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Mar. 31, 2005 I am lazy. By nature I do not enjoy exercise. I love to travel and I look forward to exploring foreign destinations, however, I save up energy reserves for just such occasions. While I hike with my friends regularly, when at home I find it difficult to find motivation to hit the gym. As you can imagine, this creates a bit of a problem when it comes to fitness and achieving the hard body of which I dream. As a writer, I have researched most fitness trends, eating programs and exercise gadgets and while I approach them all with a healthy respect, I have always found away around consistently practicing them. When I was in my twenties, laziness wasn’t a problem. My racing metabolism coupled with my lifestyle (read: constant party) ensured that excess weight was never a concern. I even went so far as to enjoy two daily visits to a popular fast food joint for jumbo sized French fries, large soda and a small milkshake. I maintained that eating plan for my first six months as a sales representative for a large financial firm. Thankfully, that was all I ate in a day and did not gain weight, but looking back I cannot imagine what that did to my overall health. Luckily for me and my digestive tract, I had a run-in with a bad milkshake and went cold turkey thereby ending my addiction to fast food grease. Since that time, I have adopted slightly healthier eating habits. Now that I am on the waning side of thirty, I am wildly aware of the importance diet and exercise make to my well-being. Like most women I know, when I hit the big three-o I began to feel pressured to maintain a certain appearance. Since I was too chicken to undergo surgery and too skeptical of experimental cloning, I began to look to diet and exercise as a way to ensure I felt healthy and looked as good as I could. Understanding the value of expertise I bought myself a physical and dietetic consultation with a certified personal trainer for my thirty-third birthday. It was daunting thing for me. I was weighed, measured, callipered and prodded for personal information. After the humiliation of actually knowing my body fat percentage, I was faced with the task of listing of all food I consume on a daily basis. Poring through the list of all the high fat foods, simple carbohydrates and sugar- laden stuff that goes into my body, I realized that I needed a lot of help. After a two-hour session learning the basics of sound eating and exercise, I was set free to practice my new and improved fitness lifestyle. I got off to a great start with the fitness piece of the puzzle. The exercise program was easy to incorporate. My trainer gave me a quick, efficient set of moves that I could do at home and the entire routine could be done within 45 minutes. While that may sound like a lot, I was able to split it up into a 15 minute cardio session in the morning and 30 minutes of resistance in the evening. I did cardio 5 days a week and the resistance program 3 days a week and after three weeks I began to see subtle changes in my overall physique. Following the eating plan, was another story. Armed with a very strict food program, I set off in pursuit of a perfect figure. For the first three months, I ate nothing but lettuce, cucumbers, ocean fish, sweet potatoes and dry oatmeal. No fruit, no dairy, no sugars of any kind, natural or refined. I was getting leaner every day and found the exercise program easy to do and with quick results. Within that first 60 days, my body fat dropped 2 percent and continued to decrease, but, I was dying for some sugar. Around day 87, I snapped and ate an entire tube of cookie dough. I was in heaven for the 90 minutes it took me to spoon my way through a log of happiness, also known as a Toll House Cookie Dough roll. When I awoke from my sugar stupor I was beset my intense feelings of guilt. How could I have blown all that work? What would happen now? So racked by guilt, I called my trainer and confessed my dietary sins. After my tearful admission, I was told that if I was craving sugar I could have introduced blueberries into my diet, rather than eat a pound of raw cookie. Too bad I was not given that information at the beginning. My trainer further explained that I could use the glycemic index to help me choose healthier foods that would not only satisfy my cravings, but also be part of a healthy diet. The glycemic index measures and ranks carbohydrates based upon the effect each has on glucose (blood sugar) levels. The foods that breakdown into sugar quickly blast into the bloodstream raising the blood glucose level rapidly and highly. Foods low on the glycemic index breakdown more slowly and introduce glucose more gradually which is best for digestion, energy and metabolism. Once I researched and learned the glycemic index of foods, I began to eat a less structured diet. Soon I was feeling a lot more energetic and maintaining the lower percentage of body fat I had achieved during my no-sugar fast. I found this new way of eating a lot easier to follow and I had plenty of sugary choices to satisfy my cravings. By following the glycemic index I actually saved time at the grocery store because I could buy specific items rather than wander around led by my cravings. Now more than 3 years after my consultation, I maintain my low sugar eating habits and my time- saving fitness routine. I am still not one who loves exercise but I love the way I feel being fit and I love being able to eat right without a lot of planning or effort. My desire to exercise is less about how I look and more about how I feel. I also get the benefit of using exercise as an opportunity to spend time with friends, which in itself should be reason enough to get off the couch and get moving. So consider this lazy girl converted. You too can achieve my state of fitness euphoria with these simple steps. One, consult a professional for the right advice for your situation and two, repeat after me: fitness is fun, fitness is my friend, fitness is fun, fitness is my friend…...Keep repeating that, I am going to get some cookie dough! ------------ About the author: Marnie McCown-Guard is a freelance writer with over a decade of professional experience. She has written everything from books to corporate training courses to travel/tour pieces and even a wedding toast in Russian (with the help of a translator). For more information please visit her web site at www.ProfileProfessionalWriters.com. Marnie just published the first in a series of How-To eBooks called Monkey Manuals. Techniques So Easy You Don’t Even Need Opposable Thumbs. The first issue released, Monkey Manuals: Easy Organization, is loaded with 80+ pages of techniques and tools used to create balance and harmony in your life by controlling your time and organizing your life. Available through Marnies web site or at http://www.tradebit.com/filedetail.php/30619. The second issue, Monkey Manuals: Easy Fitness will be available late May 2005. Marnie has traveled across the globe, but holds a certain fondness for Central and South America. She enjoys photographing material to accompany her writing and spends as much time as possible with her dogs. She and her husband live in Arizona. Email: profilewriters@cox.net Tell a friend about this site! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com. Please link to this article rather than copying and pasting it onto your site (which would be unauthorized and illegal). |
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