How I Choose Healthy Eating Habits over Negative Ones

Do you know what foods you should be eating, but find it too difficult to choose to eat healthy foods over unhealthy ones when the time comes?

Try these two points to help fuel that discipline to eat well:

1. Prepare early so that you don’t have to depend on making in-the-moment, last-minute decisions on what to eat.
   This is the most important step. You may have heard the adage “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail”, and when it comes to eating, this couldn’t be more true. Pre-making your meals and stocking your kitchen with healthy foods will make it so much easier to make better food choices.
2. Limit your carb sources in the mornings to reduce cravings.
   One thing about the western diet that I find extremely detrimental, is the carbohydrate-laden “breakfast foods”. Breakfast cereals and breads are high GI and choc-a-block with added sugars - which only give you a short burst of energy, followed by a crash in blood sugar -  which then makes our bodies crave more of those sugary foods to bring our blood sugar back up! So not only are we failing to fuel our bodies with sustained energy for the day - we’re influencing our bodies to crave more of those detrimental foods!
   Instead, we should offer our bodies a breakfast rich in protein and healthy fats - it is THIS breakfast which will give us sustained energy and mental focus!
   And when you make the change to start your day with a protein and fat breakfast, it won’t take long to notice the difference in regards to cravings. You’ll find that when it comes to having your next meal, you won’t crave having an unhealthy, or carb-loaded meal!
   I can’t stress enough the difference you will feel when you start eating this way every day, you really have to try it to experience it first hand.

What I Learnt in 2016

I uploaded a video on Youtube of what I learnt in 2016!

The amount I grew in 2016 is crazy - it’s possibly the most I’ve grown in any one year! Here’s a recap of what I talked about in the video:

• Started working full time for the first time in my life.

• Learnt how to be disciplined and how to build a schedule that works for me, and how to stick to that schedule. It actually took me a while to realise that if I didn’t draw or gym in my very limited free time during the week (mornings and evenings), then it wouldn’t happen at all, and weeks and months would pass with zero improvement!

• Finally found a diet that works for me! With limiting carbs and sweets and unhealthy foods without feeling deprived of them or feeling the need to eat them all the time and have horrible cravings!!
  I did a 12 week program with my best friend and incredibly smart Personal Trainer, Emily, and the biggest things I learnt from that is:

  • The importance in fat in a diet when limiting carbs.

  • The effect eating carbs in the morning has on your energy and cravings (you crave carbs much more throughout the day, and you also have greater peaks and troughs in your blood sugar).

  • How good having a high protein and fat breakfast can have on your blood sugar and cravings.

  • How it feels to not be tired all the time because of crazy blood sugar.

  • How to push myself.

• I learnt a tonne about the gut, inflammation, blood sugar, and the effect the pill can have on your body. I found out that my gut was very unhappy (constantly bloated), and I altered my diet by eliminating gluten and dairy, with great results. I then found out the pill was still affecting my gut horribly, and my gut improved substantially after coming off of it (I can now eat gluten and dairy with fewer issues than before). I also learnt of the many silent symptoms that I didn’t even realise I was experiencing because of the pill - constipation (from affecting liver function and the gut), weight gain and fluid retention or similar (I’m assuming from the effect on my gut), making my breasts denser, weak nails (also from unhappy gut).

• I learnt about leaky gut - where cells can leak from your intestines into your blood stream, meaning that any inflammation that you may experience in your gut from eating hard-to-digest foods (especially gluten) can result in the inflammation leaking into your bloodstream and being transported to other areas of your body! Good motivation to eat well!

• I learnt to take chances, and not worry about having to be perfect all the time, and to just focus on and enjoy the process and journey!!! Of learning new skills, and improving on old ones.

So Happy New Year to everyone, and I hope you have a good year and work hard!!! Plan your future and reach those goals! :D

A short summary of the major things I learnt in 2016! Content: 1. Started a Full Time Job (0:23) 2. Learnt Discipline (0:49) 3. Diet & Health (1:30) 4. Gut Health, Inflammation and The Pill (4:04) 5.