#lessofus

Y’all are so sweet! Of course I’m happy to share some tips. I have tried to make a video along these lines a few different times, but I end up feeling like a d-bag talking all high and mighty about exercise and eating healthy. Anyhow, happy to share a bit now:

Exercise is, for me, the hardest and most important part of losing weight / being healthy. It doesn’t come naturally to me. But as I discussed in my last post, there are ways to make it less awful. I build gym time into my weekly schedule, and try to do 45 minutes of cardio 3 times per week, plus weights. It’s worked for me so far, though when I find myself getting bored or my weight plateauing, I change the type of cardio and/or the intervals. The little ways to make it more fun keep me interested: going to a gym with TVs so I can zone out as I jog, slowly buying cute workout clothes when they’re on sale, tweeting about my progress with #lessofus. 

Eating well is more natural for me! You know the basics: lots of veggies and fruit, lean proteins, whole grains, minimal salt & fat. The Internet is a great resource for educating yourself about nutrition and learning healthful habits. There are some obvious ways to start, like switching from soda to water and from processed foods (chips, cookies) to fruit. It will be a process, but phasing out one less-healthy part of your diet (ice cream) to a more-healthy option (angel food cake with berries), one at a time, is a good way to begin.

Rules, for me, have been the key to eating healthily. I decided to try to eat vegan two and a half years ago on a whim, which has turned out to be a great excuse to think more about what and how I eat. Because it’s hard to find vegan food in lunch places and restaurants, I make almost all my meals at home, almost never buy food or eat on the go, and spend less per month on food than I ever have. Over time my tastes have changed; I don’t crave salty snacks, I dislike sugary candy, and I prefer simple foods like the ones I cook to complicated, many-ingredient, calorie-laden ones. This isn’t for everyone, but some kind of eating plan—cutting out meat three days a week, or making all your lunches at home, or only going out to eat once per week—will help. Promise!

Flexibility, however, makes “eating healthy” different from “dieting.” Diets do not work. They are boring, they are stressful on your body, and the stodgy suspicious part of me thinks that too many are just marketing scams. Rules like I outlined above can help, but you know what? Having two Oreos after dinner is okay. Getting sorbet with your friends is okay. Having a hamburger once in a while is okay. If your baseline is healthy and in moderation, sweets a few times a week is not going to derail your progress or make you a bad person. For me, anyway, eating well has to be a lifestyle, not something I do for six weeks to prepare for bathing suit season. You know? Denying yourself is only going to make the illicit thing you want seem even more appealing. 

Hello! You are definitely not alone in those feelings. I wish I had a precise answer for you, but I can only speak to my experience (though my friend Leslie made a relevant video about this recently!).

What helped me get comfortable exercising:

Dress the part - Activewear is designed to make exercising easier, or at least to interfere with your motion as little as possible. Having dedicated gym/exercise clothes will help you get motivated to go, and help you feel like you blend in when you get there. Perhaps it’s vanity, but for me, anyway, it’s a big one. Plus, I get excited to go to the gym when I have a colorful new top or shorts or sports bra to wear! :)

Act the part - “Fake it til you make it” has never done me wrong. If you act like you belong there, nobody else will think you’re out of place. In my experience, the attitude most people have in group exercise is to do their own thing and not interfere with others. Most of us are so in our own heads, focusing on the exercise or trying to zone out and watch HGTV (hi!), that what the people around us are doing does not even register. Reminding yourself of that fact—that nobody pays more attention to you than you do—might not make you feel any different, but if you observe the folks around you and try to match that attitude, I bet the confidence will follow.

Observe the experts - I wish high school gym classes taught us how to exercise properly, rather than how to limp through a mile run and play volleyball. If nobody ever taught you how to stretch, jog, lift weights, or plan workouts, you will probably feel like a fish out of water! So watch others at the gym or in your neighborhood jogging route, search YouTube for fitness videos (I like BeFitin90), research hydration and post-workout meals and stretching and calorie goals. This is probably my nerd brain talking, but the more I research something, the more confident I feel, and the more kickass I can be. Admitting you’re a beginner is humbling, but puts you in a great position to learn from the wealth of knowledge all around you.

Support - I could not have made the progress I did over the last year without the help of my friends, who discuss fitness under the tag #lessofus on Twitter and Tumblr. If you aren’t comfortable talking to people IRL about exercise or going to the gym with someone (the idea of which makes me go nononononononono please no), come to us! Kvetch, brag, post GPOYs of your sweaty triumphant post-exercise face! Surrounding yourself with support, whether in person or online or in the form of healthful tumblr blogs on your dash, is super duper helpful.

It is a small community of people with a goal of getting healthy. We are primarily on Twitter, but I think we should have a more solid place here on Tumblr. This whole #lessofus thing was started by Amanda, Eric, and myself--YouTubers who wanted to see, well, less of us. Personally, #lessofus has helped me lose 30 lbs this past year because of the support from this community. 

What do we discuss? Anything dealing with our goals to get healthy. Recipes, fitness regimes, goals, what's gettin' you down, achievements, confessions, anything!