health

Sticking to an exercise routine

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Will walk for a double espresso with 3 brown sugars.

How many times have you tried to encourage or enforce a certain behaviour simply with fear of punishment?

In my case, plenty of times. In fact me think self-flagellation may be my default-mode😫. You can read all about my torture chamber here and I can’t even promise I won’t be back Workout that delivers: 30 min hit

The carrot and stick method

According to Wikipedia The phrase “carrot and stick” is a metaphor for the use of a combination of reward and punishment to induce a desired behaviour.

An example of “stick” I’d try to beat myself with in order to exercise regularly:

Me to myself: “Do you want thighs that look like Swiss cheese?”😛

The vision of a future me with “Swiss cheese thighs” kept me motivated for like 5 seconds after which I ate an enormous piece of french toast.  Plus it’s not like I walk around with my thighs around my neck where everybody can see them, so that wasn’t motivation enough.

“With the proper carrot, there’s absolutely no need for a stick of any kind. It’s a simple case of something to look forward to VS something to be afraid of.”

Instead of a “stick” (punishment), I decided to use the “carrot” (reward)

Lately, I’ve been averaging 8,000 – 10,000 steps a day…effortlessly…no matter the weather.

My secret? There’s a little coffee shop located in the bus station nearby our house so to motivate myself to walk for 45 minutes every morning, I decided that instead of taking my morning coffee at home, I’d walk 20 minutes back and forth (total 45 minutes) to go and get my coffee at the said coffee shop.

Since I am addicted to my morning coffee anyways I might as well couple it with something  healthy and beneficial, like walking.

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Will walk for a double-espresso with 3 brown sugars. I feel so accomplished I could cry😎!

Doesn’t matter if it’s windy, slippery, rainy, cold, humid, I’ve got to get my coffee so I’ve got to walk. Period. I am not even doing it for my health, as sad as this sounds, I am doing it for a double espresso with three brown sugar. Yes I know sugar! the shame of it all! BUT it gets me walking.

I forbid myself to take my first cup of coffee at home.  At first it was a bit difficult since I usually take my morning coffee with dear husband. So I’d leave the house before dear husband wakes up so I am not tempted by seeing him drinking his coffee.

It’s been working pretty well so far and I intend to keep going. I suppose you have to know what motivates you and try a few things before settling on anything particular.

Anyways, I hope I was able to motivate you even if briefly to try and stay active any way you can during those quarantine times.

If you have something that’s been working for you, please do share. I’d love to hear it! Bisoux!😘🐍

What to do when you’ve blown your diet

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The goal is not to beat yourself up but to find out what went wrong and prevent it from happening too often.

“Forgive yourself and resist the urge to stick to plain water for the next 100 years.”

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Surprisingly, the day we ate two pizzas, one entree and 16 wings started well enough. As usual I woke up, showered, got dressed, pat down a cocktail of serum on my face until it became numb and put on some bright lipstick. I also went for a 45 min walk. I know I should be awarded a medal😎. On top of that, I made some quinoa and black beans for lunch. Had I just ran a marathon, I am pretty sure I wouldn’t have been any prouder.

But then it started to go downhill from that point on…We’re in the kitchen getting dinner ready. We’ve prepared a chicken dish and it’s in the oven and getting crispy. But somehow a little demon started whispering “pizza” in my ears😈. First, I tried to ignore it. That lasted about 5 seconds, then I heard myself saying “Well, if it wasn’t such a bad idea, we could order pizza”. Dear husband didn’t answer at first. I took that as a chance to get back to my senses. Just when I thought I’d successfully crossed that bridge with minimum damage to my waistline, I heard him say: “what kind?”

Me: “What do you mean what kind?”

Dear husband: “What kind of pizza?”

While I am a woman of my words, dear husband is certainly a man of his actions. He’ll only discuss something while doing it or once it’s done. So we had pizza while our healthy dinner was practically done!

FOR HAVING BEING THERE DONE THAT, HERE’S WHAT I DO WHEN I’VE BLOWN IT:

  1. Forgive yourself and resist the urge to stick to plain water for the next hundreds years.
  2. Rewind and look at the whole sequence of events leading to that point when you went hog wild:
    • I was in the basement which is very comfortable – I had been hungry for more than 2 hours – I wasn’t particularly hungry for what I was going to eat for super
  3. By the time we got down to cooking dinner we were already too hungry. Don’t wait till you’re hungry to make make something to eat. Prep all food in advance and get them ready before you get hungry so that by the time you’re hungry you have something ready made. As a matter of fact, plan all of your meals for that day as soon as you wake up.
  4. Watch out for those moments when you’re particularly vulnerable and plan for them. Sometimes it’s not always between good and bad. It’s between bad and worst.
  5. Make it easy to do the right thing. Make sure your environment support the healthy habit you want to promote. I know if I am watching TV late at night, there will be some serious damage done to my diet.
  6. Make a food journal

For me personally, I feel like it’s important to try and maintain some kind of discipline (After 2 pizzas and 16 wings that is😏), specially during this quarantine. Yes, we’re inside now for the most part but at some point we’re gonna have go out and I don’t have money to buy a new wardrobe to accommodate quarantine weight gain so I got to deal😛.