What has worked for me?

Routine! routine!! Routine!!!…………I hate routines, eating the same food every time, doing the same workout daily. I was getting bored so I had to figure out another way to continue losing weight without getting bored. I had to tell myself that this journey is just not about losing body weight or fat but it’s a change

of life style, a journey to a healthier me.

 I thought within me, what can I do differently?, what strategies can I use and what workout can I do? I

didn’t want to lose weight so fast and have flabby body, so I had to be careful about the whole thing. I decided to make use of the internet; I did some research on food, calories, carbohydrates, healthy alternatives to normal everyday foods. Coming up with a plan that works for me was vital because I really didn’t want to starve myself just to lose fat/weight. I bought a book that has almost all food and their calories but i wasn't prepare to count calories every time am making food. buying it was just to have the knowledge (can’t remember the name but will find out).
I read it trying to figure out calories in foods that I might love eating.  I wrote down couple of foods like, sweet potato (a lot of us believes that white potato (Irish) is better that sweet potatoes, well its wrong. Sweet potatoes has lower calories and carbohydrates than Irish potatoes (topic for another day)), egg whites, vegetables, nuts, fruits and other things that I will mention with time on my post. But the most important thing is that eating all these has to be in moderation because every calorie counts (calorie is an entire topic on its own).
Although I was watching what I eat, I didn’t count calorie like crazy, I was ready to lose the weight so fast because I was avoiding having flabby/excess skin. If I was to succeed, it has to be gradual and exciting. The idea of losing weight and having excess skin was depressing.

The second thing I did after finding out about calorie content in food was to keep a food journal where I record everything that goes inside my mouth (hard work but it’s worth it). Be it one piece of biscuit, am sure gonna write it down. This helped me in keeping track of what I eat.

The next thing I did was find fun workout that worked for me. I had to always keep moving. If am watching television, some part of my body must be moving, I walked and walked and walked. I love walking from the very day I realised it was a great exercise. Walking has helped me lose weight; the idea of staying at home doing nothing was far from my mind. Once am less busy, am walking. It was so fun that I bought a pedometer; it counts my steps, calories that I burned walking and by the time I get back home, instead of stuffing cookie in my mouth I will take a long cold shower then sleep. A part from walking, I tried gym but it was totally boring. Okay, it’s like this. I went to a gym in Nigeria; the fitness instructor was sitting legs open on a bench with a bowl of garri and soup. I was shocked like, can she finish that bowl of garri. I looked at my sister and she busted in laugher. Don’t get me wrong it was funny: fitness instructor+ big bowl of garri = (?), well that discouraged me. I went home and continued with my skipping, walking, sit ups and eating healthier.

By August, I left 9ja feeling better and happier but I decided to stop and see if I could maintain the ones I lost. And I did maintain it for like a year that’s August 2011 then I had to continue form where I left. In my coming posts, you will get to know how I did, considering the change of environment and other factors as well. But I can tell you that losing pounds has not been that easy for me, making better choices of food and drinking only water. I keep changing my strategies whenever I hit plateau, I still have treats buy consciously.it has not all being perfect, I do fall off the wagon but I pick myself up and keep moving. If you want to lose weight, try some of the things I mentioned and let’s see how it goes.