When I was younger, I would always hear the saying, “You are what you eat”. As a child, my mom would always joke around and say stuff like, “You’re going to turn into a carrot if you don’t stop eating them all the time!”. I guess I always joked around about it and I didn’t really reflect on its true meaning. Throughout my fitness journey, I have learnt to love my body and how to find happiness in many aspects of my life. As many of you all know, I lost a lot of weight when I started college and I worked out non-stop for about a year. During this time, my focus was on exercise and I thought that exercise alone would make me “fit” and “skinny”. I was focusing all of my efforts on working out and it was truly draining. I had little no no energy and I was virtually starving myself because I wasn’t eating enough to compensate for all the calories I was burning. I was also commuting to school that was over an hour away and I was a poor college student. No money + no time for meals= a bad combination. I was living off of pretzels and cheap salads from fast-food restaurants. My calories were less than 900 a day. Keep in mind that I was running over 6 miles 5 days out of the week, I was running on little sleep while being a full-time student, and trying to work 20 hours a week in order to pay for gas and food. While I was focusing all of my efforts on keeping a 4.0 GPA and balancing my work and exercise (and what little social life I had), I was ignoring my health and it began to show VERY quickly.
fast forward 2 years…
As I sit here and type this, I can’t help but to feel reassurance that I have found my calling in life. I know that I want to continue to pursue my passion in writing and I hope that my story can help to reach others who have experienced the same thing as I have. Skipping meals is not going to make you “skinny” and neither is working out solely. It all starts in the kitchen.
“You are what you eat”
If you feed your body trash, your body will react to what you are putting into it and you will feel like crap. Similarly, if you feel your body healthy, whole foods, your body will love you back. In addition, don’t focus all of your energy on food. If you are constantly thinking about your next meal, you are more likely to eat more and indulge on foods that are unhealthy. Eat when you are hungry, and choose satisfied over stuffed. Rather than eating huge meals, try snacking throughout the day by eating foods like pistachios and almonds, or vegetables and fruit. Your body will thank you, and in return, your fitness goals will begin to fall into place.
