Hello  friend!  How are you doing?!?  I have been so dang busy my writing has taken a back seat the last 6 weeks.  I am excited to get back and start sharing with you.

I want to talk a bit about nutrition and diet today.

First you should know I have a long history of dieting, binge eating, and over training.   Training because I hated my body. Trying to punish it and force it to change. I did not have a healthy relationship/ mindset with food, my body, my training or the scale. This is something I have been working on for  two years.

When I quit restricting foods and over exercising and punishing my body I did gain weight. About 20 pounds to be exact. But I also gained back my health, my sanity, my strength and I am healing the relationship I have with food and myself. I have been able to keep my sleep, stress, hunger, energy and cravings in a healthy balance so I decided I was ready for the scale and a Bod Pod test. I felt I could see them for the metrics that they are and not tie the information to my self worth and value. Or compare myself to others.

I have done a good job with my results. I have not attached them to my self worth. I do not feel guilty about them. They are just information and somewhere for me to start. A number for me to compare to my self as a way to evaluate what I am currently doing and the results it will produce. I plan to reevaluate in 12 weeks and adjust from there.

The last two years I have been cultivating the mindset of an athlete. Loving and appreciating my body for all it can do for me.  Not letting a scale or media dictate how I am supposed to look or feel. I have been fueling my body with mostly whole, healthy foods to support my sleep and my performance in life and the gym. I haven’t really paid much attention to the scale. Just eating and training in a way that makes me feel strong, helps my sleep, helps my digestion, helps me perform better and helps keep my hunger, energy and cravings balanced. I feel like I am in a really good place with my mindset and self awareness.  So I am ready to share with you what has helped me on this journey to healing and health.

Keeping my sleep, stress, hunger, energy and cravings (S2HEC)in balance and the mindset of an athlete will always be my number one priority. I will monitor and be aware of the feed back my body is telling me. I am not a die hard track your food intake but for the last 6 weeks I have started tracing my intake. More out of curiosity and not hitting a rigid caloric number. Just to be more consciously aware of what I was really put in my mouth and to see if I can track cycles in my eating and training. It is early but so far it has been interesting!

One interesting discovery is that I recover and my energy is way better on wet carbs like sweet potatoes, bananas, white potatoes, rice, oatmeal and fruit than it is with dry carbs like cereal, breads and pasta ( though these seem better if I eat them right after a training session). Another is that I can keep my sleep, stress, hunger, energy and cravings balanced a lot better if I have a combination of protein, carbs and fat in my meals. ( Carbs would have been taboo two years ago).

It has been very helpful to look at this as a science experiment. Does this make me feel better or worse? Does it help keep my hunger energy and cravings in a nice balance? Does it help me recover from my training sessions and help me sleep? Is the food I eat stressing me out physical or mentally?  Ask yourself some of those questions and be open and honest with yourself. As much as I “thought carbs were bad for me” my body had other ideas!

To recap my top priority is to eat foods that help me sleep better, decrease my stress and  hunger, keep my energy steady and consistent and craving in check.   When I do keep my S2HEC (sleep, stress, hunger, energy and cravings) balanced  I naturally eat less and feel satisfied.  I am not stressing about food.  My hunger, energy and craving are balanced and I feel amazing.  I am also loosing body fat!  I feel leaner and my closes are fitting better!  But this has taken me years to figure out and I am still on this journey.

Here is me catching some baby waves in Cabo, Mexico a couple weeks ago. It was an amazing experience and physically demanding!   I would never have tried this 2 years ago.  1.  I never would have had the strength because I was cutting calories and carbs and felt weak and tired all the time. 2.  I never would I let a picture of me be taken in a swim suite!  Talk about growth and changes:) I feel very blessed and grateful for the journey.

P.S.  I am in the process of creating a step by step system to help others.  365 Strong: Life is my competition is a cumulation of everything I have been learning the last two years put into a precise usable system that will help you become stronger mentally, physically, and lose body fat for life. Continue to watch this space for more information!