, and hopefully, I have burned more than I consumed. And then I just keep a running total. And when I’ve reached 3,500 calories, I know that I should have burned a pound. And it’s been pretty much right on it every time that I’ve weighed, except when I’ve reached those plateaus.
And it gives you knowledge. Remember how I said in the beginning, you’re going to be like a calorie machine in your head.
Oh, yeah.
It gives you knowledge so that you know what you’re writing down. And you know what you’re eating. And you know how much further you have to go for the day.
Somehow, we talked about this earlier. It’s just a lot harder to eat a handful of M&M’s when you know you’ve got to write it down. I don’t know why, but it is.
And it helps hold you accountable to how many calories that you’re consuming.
Yes.
I went out to eat the other night, and the salad that I ate actually had 1,260 calories, which at the time I did not realize the salad had that many calories. And then I just ate a couple of bites of the dessert as well, which was very high in calories.
But I knew. I said, well, if I’m going to eat this dessert, then I’m going to have to go home, and I’m going to have to run another couple of miles to get it off. And that’s what I did, just to help compensate for the calories that I ate.
Any other tips? Probably the third thing is being well prepared. I’d try to make sure every night whenever I’m getting everything ready for the next day at school, that I’ve got everything ready to go the next morning for breakfast. And I have my lunch packed. I never eat in the cafeteria anymore. I always take my lunch with me.
If we go off on a trip somewhere, I always pack plenty of water and healthy snacks, and all that with me as well.
A lot of times I even buy my groceries on the weekend. And I’ll go ahead and wash up all my fruits and my vegetables, and go ahead and package them in my little Tupperware. And I have it ready to go. So all I have to do is reach in and grab and go. And it makes it really easy.
Smart.
I think that the only thing that would say that I would add to that is don’t cheat.
Yeah.
Because what I’ve found over the course of the last two years is that when you cheat, you only sabotage yourself. So if you’re prepared and you’re writing everything down, then you don’t have to cheat.
Right.
It’s like when I ate that cake, that dessert. That was the first time in months that I’d had anything like that. And I just wanted to try it. But I knew ahead of time. OK, I’m going to try this, but I’m going to make up for it. I’m going to go and run when I get home. Even though I’d already exercised that day.
And I did. I held to my word. And when I got home, I ran a couple of more miles.
And so many people would have quit because of that. Or they would’ve said, well, I blew this. I might as well eat the whole dessert.
This is life. We have to enjoy it.
