The Healthy Hippy

This is not something I will pretend to know much about. I have always been the type of person to say that your body is a machine and working out and healthy eating seemed like enough. It wasn’t until a few weeks ago with my new exercise routine that I began to realize how quickly I was getting burnt out and my workouts began to suffer mentally because of how sore my body was!

I am in the gym 5-6 days a week now, pushing my body with resistance and as much cardio as my recovering leg will let me stand. With my diet clean and my sleeping habbits at about 7 hours a night I needed something to help me out in the gym.

I asked a few people I know with excellent reputations for some advice or knowledge of what to take. Some of these people were; Sean Pacher(a coach at CrossFit Victory, CrossFit in La Jolla, and an olympic lifting athlete/competitor), IFBB Pro Brooke Erickson, IFBB Pro Francine Sablan, Figure Competitor Amanda Schenk, Tom Hill(college athlete and owner/trainer of TomHillFitness), Arturo Fiero(trainer at CrossFit Victory & Victory MMA & Fitness), and a few others.

All of which recommended BCAAs and CLAs. Along with a few other products such as, protien, creatine, and maybe carbohydrates.

My order online at bodybuilding.com was simple… get BCAAs and CLAs. Eventually I will add a whey isolate protien when I get the money to place another order.
The other items are samples that they send out. If you are looking for a clean protien bar I suggest you try out QuestBars! They are so good- almost every flavor and go great with your coffee and light enough to eat right before a lift/workout.

Do not think that just because you workout or go to the gym means you should be taking supplements! Your diet and sleeping habbits should be on point!
Just because I was lifting a few years ago doesn’t mean I saw really much change in my body. I was strong and thick but I wasn’t eating right and if I didn’t just get done with a workout I actually looked like I needed to lose weight. My diet was terrible! If you start to take protien or creatine and your diet is off you will most likely begin to put on weight and not in a good way.
Now I am educated enough to know how important your meals are and what you fuel your body with. I am eating lean protien in almost every meal, eat about every 3 hours, use portion control, and I eat very clean meaning I consume mostly produce and unpackaged food(at least mon-fri).
I needed to get supplements because I had all the other areas covered! Be smart!
Work on your routine and your diet first! Then think about supplements!

I have always enjoyed healthy foods even before I really understood what healthy food meant. I wasn’t the kid that only got handed carrots and celery for a snack but I enjoyed my salads, veggies, fruit, and meats at a young age. Growing up I was fortunate enough to have a mom who loved to cook and feed her family. I remember times when she would wake up early to feed all of us girls(i have 3 sisters) and my pop a good breakfast before the day started with either school or work. I like to think I learned alot of my cooking knowledge from her. She never uses a measuring cup, never looks in a cookbook,(in fact I think her mother even made her own recipe book) and she never could tell you exactly what she had put in the meal. Unfortunately I got that from her too, never being able to recall and regreting it later when I couldn’t duplicate one of my boyfriends favorites of my meals.

One thing I didn’t learn growing up was portion control! Oh man, I remember having “no joke” ice cream… I mean HUGE bowls. Seriously?! Sure I was an athlete and slim but holy shit you should never let your kid binge on desert like that. I wouldn’t even have to ask, I would just go get a boat load of ice cream in a bowl and mix it all together and induldge.

Anyway, healthy eating came later for me. Like I said eating habbits weren’t formed for me, I didn’t really know what healthy food even meant, and I was an athlete so I thought you can eat whatever you want as long as you worked out and stayed active. As most of you know… that is NOT true.

Longevity is our ultimate goal right? So we have to be smart about what we feed our bodies. We can be workout feens and cardio queens but if the fuel we are feeding our bodies is junk, grease, prepackaged, and chemically altered shit then most likely we are going to run straight into a lot of problems later on, not to mention the acne, fatigue, and other things that will happen NOW.

A huge thing that helped me kick my bad habbits was being my own motivation. You can put your half naked idol on your fridge and hope it turns you away or on your most used mirrors but for me that seemed more depressing to look at everyday and definetly not motivating. If I could give someone struggling advice It would be to speak positivity! Positivity breathes positivity!! Give yourself a goal and have a small reward for yourself when you reach that goal-something other then food. If you reward yourself with food, food becomes what seems important instead of you and your goals. Reward yourself with something that makes you feel good about what you just accomplished, pizza will just make your stomach feel like shit again, cause a mini breakout, and set you back on your next goal. Instead buy yourself a new workout outfit, supplement, or get your hair done.

Other then just speaking motivation into your life here are a few staples that may help you as well:

A food scale!

Something with grams, lbs, and ounces is best. I found this one for $10-15 dollars on ebay.

Some people may think it’s a little stange to weigh out your food but like I mentioned above portions are very important! For some reason people think that because it is a good food you can eat as much of it as you want as if your poor over working stomach is a bottomless pit! WRONG! Just like every other organ it needs time to process and digest. If you stuff it full of food it will be overloaded. Taking time to weigh out your food will help you inderstand what your portions are supposed to look like for different food groups i.e. chicken or lean meat should be around 4 oz.

Another thing that helps is knowing what to compare your portions to. If you don’t have time to weigh out your food or you simply don’t care to spend money on a scale here is a way to help:

PROTEIN = Handful size

COMPLEX CARB = Fist size

VEGGIE = Two handfuls

FATS = Small palm size

Another item that I couldn’t live without is Mrs. Dash! For a lot of people when you are new to eating clean it can get bland… fast. Having an item that spices up your meals without the salt/sodium and is calorie free is awesome! Remember its the small things you forget about that rack up your calorie intake. There are SO many flavors to choose from and to try. Next time you cook fish I suggest Fiesta Lime!

Don’t fear or forget to get educated. If this is something that you are really trying to do, don’t sell yourself short. You can and will see results if you stay focussed on your goals. Pick up the Oxygen Magazine and read the articles and stories. Let yourself get inspired. Oxygen was a HUGE help for me when I first started cooking and trying to eat clean. The recipes in there are so helpful and even give you alternatives for baking clean. Plus there are exercises and workout routines to help you get started or passed a platue as well.

http://www.oxygenmag.com/

If you are a blogger I encourage you to take a look at Kelsy Byers blog. She is a transformation story and is now eating clean, modeling, and doing fitness shows.

If you need help with a grocery list or aren’t sure what to get the next time you go to the store check out this link and refresh your mind…

http://www.kelseybyersfitness.com/apps/blog/my-grocery-list

MUAH!