It was the first day of perfect bay area summer when the pizza delivery man rang my doorbell. I ran up my flight of stairs and back down hunting for my wallet while panting like a dog – it was a lot of stairs.
By the end of the search, I was too tired to grab the pizza coupon screaming my name from the room right next door out of sheer exhaustion.
That was a shameful cheese-filled pizza crust dinner. And thus my summer started with my very first project: to get back into shape. I knew what I had to do – now I just had to do it.
There’s always the first basic question: what should I eat? Dieting doesn’t have to be a Devil Wears Prada moment of model-status-starvation to the point of disgorgement. It reverts back to that Healthy Eating Pyramid most students learned about from health class back in junior high. In fact, the major aspect of your new meal plan should simply be choosing to fill your body with good foods.
The myth about eliminating carbohydrates completely from your meals is a gross exaggeration. They are your body’s main source of energy, so it’s best to choose good carbs, rather than no carbs at all – whole grains are best, along with oats and brown rice. Getting the protein you need through fish, nuts, beans, or poultry is just as important.
If you choose to continue eating fat, drop the Hershey’s Kisses bag and choose the healthy ones that come from plant oils, nuts and fish. And as most people already know, a fiber-filled diet with plenty of fruit and vegetables is best, followed by a tall cold glass of milk -calcium is important!
As for meal sizes themselves, remember the golden quote by Adelle Davis: “Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dinner like a pauper.” Our metabolisms slow down at the end of the evening, making digesting much less efficient. If eating a large breakfast and small dinner doesn’t work for you, try eating four to six small meals throughout the day instead.
And for those who grab their keys and run to class in the morning, don’t forget a proper breakfast! It sounds obvious, but too often people take it for granted. Skipping breakfast because you’re just not hungry yet actually tricks the mind into thinking it is starving (and considering you probably haven’t eaten for eight or more hours, is more or less true). This causes the body to store the fat you eat throughout the day instead of burning calories.
Eating well is a great start, but it takes proper exercise to really put getting back in shape into motion.
If you aren’t trained for a hardcore workout yet, push off that high-intensity exercise until later. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and you aren’t ready to enroll in a 26 mile marathon tomorrow without the proper preparation. Training is practice, and practice builds on growth, so after weeks of a stable workout, you can start challenging yourself with harder endeavors.
First and foremost, make a plan.
There are only so many hours in a day, and a majority of them are already packed with daily living. But try to make exercise a part of that daily living: set a goal of exercising, let’s say, three days a week – but stick to that goal.
Next, you want to figure out what kind of exercise you want to do. Make sure it’s something you enjoy!
If you’re dead set on losing fat, cardiovascular exercise will be best for you, so put on a track or bathing suit, or hop on a bike. Remember that every cardio workout should start with at least five minutes of stretching or warm-ups, and end with a cool-down. Not stretching or cooling down can cause lactic acid to build up in the muscles, which can cause swelling, pain, or muscle cramps.
If you want to beef up your arms for the ladies (or if you ladies want to tone those arms) try to set aside a 30 to 60 minute weight lifting session at your nearest gym, or buy some dumbbells for yourself. When just starting out, try to work out every major muscle group, and after a while you can focus on specific areas. Remember to rest your muscles between each session!
If you love to dance – whether it’s belly dancing, Bollywood, or ballet – set aside an hour a day to stretch and do some intensive dancing in your home or studio. But whatever it is, make sure you’ll enjoy doing it.
And last but not least, stick to your schedule for at least a month. After that, it stops becoming a schedule you force yourself into, and turns into an unbreakable habit that will keep you healthy for years to come.
So men and women: take a look at yourself. Now back at the magazine cover. Now back at yourself. Now back at the magazine cover. Now toss that hideous cover aside. Set your own pace, work towards your own goals, and remember that health and thirty extra years of good living will always trump a swimsuit body.
