Time and Money

I've come to realize this complete focus on being healthy takes a lot of time, and it's not cheap either. It's hard for me to admit that my eating habits haven't been great. Diets for me usually consisted of extreme calorie cutting, which only made me feel worse - lethargic, moody, cold, dizzy, depressed, and I guess just overall hungry. My other issue has also been related to portion control - so even though I may have been eating healthy food, I was still eating 2 pieces of grilled fish instead of just the 1 which is all I really needed. Gettinginto the right frame of mind of balancing nutrition and calories and actually eating the food is taking a lot of getting used to. I think I'm definitely in the right place now, but I have a long, long way to go.

So, as I started this new workout plan, I also sat down and made my list of foods that I'd like to cook and wrote down the calorie breakdown of all the foods. I decided to base most of my foods on the recipes in NROL4W since they're all pretty simple to make

and it's the exercise program that I'm mainly focusing on so it made sense. I love that they have the nutrition breakdown right there for you. You don't need to mess around with calculators and converters too much. The one thing that I wish they had more of is vegetarian recipes since I don't eat poultry or red meat. I do eat fish though which makes it a bit easier, but you still lose quite a bit of variety when you omit all the chicken/turkey/beef recipes from the book. I don't want to venture too much outside of what's in the book just yet -- keeping it as simple as possible because as I said, it's time consuming!

My first grocery shop for the bulk of the ingredients took me about 2 hours and set me back over $150 ... and that wasn't even including other ingredients that I needed to buy but was waiting for the day I wanted to prepare them so that the veggies would be fresh. It really irritated me to see that things that were healthier/lower in fat content (which I know doesn't always mean that it's the healthier option) were more expensive - fat free cream cheese; skim ricotta; whole wheat bread; egg white substitute etc. etc. All very expensive - but a gallon of ice cream - cheaper than you can imagine. Anyway.

Then once the groceries were bought and put away it came time to prepare the food. Most of the recipes in the NROL4W book are quite simple to follow, but still, it takes time to prepare the food, measure things out, and really check your portions. You have to be aware -- but I think as you keep weighing and measuring your food it'll soon come naturally.

I think that it's important to think about the time and money it takes to change your lifestyle. Gym memberships; proper workout clothes/gear; healthy food etc. It all adds up. I know that there are ways that you can cut costs, but what I'm saying is that it's just something to be aware of - and to realize that it's worth investing in your health.

Mini-workout update:

Today I needed help with my squats - and that's a good thing! I've finally reached a weight where I can't lift the bar up and over my head without any help (without getting injured). I felt proud as I put the bar+25 kg weight on my back. I'm getting stronger! It feels good. Workout 3A successfully completed :)