Lifestyle Changes

After I mentioned my weight loss on instagram, I had a few requests to go into further detail. It all started after the holidays. Cole and I were feeling pretty crummy from eating and drinking too much and gaining too much weight. We decided we wanted to change our eating habits by cutting out junk food and adding in more fruits and vegetables. After doing some research we decided that the paleo diet would be best. It was going to be tough cutting so much from our diet but we knew we could do it. When we found out two years ago that I had an autoimmune disorder (hashimoto's thyroiditis), we decided to cut gluten from our diets. We weren't strict during the first year but have been this past year and it's really become second nature for us. When we first got my diagnoises, Cole even suggested going paleo at the same time but I thought that would be too hard all at once.

Once we started eating paleo at the end of January it took only one month for me to lose ten pounds. I was incredibly shocked and couldn't believe it happened so fast. I wasn't even consistently working out during this time. About two weeks ago we decided to go one step further and bought a juicer. We knew this would be an even better way to get a good wallop of fruits and veggies. I never would've thought we would be able to stomach a juice filled with spinach but we love it!

-Breakfast smoothie: 8oz coconut milk, handful of sliced frozen strawberries, one banana, one tbsp of chia seeds.
-Lunch juice: one green apple, one cucumber, two celery stalks, one handful of kale, two handfuls of baby spinach.

-My daily meal routine is a fruit smoothie for breakfast, a juice for lunch and a paleo meal for dinner usually consisting of fish and veggies.
-My workout routine varies from day to day but I work out at the gym about four days a week doing 30 minutes of cardio (elliptical/cross ramp/treadmill) and twenty minutes of weights (low sets/high reps). About one day a week I'll do a Winsor Pilates dvd at home.

-Paleo meals: sausage and eggs, raspberries with coconut milk and fresh squeezed orange juice; eggs with sriracha and avocado; taco salad with ground beef, romain lettuce, veggies, taco sauce and ranch.

I firmly believe that the way to succeed with any diet is to give yourself one or two free days a week. On the weekends Cole and I will have gluten free pizza or chipotle burrito bowls which satisfy our cravings and helps us to keep eating healthy all week long. I also believe it's best not to weigh yourself too much, instead base your progress on how your clothes feel. I only happened to know how much weight I had lost from two doctor visits, one before we started the diet and one a month later. Above all else, it's about feeling good, being healthy and making positive lifestyle changes!

xxMaria

P.S. I'm in San Francisco visiting my sister and nephew and getting a break from the freezing Minnesota winter. I'll be back on Sunday.