Well now I'm in my mid-20s and although still blessed with a lanky figure (they don't call me Gangles for nothing), I've started to notice some... well... problem areas. Probably due to the aforementioned cheeseburgers and Taco Bell. Actually, change probably to yeah it is very much so due to that.
Exercise-wise, I think I'm good, considering I play soccer up to three times a week, but I could stand to eat a little healthier. Frozen foods and pasta make up the majority of my meals - although I do take pride in the fact that I eat those Steamfresh vegetables almost every night for dinner... I don't care if they're frozen, there's still green on my plate dangit. With the crazy hours I work I've been known to go through a drive thru a couple times a week. Hey, you let me know how motivated you are to cook anything, even spaghetti, after a 4-hour baseball game followed by a solid two hours of postgame recap writing and stat updating. Oh and sidenote: I like beer.
So every once in a while one of those "Top 10 Snacks to Fight Fat" articles will catch my eye and I'll click the link thinking, "Yes. Here is my chance. This is going to really help me out." Yet, more often than not, I'm left afterwards thinking "Ok welp I have no idea how to cook 75 percent of this stuff and even if I could, I can't afford to buy the ingredients so so much for that."
Case in point (case and point?): Women's Health Magazine had a link on their Twitter (yes I caved and joined) that had a 4-week meal plan guide that can apparently help you lose weight in a month. This intrigues me... until I look at the first week of meals.
First of all, way too many measurements. This of course is probably for portion control, but it's a bit overwhelming. 4 oz. chicken breast? 1/4 cup sliced avocado? How do you fit slices of avocado into a 1/4 cup measuring cup? These are the things I think about which is probably why I get so overwhelmed.
Which leads me to my next point. I like to eat. My friends like to eat. My family likes to eat. I have a healthy appetite and I'm not afraid to use it. I guess if I really stuck to this plan and ate all the meals at the portions they designate, I would feel full and satisfied, but just by looking at this plan, I feel like I'd still be hungry all the time. A 4 oz. chicken breast is roughly the size of a deck of cards. Is that really going to cut it?
Finally, there's the overarching issue of how much this will all cost. The healthy food is also the fancy, more expensive food. Kashi cereal and Laughing Cow cheese is better for me, but it's also going to be a good deal more than I can afford to pay right now. For dinner, entrees include salmon, sirloin steak and yes even 3 or 4 pieces of tuna sashimi.
Maybe it's my own ultimate lack of motivation (another post on that to come) or something, but I just feel this kind of a plan is really hard for a normal mid-20 year old working girl living on a budget to stick to. So I get intimidated and I ultimately just stick with my own ways which are fine for now but I certainly can't keep eating like this for the rest of my life. At some point a husband and kids will enter the picture too. At some point I won't be so lucky when it comes to my body type.
A long, long time ago (in a galaxy far, far away it feels like), I wrote on a different blog about how all of the trashy magazines have these foolproof diets that the celebs swear you can do too and how big of a myth I thought it all was. Celebs make a lot of money, have a lot of free time on their hands and have a lot of helpers to get them to look the way they do. Personal chefs and trainers are their reality, but it certainly isn't mine. So where are the tips for, like I said above, the normal 26-year old who works crazy hours and is living on a budget? What is a girl who admittedly has made Starbucks a food group and doesn't consider tofu a meal at all supposed to do?
I'm sure if I really cared that much about it, I would figure out a way to do it. I'm sure that if I was really serious about changing my eating habits, I would. So maybe this whole post is me making one giant excuse for not buckling down and making some changes and an attempt at finding the easy way out. But for now I'm standing by it.
Plus, do you know how nutty the cat would get if I brought salmon and sashimi in the house? For crying out loud, look at what catnip does to her:
No comments:
Post a Comment