How To Balance Getting in Shape While Still Enjoying Your Life

I get asked this question all the time: “How do you find such balance between working out and the food that you eat?”  And honestly it’s something that I am so passionate to share to other women because so much of the fitness “industry” and social media tells you that you need to count calories, count macros, do juice cleanses, do low carb, do high carb, don’t eat anything processed, eat only organic food, yadda yadda to be “healthy” and to get in shape.  And that may work for some people but it doesn’t work for me…I’ll explain why.

I have a lot to say about this so I will try to condense it as much as I can 🙂 bear with me…

I will tell you that exercise, being physically fit and being in shape is something that is incredibly important to me.  I love working out and the way it makes me feel, I love seeing results that exercise gives you and the confidence boost you get on the inside from slight changes you may make to how you look on the outside.  It’s all connected.  But I will also tell you that I am not willing to sacrifice enjoying the things that I love in order to get there.  I’m not saying I’ve never found myself falling susceptible to those messages you see on social media, because I have.  Honestly I’ve probably tried all of the things I listed in the first paragraph and probably even more.  But none of them worked because it made what I was eating overly complicated and then it would become a huge stressor to me.  Maybe I would do “okay” for a few days but then quickly I would find myself losing touch with how to just eat intuitively, listening to my hunger & fullness cues, and give my body what it needed.

Luckily I’ve been able to come back from those little “experiments” (as we will call them) after none of them worked as a lifestyle for me.  I love food, I love wine, and I love exercise!  To me, it’s important just to not take any of it too seriously.  I mean listen, yes I think you should eat salads and green smoothies and all of that, but I also think that if you want to have pizza, you can eat pizza.  No you probably shouldn’t eat pizza 5 nights a week if you expect to see results.  You have to be a little realistic too…it’s just science that if you consistently eat more calories than you burn that you will gain weight.  So don’t be like, “oh well Bess said I could eat an entire pizza every night so long as I worked out because I should eat whatever I want.”  No no no no no…lol.  I trust every single one of you are smart enough to know that…but just being clear 🙂 Also know that if you do have weight to lose, that you might have to be a little more discerning with the amount of times you eat stuff like that, but I think the mentality is the same…you should never deprive.

Also for me, when I do maybe overindulge a little bit, I kinda start to feel like crap!  I like doing it a few times throughout my week but I feel a lot better when I’m on my “normal” eating schedule, which keeps me going and eating the way that I do because I feel good, I have energy, I don’t have as many tummy aches, my skin is clearer, I sleep better, all of that.  I think once you experience that, it’s a lot easier to find that balance.

For me a huge thing that allowed me some freedom with my food was actually introducing circuit style workouts into my routine over just running a few days a week and then maybe doing a random workout video here or there for weight training.  A structured, 3x a week circuit workout schedule (which is what my Besst Workouts App is designed to be) helped me build more lean muscle and increase my BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate, the calories at which I burn at rest simply by existing) therefore having my body do more work while at rest to burn calories than me having to be on a dang elliptical for an extra 20 minutes to burn 100 calories.  I have been in that cycle many years ago and it is not fun.  And guess what? The elliptical never showed me any results…shocking!! lol. Don’t get me wrong, I think doing it a couple times a week if that is your preferred method of cardio is fine, but if that is all you’re doing…I would bet you aren’t seeing any changes.  And the endless cardio you’re doing to burn calories is probably making you more hungry.  I get it.  I’ve been there.  Adding shorter circuit style workouts in doesn’t spike those hunger pangs, in fact I find I experience a decrease in hunger when I do those workouts.

And honestly…who wants to work out for 3 hours a day and never eat any bread?! NOT ME SORRY.

Ever since incorporating them, I’ve lost about 10 pounds or so without really even trying. I didn’t do anything different with my diet.  A this point I’m pretty much just in a maintenance phase of just trying to maintain where I am but of course am always working on getting stronger and running faster 🙂 It really helped my body get to its happy weight.  For a glimpse inside my daily eating routine really quickly, here’s what you can expect to see from me on a given day eating.  *I am in no way suggesting this is what YOU should eat, just showing you what I eat for an example*

• Breakfast: 3/4th cup oatmeal topped with 2 egg whites, blueberries, and sometimes a spoonful of almond butter if I’m feeling it.  Sometimes I do a smoothie for breakfast.  I also like just having 2 whole fried eggs with avocado & sauteed kale!
• Snack 1: Two-Good yogurt or protein bar (I’m loving BUILT bars, use code BESS for a discount at checkout! All the flavors taste like candy bars.)
• Lunch: Salad with mixed greens, chicken or tuna, shredded carrots, sprouts, chickpeas…basically any veggie we have in the fridge + a side of fruit like strawberries or blueberries
• Snack 2:  Green smoothie or rice cakes with almond butter or veggies dipped in hummus
• Dinner: Our go-to’s during the week include things like taco bowls (ground turkey, black beans, tomatoes, peppers, avocado over rice or quinoa), roasted veggies & grilled chicken, or veggie bowls with lean ground beef.  So it’s usually veggies & a lean protein. *On weekends, however, we generally like to go out to eat.  Sometimes yes I will order a salad when we go out to dinner but sometimes I also like a burger & fries, pizza, etc.  It’s just not every time.  And that’s not really because I think it’s *bad* to do it every time, but I genuinely crave veggies and something traditionally accepted as “healthier” especially after something heavier like a burger & fries.
• Dessert: I always have dessert.  Depending on how hungry I am it can be anything from just a couple pieces of dark chocolate to a peanut butter chocolate smoothie that tastes like a milkshake 🙂  I also drink tea most nights of the week because I can DEFINITELY fall susceptible to late night snacking.  And I know that’s not hunger…that is usually me just putting off going to bed so I just eat a snack to procrastinate. #realtalk lol.

So yea, I love to eat burgers, pizza, cupcakes, & cookies!  A charcuterie plate is heaven to me!!  Cheese is everything.  I don’t want to give them up!  Will I make “healthier” versions of them sometimes? Sure!  Because those are fun and yummy too!  But sometimes you just need a huge chocolate chip cookie, made with real butter and all, ya know?  Seriously…I am really against deprivation.  Just say no!  (To deprivation, not the cookie.)

One other thing that I found, and continue to find, extremely helpful to me when I’m trying to really think about what I want to eat (and how MUCH of it I want…this girl can put away some cookies okay!?) is to know that I can have a cookie, or a piece of pizza, or a donut, whatever it may be…I can have that whenever I want it.  Those things aren’t going extinct!! They will always be around!  The opportunities to eat them will always be there.  That’s the thing about deprivation: Having that mindset that you can’t have something makes you want it even MORE!  Right?! So allow yourself to have those things, mentally know it is OKAY to eat these things when you want them and I would suspect you’ll find yourself not overindulging in them.  An example I can give about that is when coworkers bring in desserts or something to work and put it in the kitchen.  If it’s something that looks really good, I’ll have a little piece, enjoy it, and go about my day!  But if it’s something like a store bought dessert, I know from many times eating them that they generally just aren’t very good, so it’s easy for me to pass things like that up.

Lastly, if you do eat a huge piece of cake or a few pieces of pizza, DO NOT stress about it.  The stress your body will experience from you mentally beating yourself up over it is going to do so much more damage to you than that piece of cake ever will.  Chug some water & move on with your life.  This helped free me so much from downward spirals of eating, regretting, and beating myself up over it (and hitting that awful elliptical for hours to make up for it.)  There’s a better way y’all.

Bottom line, eat “right” most of the time but don’t deprive yourself from experiencing life and enjoying yourself.  I promise the balance is there and you can find it for yourself!

Do you have tips on how you find balance with working out & eating?

Has anything in particular helped you break out of an unhealthy cycle of eating?

xo,

Bess