Coming Clean
It’s hard to eat clean! This is not news to those of you who have done and are doing it (Chicken Tuna has written as well as anyone about the discipline and though choices you need to make every single day), but I had to write a quick post to highlight the difference between exercising regularly (which certainly has an impact on your life and lifestyle) and living the lifestyle, which is something else entirely.
A few months ago, before I had gotten myself into a consistent lifting routine, I thought the dedication to lift regularly was the hard part. Since then, I’ve gradually split my body parts over 4 different days, and, honest to god, each one is my favorite day. As my time to workout gets closer, I get excitied to get into the gym, get intense and push myself hard. The lifting is the easy part. The toughest part now is making the jump from generally being in pretty good shape to living and eating in a way that will allow me to get the most from all of the work in the gym. I don’t think I’m in bad shape - in fact I think I’m in pretty darned good shape, which, combined with the fact that I’m working out regularly makes it really, really easy to have the extra slice of pizza (yes, I’m not even close to contemplating dropping pizza form my diet). When the dad at a birthday party of one of my kid’s friends offers up a piece of birthday cake, do I say no? No, at this point I still smile, say thanks, take the paper plate and dig in - and I’ve got three kids (two in grade school, where every kid gets invited to everything) so this adds up!!
Anyhow, I’m coming clean that I’m a looooooonnggg way from going totally clean. Small steps at this point: substituting carrots for potato chips, bag of almonds in my office instead of the vending maching, things like that. Hat’s off to those of you who life the lifestyle both in and out of the gym. For the time being, I’m going to have to be satisfied with knowing the difference between good food and bad food and being able to make the good choices some of the time — just can’t go cold turkey yet!
P.S. If anyone has good tips for little adjustmets here and there - good choices off of "typical" menus, etc., please share!!
October 28, 2007 at 2:36 pm
I understand the pizza thing, there are something in life that you just can’t give up, that one food that bring a smile to the face, which makes life worth living.
Had the same thing with the birthday cake too. I got two of my own.
November 13, 2007 at 6:54 am
I think your doing great and have set realistic expectations for yourself. I don’t eat totally clean but I’ve gotten alot better by changing little things over time. And sometimes I ask myself "Is it really worth it to eat this cake?" And sometimes the answer is "Most definitely." Don’t be too hard on yourself!
November 13, 2007 at 7:07 am
Heres the way I look at eating. I eat clean during the week, friday is my cheat day and on occassion it may creep into a saturday afternoon as well. I just do a little extra cardio during the following week to make up for it.
I went to a 1yr olds BDay paryt this sat and had three chocolate chip cookies and a piece of cake (took of the icing though) to much sugar for my taste.
the point is as long as the majority of your diet is clean then you can cheat a little.