Steps to a Clean Slate

I've always been a big fan of clean slates. Something about starting over just feels so refreshing. As a kid, I loved getting new school supplies, with crisp pages in a spiral, pens full of ink, and crayons with pointy tips. By the middle of the year, the popular crayons were all flat and smeared, my pens were nowhere to be found, and my spiral contained bent pages with the binding barely holding up.

Now that I'm 19, I feel that way about my grades, organizational skills, and finances. During syllabus week, I have everything written and planned out. A 4.0 is always the goal! But then you sleep through one quiz and suddenly everything falls apart. I get behind and life gets busy and things slip my mind and I need to wash my sheets and I need to do the dishes but I have to study and use my bent up spiral that I shoved in the bottom of my bag because I was running late and I need to go to the grocery store but I don't have time so I grab something that may or may not be edible from the kitchen counter and then I check my grades and my bank account and the numbers for each are the same...do the math...that's not a good number to see in a checking account. It's exhausting. It leaves me longing for a clean slate.

So last year at about this time, I had thoughts in my head about losing weight. Going on a diet was the number 1 new year's resolution for 2015, after all. I didn't necessarily make it a new year's resolution, considering I was eating cheesecake at my sister's birthday dinner in the middle of January. But that dinner is the first time I ever said out loud to my parents, "I'm going to lose 30 pounds this semester." It was my resolution to go to the recreation center 3 times a week, so when I got back to school, I did just that. All of a sudden, my mindset was changing. I got tired of picturing this different life where I could be thinner and happier and healthier, and I realized only I had the power to make it happen. I needed a clean slate.

Sitting in my dorm room on January 27, 2015 with my hand in a box of cheerios, I made one of the biggest changes that I will probably ever do in my life. I went to the hallway, threw out the cheerios, and then proceeded to clean out my mini fridge and my cabinets of everything that I knew wasn't healthy. The only problem was, I had no idea what to do after that.

If losing weight is the number 1 new year's resolution of this day and time, why are so many people failing? I'm sure there are a billion theories out there, but I want to share mine. As someone who has failed at diets in the past, but successfully lost weight and kept it off later on, I can relate to you. In more ways than that. And I know what it takes to make real changes that will enhance your life more than you can imagine.

First things first. I was overweight pretty much all of my life. And for the friends and family who will try to sugarcoat my size, I'll clear the air. My BMI was well into the overweight range, and even more so during my senior year of high school, and the beginning of college. It affected so much, and that's not an exaggeration. It caused me to sit on the bench during basketball games. I could shoot about 90% from the 3-point line, and if you know basketball at all, that's pretty freaking awesome. But I didn't have the speed or the agility to keep up with the other girls. It disabled me from fitting into cute clothes. I always wanted to have a good sense of style, but none of it looked right on me, so I stuck to jeans and t-shirts almost every single day. It was the cause of any self-esteem issues I ever had. It lowered my confidence and made me stand out in pictures with my tiny friends. Before prom during my junior year, I tried losing weight. I would kill myself to eat celery, and I complained every single day. I would choke down deli meat and mope as my friends continued to eat the same old stuff and never seem to gain a pound. I managed to drop a significant amount of weight back then, but it was just a crash diet. I gained it all back plus some that summer. I headed into my senior year at the heaviest I would ever be.

Now I wonder, what made the Paleo diet different? How was I able to stay motivated? How did I succeed when so many have failed before, including myself? How have I kept every bit of the weight off?  That's what I'm here to tell you. And I have decided to include a Bible verse with each point, so you might see that weight loss involves far more than just eating well. It requires focus, discipline, dependence, perseverance, and hope--all things that God can offer you through his word.

1. Quit using the phrase "going on a diet"
1 Corinthians 6:19-20 Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.
You're not going on a diet because diets have an end date. You no longer have an end date. When I started Paleo, people would ask me how long I was going to do it, and I would reply, forever. It seemed pretty crazy, but I knew if I gave it an end date, I would go back to eating like a regular American and gain everything back. You can't eat well for a specific amount of time and then throw in the towel. You will have not learned anything! The word diet is defined as "a selection of food", not "a fad that lasts 6 weeks." Your body does not belong to you, it belongs to God, and he calls us to treat our bodies as something special. When you realize how intricate and amazing the human body really is, understanding that God took the time to create you, why would you want to fill yourself with nothing of value? If you want to succeed you do not set an end date. Which bring us to number 2...

2. Set goals
Proverbs 21:5 The plans of the diligent lead surely to abundance, but everyone who is hasty comes only to poverty.
Write them down. If you go in with a clear plan, you have a better shot than if you were to go in blindsided, just like Proverbs tells us. I still have the spiral that I scribbled out in Starbucks one day. It said "152 by June" and an end weight of "140." And I also wrote out the goals it would take me to get there. Depending on what your goals are will decide what you will have to do to get there. My goals at that time were losing weight, so I knew diet was number one and cardio workouts were number two. If your goal is to gain muscle, it'll need to be different. If you want to lose weight but you hate working out, you'll have to adjust calorie intake. This might all sound confusing right now, but that's why we have number 3...

3. RESEARCH
Proverbs 10:17 Whoever heeds instruction is on the path to life, but he who rejects reproof leads others astray.
We have the world at our fingertips, and we use it for crap like watching 6 second videos of girls getting hit with shovels. And then people want to say they don't know how to be healthy. Guess what! Google is your best friend. There are a million people who have made their own websites, written their own blogs, and published books on weight-loss and healthy living. All you have to do is search for them. Stay away from anything that says "lose weight fast" or "how to have the perfect stomach in 3 weeks." Cling to things that say "clean eating" or "lifestyle changes." If you need help choosing the right diet for you, I suggest anything that seems difficult but doable. If it seems easy, it won't work. If it seems impossible, it won't work either. There's a happy medium. Though it might be an old school way to say it, Proverbs says to heed instruction as to not be led astray!

4. Take action
Matthew 5:30 And if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.
Pick how you will eat! Whether it's a specific diet or just clean eating, you need to pick something solid that you can stick to. Remember, if you are already thin and looking to tone up, you'll need to be even stricter with your calorie intake. If you're extremely overweight, just a change in what you're eating will make a significant difference, and you won't have to count calories until later. BUT, It's not nearly enough to tell yourself or even other people that you're "on a diet." You have to actually begin. And that starts with getting rid of all the junk in your house. Clean out your fridge and pantry, but instead of throwing everything away, think about what you could donate to a food bank or to someone you know who is in need! Anything heavily processed, anything with an insane amount of sugar or sodium, white bread, soda, chips, cookies, whole milk...whatever your chosen diet does not allow, get it out. If it's there, you will eat it, I promise. You are just beginning, and you are not strong enough to say no when it's 11:00 pm and you have a sudden craving for goldfish. Consider the goldfish your right hand, like in Matthew. Is it causing you to stumble on your journey to reach your goals? Do yourself a favor now, and donate the goldfish to someone who is not dieting. It's less painful than cutting off your hand I bet.

5. Prioritize
Luke 12:34 For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
This is so important that I have a separate blog post just about setting priorities. If you ever want anything in your life to work, you have to make it a priority. Priority is defined as "a thing that is regarded as more important than another." So you'll need to make this lifestyle change a top priority. For some, that means giving up naps or TV. For others it'll be going out to eat less. For me, I had to adjust time management completely because I "treasured" fitness.

5. Support
Proverbs 27:17 Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another.
This is so so so important. If you are the only person in your household or in your life that is attempting to be healthy, it will be that much harder than it already is. You have to get support, whether that means getting the whole family on board, having a workout buddy, or starting a competition at work, support will be the only thing that gets you through when it gets too hard. And it will get hard, trust me. If I hadn't met Kat Hill, a fellow Paleo-person and now best friend of mine, I'm not sure if I could've stuck to eating so strictly through the low points of this past year. And I definitely would've never started CrossFit! Thanks for being my iron, Kat!

6. Don't give up
Romans 5:3-5 More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame...
Please don't make excuses. Everyone and their dogs are busy. You are not too busy to put your health on the priority list. It's going to be so worth it. You have to get through the adversity to experience the beauty of accomplishment. It's more than just fitting into your old jeans. It's saving your life, improving your heart, and reducing your risk of all the terrible diseases out there. You have so many resources, including me. It is my passion to help people, specifically with the motivation to lose weight. I cannot help you lose weight, but I can help you get started and stay motivated, but it's up to you to decide if it's worth it. WHICH IT IS!

I hope you'll join me at the start of 2016 to making this year count in every area! This is your chance for a clean slate, and I'm not just talking about a new crayon box. I am beginning a performance based diet to improve my skill level in the gym while remaining fit and lean! It's never too late to get started, whether you're trying to get rid of that Freshman 15 or shape up for your retirement cruise. Your health is important to not only me, but your families. Make it important to yourself!

When's the Last Time I Washed These Sheets?

During the week before Thanksgiving, I realized how severe the sophomore slump really is. As I was heating up a half-pound of smoked ham in the microwave on a cool autumn evening, it hit me--I had been eating that ham for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for three days straight. It would be one thing if I had prepared some different side dishes to go with the ham. But I didn't. I just ate the ham by itself. 

It got worse. I was lying in bed later that night, reflecting on the sad amount of ham I had eaten for three days, when I thought about the last time I had washed my sheets. For the sake of my reputation, I will not disclose the amount of time it had been since I washed my sheets, but just know that my mother would be appalled and the general public would avoid me at all costs. I could lie and tell you that the next day, I decided to address my lack of cleanliness and wash my sheets, but I didn't. They still haven't been washed. That's how lazy sophomore students are. Or maybe it's just me...

Just when I thought things had hit rock bottom, the college station police taught me otherwise. It was a brisk Tuesday morning. Thanksgiving break was in sight, classes had been going well, and aside from my all ham diet and sleeping in my dead skin cells every night, life was as bright as the sun peering through my front windshield as a drove to work. Then, I realized the bright lights were actually red and blue police lights coming from a motorcycle cop. I pulled over, expecting the cop to soon realize he had made a mistake (since I was going 35 in a 35). He came to my window, and I greeted him, ever so politely. The stern officer asked if I knew how fast I was going, to which I happily answered, 35 mph. He said yes. But then informed me that I was in a 20 mph school zone. Now I have nothing against the men and women in law enforcement. But I do have something against elementary schools that still have their school zones up when it is 9 o'clock in the morning. Like come on, if the kids aren't there by now, they aren't coming. I was given a citation for my recklessness, and then went on my way. 

The college station police must have WANTED posters of my car because a few days later, I got a parking ticket outside of my second home: Starbucks. I'm a frequent customer at the Starbucks at NorthGate. I practically have reserved parking outside the building. I have been parking there almost every night since freshman year. Much to my dismay, when I left Starbucks on this particular night, I had a parking citation on my car. I thought surely it had been a mistake (just like the motorcycle officer pulling me over), but again, it was not. In the fine, fine, fine print on a sign that was hidden behind a massive sequoia tree, there was an indication that one could not park in that spot after 10 pm. And I had left at 10:15. I'm pretty sure they put up that sign at like 10:01. 

Alas, the semester is coming to a close. It has been full of new learning experiences for me and despite the issues with ham and cops, I've had a ton of fun. Oh school is going pretty well too. It looks like I might pull off that 4.0 after all. And all it cost me was my personal hygiene :) 

Unfortunately, eating well on the holidays is a joke. If you successfully stick to any sort of diet plan during these winter months, you are probably not human. It's been so hard to go back to eating well after the 607 types of casserole I had over Thanksgiving. And now Christmas is here....excuse me while I go hide under baggy clothes until January. Luckily, I'm still working out, so there is hope. 

Merry Christmas everybody! I'm gonna go eat some ham.