For a month, I'd been doing a clean eating and exercise routine after I weighed myself and found that my body fat was at 34%, which is extremely poor. On the outside, one wouldn't really think I'm overweight and potentially damaging my body with unhealthy eating habits. So I embarked on a journey to a healthier me, starting with a month of good food and a set exercise routine. Here are the things I learnt from the challenge:
Pros:
Having a routine helped me get up earlier than usual in order to start my day. I managed to structure my days and plan meals in advance most times in order to make the most of each day. As a result, I've definitely become more productive and manage my time better.
The clean eating has helped to improve my skin and I now have a very noticeable glow and my skin feels great! Obviously, this has been an on going thing since I drink a lot of water, exfoliate my skin regularly etc, but the change in diet definitely played a part in this too.
I've had to learn more ways to make food more interesting. When it comes to food, my love knows no bounds. I absolutely love food and experiment with different ingredient combinations was one of the things I enjoyed the most about the challenge.
Finally, I've become more disciplined when it comes to being able to say no! It's funny that we don't really think about it, but the small habits we have have the potential to shape our behaviour. By taking that extra cupcake, by succumbing to cravings, we train our minds to "allow" certain things in our lives which we normally shouldn't find acceptable. Next thing you know, you drink an extra glass of wine and get arrested for DUI. Ok, so perhaps that's a bit extreme, but you know what they say, "Watch your habits, they become character."
Cons:
I tend to be hard on myself a lot in the sense that I push myself to the absolute limits! In a way, it's a good thing because I test myself to see what I'm capable of and what I'm not, rather than sitting back and not even attempt it. However, I noticed I didn't even give myself a break on my workouts, and they got even more and more intense. Keeping up became hard and I had to split them up throughout the day instead of doing it all in one go. On top of that, I'd go to the gym and work out at night, which really started to take a toll on me as time went on.
I couldn't have chosen a worse time to begin the challenge as it was exam season which made it extremely difficult to spare time to go to the gym in the evenings. However, it was all about taking that first step i guess, which was the most important part.
Some days my imagination wasn't great so I ran out of creative ways to make my food. I also got obsessed with particular foods, and although they're healthy anyway, obsessing over things won't help me much in being a more disciplined self.
Now for the results, here are the results and I must say I'm not too surprised as a month wouldn't have made a huge difference under my circumstances, but I'm definitely taken aback by the weight gain. Considering body fat has fallen, I'm assuming (and keeping my fingers crossed that I'm correct), that my body weight has increased because I've gained more muscle. So what I'm going to do now is to carry on with the clean eating side of things, but do insanity workouts instead as they are more structured by a professional who really knows what works better than what. I'll give another update at the end of the month or beginning of July, then another one right before I fly off to Tanzania end of July. Now it's all about pressing on and seeing how far I can go and how much more body fat I can lose! To those who joined me on the challenge, keep at it and don't just stop because the 30 days ended!
ciao
xxx
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