How I stay motivated with my weight loss/healthy lifestyle journey

Hello all!

I am really excited to write this post because I know it's something a lot of people struggle with, especially with it being January and making new years resolutions!

I have lost just over 2 stone since I began this journey. Over Christmas I took a little break from being completely intense with my workouts and eating but I basically maintained the whole time (well a little 3lb gain but that's gone now so all good!). I am back on track now and have even upped the amount of times I hit the gym so all very exciting!

So what do I do to stay motivated? Read on for my tips!

Set yourself small goals

Everyone usually has an end goal that they want to reach such as loose a certain amount of weight, run a certain race etc.. but I think it is really important to set yourself some smaller realistic goals.
Some that i have set for myself are

• Go to the gym three times this week
• Decrease time in running 500m 
• Drink at least 2 litres of water

These are just three small goals that are all achievable and will give you a sense of accomplishment when they are achieved. I can say I can tick all of those and am constantly setting little mental goals for myself.

Watch Documentaries 

I genuinely feel this is something to which I owe a lot of my motivation too. Netflix has so many different documentaries on sugar, weight loss and healthy living. I have watched almost all of them! My favourite one is Fed Up which is mostly about sugar and the effects of too much of it. It really puts you off indulging especially on these cold nights where you want a cup of tea and a few biscuits. Also a recent RTE one documentary called Sugar Crash was brilliant so if you have access to the RTE player I highly recommend that one too.

Follow Fitness Instagrammers

Most of my feed on instagram is filled with 'real life' women(and some men) who have successfully lost or are loosing weight. They are so inspirational and usually very honest which makes me feel like all the hard work does eventually pay off. If you would like me to compile a list of my favourite instagrammers- let me know!

Also I would recommend unfollowing any pages that post tonnes of food pictures that are unhealthy like cakes, creamy pasta dishes etc... they just make you want to eat everything in sight-trust me. 

Talk to your family/friends

Don't keep your efforts a secret tell your family and friends what you're planning on doing and update them. They will probably notice a change in you mentally and physically even without telling them but you're more then likely going to receive positive feedback and encouragement which is so nice to hear after you've busted your ass in the gym and the kitchen. I know Irish people can't take a compliment but learn to, you deserve them! When someone tells me how great I'm looking or simply likes a picture of my healthy meal on instgram it gives me a smile and all those little smiles help encourage you to keep going!

Those are some of the way in which I stay motivated but ultimately motivation must come from within it is an inner drive that influences the selection and the persistence of tasks.

I know that sounds wishy washy but trust me I've just spent all day studying for a cognitive psychology exam and one of the topics is motivation so if the psychologists say it well then it must be true! hehe

I hope you like these type of fitness/weight loss/healthy/lifestyle posts. It's obviously a huge part of my life at the moment so it's something i enjoy talking about. If there is anything in particular you'd like me to write about comment below or tweet me! 

Love Always,

Alice xx

Weight loss: The first two stone are gone, but how?!

Hello my loves,

For the last three months I have been on a healthy living/ weight loss journey and so far I'm down two stone so thought I would share what I'm doing and then perhaps update as I continue on with this new lifestyle change.

The key words in that first paragraph are lifestyle change. I probably sound like a broken record as it's something everyone always says but it's true. There is no quick fix, not fad diet you have to simply treat your body like a temple and go from there.

I have enlisted the help of a personal trainer and this was the best decision I could have made because he makes up a plan for me where I do two one hour sessions of training with him per week as well as a detailed description for a third day to do myself. He also gave me a meal plan with guidelines on what to eat and when to eat. Having him waiting for me in the gym twice a week means I'm forced to get up and go because either way he'll charge me as well as he holds me accountable so I'm less likely to go off plan or decide not to go to the gym by myself on the day I don't meet him.

What do I do in the gym? If you're familiar with crossfit at all the type of stuff I do is like that. My trainer is an 'aspiring cross fit athlete' so obviously he likes and believes in the method so does it with me. It's lots of body weight exercises such as planks, squats, burpee's, mountain climbers and so on some of which I'll then do with weights, actual weights like dumbells, kettlebells and dead lifts and a little cardio with a 50 calorie row to warm up at the beginning and a little run on the treadmil at the end. Gone are the days of sweating it out on a treadmill for an hour and heading home.

I'm sure you've heard of the term 80% diet 20% exercise and I 100% agree with it, I have only missed one workout the entire 3 months but there are weeks where my diet isn't the best and I notice things like not loosing any weight, feeling lethargic and just crap in general so I am a convert. The gym for me is fun because I can feel myself getting fitter and stronger(I dead lifted 40kg the other day, how insane!!) but even my trainer when after the first 6 weeks and I had a big loss said you can tell you're eating really well because you can kill it in the gym and go home and eat crap but you're numbers are telling me you're not.

What am I eating though? My diet is really simple and now that I've been doing it for a while it all makes sense. I have breakfast, snack, lunch, vegetable juice, snack and dinner everyday. All of my meals contain protein sometimes animal proteins such as eggs, chicken or turkey but also in nuts(I have a crazy love for almonds). I have brown rice but can have other grains such as buckwheat or millet but to be honest I love rice and it's the easiest for me to cook so I stick to that. I have it at lunch time with vegetables and protein and at dinner I have raw veg and a protein so usually a salad. At that time of the day I don't need carbohydrates so it makes sense to not have them that late. I can see why my Granny always had her dinner in the middle of the day now, I feel like that's what I do!
My snacks are nuts and seeds. The nuts keep me full in between breakfast and lunch and the seeds between the juice and dinner are more so I don't snack on other 'bad things'.

So that is basically how I have lost the first 2 stone out of a lot more that I need to lose but this is just the beginning and so far I'm loving it!
I can do a blog post on a what a normal day of eating looks like if people are interested because if I include anymore in this post It will be a novel!
Keep on an eye on my YouTube as I plan on making a video about it all soon but in the mean time I'm always posting my meal prep and workouts on instagram so make sure you're following me there, my user name is AliBowring (same as twitter).

Until next time have a great day and I will talk to you soon,

Alice May xx