Hey guys and dolls!
It has been a while since I have blogged but I got a little push from a fellow blogger Natural Nigerian! You can check her blog out at http://www.naturalnigerian.com/ great tips for all you naturals out there!
It seems like the perfect time for me to start blogging again, as 27th June 2013 will mark my 1 year weight loss journey! It has been a wonderful year so far thanks to God and thanks to my support network. If it wasn't for that I would probably still be unhappy and overweight. Now I'm proud to say I am HEALTHY and my blood pressure is NORMAL!
A lot of people ask me HOW? There was no quick fix, I had to change my attitude towards food and exercise and I did this by carrying out a lot of research on google and YouTube! The Internet is a great tool, make it your best friend throughout your journey. By understanding the amount of calories my body needed to consume to function properly and lose weight at the same time I was able to discover the types of foods to eat and those to stay away from! I began to eat to fuel my body and not just because food was available.
Where it all started
DECIDE AND COMMIT
I looked myself in the mirror and felt unattractive, I had really let myself go in a way that I never had before, and it wasn't helping my condition so that fateful day on 27th June 2012 I decided to look through YouTube for inspiration. I came across a lot of transformation videos of normal people who had followed Shaun T's "Insanity" 60 day workout DVD. It seemed tough but I was convinced and purchased it straight away. It came with a diet plan which I followed for about 2 weeks. The weight wasn't falling off as I hoped so I decided to continue research about nutrition. You will note I did not give up, I had decided and committed to something and I was going to see it through!
I was convinced that I could achieve great results without having to prepare 6 small meals a day as it was actually making me feel more hungry than satisfied! Then I discovered Intermittent Fasting ( IF) WHAT fasting your asking? YES unfortunately I can't credit the first person whom I had discovered this lifestyle from as I can not remember his username on YouTube. However if you have heard of the Hodge Twins you will know that they used to preach 6 meals a day until they themselves discovered IF and they now swear by it. Check their channel out ( fasting twins).
What is IF?
I will only give a quick definition as I've already got a blog post on this:
It is a lifestyle NOT a diet, that is one thing you need to understand first, and basically I follow the lean gains form of intermittent fasting which is where I fast for a number of hours during the day and have a specific eating window with which I eat all my daily calories. I started with 20 hours fasted and a 4 hour eating window. Now I fast between 18/19 hours a day with a 5/6 hour eating window. During your fasted state you are only allowed to drink water.
The idea behind this is that your body spends more time burning fat than constantly digesting food therefore aiding weight loss. A lot of you are saying what about breakfast?! If you are a new reader PLEASE read the link above so you can understand more! Brad Pilon who is the creator of Eat Stop EAT another form of intermittent fasting did a lot of research and concludes that breakfast is a 'gimmick' which the food industry has got us all to buy into over the past few years, after all they can't sell fasting to us can they? Breakfast means breaking a fast whether in the morning afternoon or evening. Do read that post as I explain about some of the studies that has been carried out on this subject matter. Personally IF has worked wonders for me i credit it for a lot of the results i have achieved. IF is not for everyone but it is worth a try!
What do I eat during my feeding window?
Over the past year I have experimented a lot, I even went 30 days eating as a Vegan! It was great, I lost weight and I had great bursts of energy. Of course I went back to eating meat lol.
I found a lot of ways to eat the foods I used to enjoy prior to my journey, like i made home made turkey burgers YUMMY using turkey mince, I even found some healthy cupcake recipes which I enjoyed during Christmas!
I incorporated a lot of vegetables and fruits to my diet and stuck to white meat (breast/minced) nuts mainly Almonds, whole grains like whole wheat bread, whole wheat pasta etc, and LOTS of WATER!!
I am now a Pescetarian which means I only eat mean from the sea! There is nothing wrong with poultry, I just don't like the tough chicken available in Nigeria and didn't feel like spending all my salary on chicken breast in shoprite! I'm enjoying being a Pescetarian I love seafood so you really can't go wrong with that, it's opened me up to a wider range of fruits and veg, beans, lentils and things like Quinoa which is great alternative to rice.
I do have a treat day once a month to balance it all out, let's face it you can't eat clean 100% of the time! I would say this helped me stay on track! Just make sure your cheat day is not on your rest day!!
Exercise
I've done insanity twice now, well first time I stopped at day 40 as a went to Vegas and upon my return I joined the gym. I went to the gym twice a day doing some cardio and weights in the morning and spin class in the evening! Please if anyone knows where there is a spin class within Lekki PLEASE let me know! I moved to Lagos in December and I'm having withdrawal of spin right now lol.
Recently my workout pattern is not as rigorous, mainly because working and living in Lagos is workout on its own lol and I just haven't found a gym to join because of logistics I'd either have to wake up at a ridiculous time or go to gym in evening after work which is a NO NO for me.
So I am now going to start insanity all over again! And I would love you all to follow me! YES I have reached a weight which I have been maintaining for 6 months now so before I get any PINGS / messages telling me to "gain weight a little" my reason for starting over isn't because I want to lose weight, it is to continue to maintain what I started.
What a lot of people fail to understand whilst I have been on this journey is that once you reach your goal you don't just stop! YES you make adjustments so as to maybe not go overboard and lose too much weight but you don't just STOP which I have been told one too many times so I'm just setting the record straight now! When I first started losing weight I was eating 1200 calories per day, now that I'm maintaining I'm eating 2000 +calories per day, so if I stopped working out what do you think would happen? I'd gain right, and that's not the aim. I'm a healthy 57/58kgs and please understand aside from aesthetically I started this journey because I was on medication for high blood pressure, exercise is PROVEN to help reduce it (as i said above mine is normal now) so there is no way I will stop working out.
I will update weekly about insanity, tomorrow is my fit test lol I wonder what my results will be like! Will post that for you all if its not too embarrassing.
If you have any questions please leave your comments below! You can also follow me on @bunmilosingit or just click the tab to your right.
Below are some pictures from January 2012 to date.
Take care Xxx
The picture to the left was January 2012 on the right was January 2013. I went from size 16 to a size 8!
The picture on the left was taken on the day I started my journey. The picture on the right was a couple of months ago
This was taken about 3 weeks ago
I don't know why this picture made my arms look a little smaller than they are!
