Living Healthy

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Now, I’m not a nutritionist and so I won’t tell you what you have to do to live a healthier life, no, I’m going to tell you how I live a healthier life, how I keep myself fit, what I eat and all the things, which seemed to help me getting more into shape.

Two times in my life I gained a lot of weight and, of course, wanted to get rid of those extra pounds again.

1. I lived in Austin, Texas, and gained around 20 pounds because I ate the wrong food and didn’t exercise. I ate at fast-food places all the time (too much fat), I ate a loooot of sweets (too much sugar) and I ate too much in general. After arriving back home, my doctor told me that my blood-test results are horrible and that I needed to change my eating habits. The positive thing was that I didn’t have to do a lot to lose the 20 pounds again. Once in Germany, I didn’t go to fast-food places anymore (we only had McDonalds and Burger King back then!), I didn’t eat too much sweets, I just ate healthier and the pounds kept rolling.
2. My first 40-hour-a-week internship at an office. I worked six months as an intern, meaning it was my first time sitting in an office nine hours a day. I didn’t exercise, I ate too much. Every noon I’d just eat a lot of cheese and ham with bread. I didn’t leave the office. Coming home from work (at around 18:00), I made myself a huge bowl of noodles with pesto. I drove to work by train. That was my habit for about six months, until someone in the company looked at me and said “Did you gain weight?”. I knew I needed to change my habits.

The “office-incidence” made me change my life to the way I’m living it right now. Back then I knew I’m going to work in an office at one point in my life and I didn’t want to gain so much again. This point of my life is now – I’m working in an office and I keep my weight.

So, below you’ll find the things I did/do to lose weight and keep in shape.

• I walk or ride my bike
  Instead of taking the bus or train to work and instead of taking the bus or train downtown or anywhere I need to go, I ride my bike. It was difficult in the beginning, I was totally out of shape, but after a while I could actually breath normal whilst riding my bike.

  No matter how cold or hot it is, I’ll ride my bike. When it’s raining though, I tend to either walk or take the train. I just dislike arriving at work all wet (although I do have raining clothes, but you still get wet), so, yeah.

  When I walk, I see so much things I never noticed before; nice little streets, lovely houses, cute cafès or shops, the birds and the bees 🙂 . So, walking really has some benefits.

• I eat more veggies and fruits
  I try to eat five a day.

  A lot of days I’ll eat a yummy muesli breakfast and cut a lot of fruits into that. After that breakfast I’m full for a long time.

  At work, I have a big bowl of fruit sitting right infront of me. So instead of eating sweets as a snack I’ll grab a banana and some grapes for example, cut them up and add yogurt.

  I try to eat vegetables or a big salad to my dinner. I buy fresh vegetables most of the time and cut them up, but when I’m lazy, I’ll just buy a frozen pack of veggies.

  A great, fast and easy dinner I love: cooking rice, cutting up carrots, peppers and broccoli, let them cook in a pan and then mix the rice with the vegetables. Sometimes I’ll buy some turkey meat to go with it. Very yummy, easy and fast to make!

• I try to not eat too late
  That’s just something that makes me feel better. Other people might eat late at night, around 21:00, and be skinny as hell. I just remember that eating the noodles and pesto at around 19:00 and 20:00 wasn’t too good for me.

  I just feel better the next morning NOT having such a huge belly because of all the food I ate the night before. Again, that’s just my personal preference. When I get home from work late I’ll eat accordingly late. Sometimes I go to dinner, which is mostly later as well.

  In general I just try to not eat too late and especially no crap, like sweets or a Big Mac or chips.

• I exercise
  I’m a member of a gym. I joined in May 2013. The gym has a strenght circuit, so if I’m not too much in the mood or only have limited time I’ll do that, it only takes around 30 minutes. I went from this belly to this belly in three months 🙂

  Building up muscles is not the only thing that keeps you in shape and makes you lose weight though, you need to train the conditioning as well.

  So I asked a friend ((he was a gym coach once)) to take me jogging twice a week. I have a bad knee and always said “I can’t jog, I have a bad knee, it’s not good for the knee…” BUT I started very slow (jog one minute, walk one minute… and this thirty minutes long) and I have to tell you, I didn’t have (still don’t) any problems with my knee(s).

  I personally like jogging more than Nordic walking because I don’t get bored as easily. So when the weather is nice I’ll go for nice relaxing runs around the forest.

• I hardly eat at fast-food places
  The good thing is: Germany doesn’t have a lot of fast-food places.
  There’s McDonalds, Burger King, and uh-oh – I think I saw a brand new KFC last week! We also have Subway, but I personally don’t see that as the typical fast-food place. I haven’t been to McDonalds in ages! First of all, it’s not that cheap anymore and when I eat a menu (I always get six Chicken McNuggets, one cheesburger, fries and a coke), I’m hungry shortly after again.

  Subway I like! I’ll get a sandwich there every now and again. I always get the turkey sub on wheat bread. All the veggies on it of course. It’s sooo yummy and I don’t have a guilty conscience whilst eating it.

  Anyways, eating at fast-food places also costs quite a bit, especially if you do it regularly.

• I watch what I buy
  My shopping list always contains:
  • vegetables
  • fruits
  • low/normal fat and low sugar nature yogurt (the fruit yogurt has too much sugar and I’m not even sure if it has real fruit)
  • wheat bread
  • low/normal fat milk

  Low fat and -sugar products taste very good… most of the time. You don’t taste a difference.
  I never buy soda – only for special occasions. Most of the times, I buy high quality bread and wholemeal products and I only buy products without food additives, which isn’t that easy at all. But you can find them if you look.

The things I posted help me to lose weight. I tried dieting (long time ago), but the yoyo-effect always hit me bad. If you have some tips on how you keep your weight, live a healthy life, please share!