A few years ago, when Covid-19 started, I really got a wake-up call about my lifestyle and health choices. I wasn’t really afraid of catching Covid, but I wasn’t to thrilled about it either. Following the mainstream media and alternative media (which is, as far as I’m concerned the right way to consume news), there was one common theme. Healthy living!
At the time I was 46, ate a lot of junk food, smoked WAAAAAYYYY to many cigarettes and never saw the inside of a gym. I was moderately overweight and far from living healthy. I traveled a lot for my job, so my diet was mostly junkfood and quick snacks. Because my job was really stressfull and physical I burned a lot of calories every day, protecting me from getting seriously overweight.
I started to educate myself about what healthy choices I could make, and because I was traveling a lot, I needed to learn some exercises that I could do from home.
Exercise
When you go online a look for exercise videos, you’ll find a lot of those really buff guys yelling at you for being lazy and if you do as they tell you, the promise is, you’ll be ripped within weeks!!
Bullcrap, of course!!
I started researching what exercises would be do-able. And since I don’t have to be ripped, I just wanted to lose weight and build strength. The answer for me was Kettlebell exercises. I bought my first kettlebell and started doing the exercises. Honestly, after my first exercise (12 minutes), I was sore for a week!!
I found the video below, which was a real eye-opener. I picked my sore self up, and got to work.
I’ll write more about my workouts and workout routines later!
Diets I have tried
Working out is not enough. Excuses my language, but shit in, shit out. Meaning, my junk diet had to change. I was raised on meat and potatoes, so that was healthy base. I started eating a relatively healthy diet of lean meat, veggies and potatoes. Mixing it up with rice, or asian food, and pasta. I love pasta!!
Sinse I was on this health quest, I started to get interested in all the different types of diets. Specifically low-carb, keto, paleo and carnivore. Paleo and Carnivore, sounded a bit to extreme, so I started with low-carb.
Oh boy! That was difficult. My sugar addiction was stronger then I’m willing to admit. I was struggling. So I fell of the wagon many times. I was just about to quit, after my God knows how many attempts to eat clean.
One rule really saved me. I kept telling myself, that if I cheat, I can always re-start my diet. I’d feel guilty and weak. Feelings I would embrace and keep in mind, the next time I’m tempted to buy donuts or candy bars. I got better at resisting temptations and I actually started to lose weight. WOW!!
Doing the low-carb diet really worked for me, but still I was curious about other diets. I started reading a lot of blogs and books like: The Carnivore Code
I will write more about my Carnivore journey, but for now, I can just say; I’m on Keto and lovin it!! The Keto diet seems to agree with me, and I agree with Keto.
The choices you make have to YOURS! I ended up with doing Keto, because for me it seems a very sustainable diet. Something I can do for a long period. I do still struggle some times. I cheated yesterday, for example……
What I’m trying to say is, don’t beat yourself up. Embrace the guilt you feel after cheating your diet, and start over. It’s never too late to make the right decision. Pick yourself up, brush of the dust and move on. As you progress and you start losing weight, inching closer to your goal, it will become much easier to NOT cheat. At least, that’s how it worked for me.
I’ll write another blog post about why I actually don’t like diets…..that was a REAL game changer for me.
For now, thanks for reading! Hope it helps.