focus on food & fitness.

sunday night already? where did my weekend go?! oh.. that’s right.. i slept the whole weekend away. no, seriously, aside from a bikram yoga session yesterday, the insanity fit test today and a quick trip to costco & the grocery store.. i haven’t left the couch in 48 hours.

rather than bore you with every last minute detail of my uneventful weekend, i want to talk about something i realized today. yes, amidst all the lounging and laziness, i managed to have a revelation.

this post is about to get real wordy and full of deep thoughts. feel free to skip to the banana muffin recipe at the end.

there is always a lot of talk in blog land about the scale. recently, i read about the scale on mary’s blog (she is working on giving up the scale) and melissa’s blog (she pulverized her scale in the middle of the street). these particular posts have got me thinking about my own relationship with the scale.

(source.)

i don’t weigh myself. plain and simple. i don’t. i have no idea how much i weigh and guess what? i honestly don’t care how much i weigh. i know that i am not excessively over or under weight.. so i don’t think i need to know that number. it is not important to me.

it took me a long time to get where i am today. i used to be an avid scale user. every morning, like clockwork, i would weigh myself. as expected, the ritual of weighing myself became something that i had to do, and the number i saw would dictate my mood for that day. you guys, that’s ridiculous. plain and simple.. letting your weight dictate if you are happy or sad each day is straight up STUPID.

so i stopped weighing myself. i haven’t weighed myself in over a year. not even at the doctor’s office. i just tell them i am not over or under weight and that i don’t weigh myself. they understand and never make me hop on the scale. i have come a long way from when i let my weight affect my mood, and unless my weight becomes a health concern, i have no plans on weighing myself any time soon.

granted, i gained a lot of weight after giving up the scale. that had nothing to do with weighing myself and everything to do with the ice cream and excessive bowls of cereal i was eating every day. when my jeans stopped fitting comfortably, i changed my eating and exercise habits and got back to where i knew i needed to be (in order to avoid purchasing a whole new wardrobe.)

anyway, let’s talk about the here and now. i started the insanity challenge on april 3rd. i wanted to track my progress but i didn’t want to weigh myself. so what did i do? i took before photos and i measured various parts of my body and wrote the measurements down. in addition to photos and measurements, i completed an initial fit test (part of the insanity program) and wrote down my numbers for the fit test. i made a plan to eat clean 6 days a week with one day off—very similar to body for life—and then i hit the ground running. well, not running, more like jumping.. the insanity program involves a whole lot of plyometrics.

fast forward two weeks. i have been sticking to my workouts, focusing hard on eating the right foods and have been drinking lots of water. i have had healthier habits these past two weeks than i have had all year. i am determined and focused.

i completed my fit test today—that is something the insanity program has you do every two weeks to see how you have progressed. want to see my results?

there are eight exercises. you do each one for one minute and try to improve your score. here are mine:

move	day 1	day 15	difference
switch kicks	100	109	+9
power jacks	44	50	+6
power knees	85	107	+22
power jumps	28	38	+10
globe jumps	12	13	+1
burpees	14	17	+3
pushup jacks	25	30	+5
plank obliques	50	60	+10

as you can see, i improved on every move. to be honest, i wasn’t sure if would improve.. but i was pleasantly surprised by my progress!

so, after the fit test, i was in the shower, where i do my deepest thinking (what, don’t you?) and i got to thinking about how we measure ourselves.

there are lots of ways to measure our progress when dieting and exercising:

• how much we weigh
• body fat percentage
• our measurements
• the way we look
• how our clothes fit

but one thing that often gets overlooked when we want to measure our progress is how our fitness has increased. i never once have monitored my progress according to how many reps i can do of any given exercise in one minute. that fit test i did today made me feel AMAZING. better than any amount of weight lost. better than any old pair of jeans buttoning. i increased my number of reps in every exercise and i felt stronger. i felt stronger, more fit and like i made a huge accomplishment.

who cares if i have lost any weight in these past two weeks? does it really matter if my thighs are smaller? no. what matters is that i am more fit. and i am doing something good for my health. and that is what it’s all about.

the other side of this post is the food side. like i said, i have been focusing on eating clean, healthy foods 6 days a week. i take a day off to indulge and satisfy my cravings. that was friday night, when i ate my weight in homemade ice cream and brownies. boy, was that awesome.

but i want to point something out: i felt like crap the next day. my body was saying, “hey, janetha, what gives? you have been eating so healthy 24/7 and you really just threw me for a loop with all that sugar! thanks a lot.”

because i have been focusing on eating clean, healthy food the majority of the time, my body has set the bar higher on what makes it feel good. my body is having a great reaction to all the healthy food. it is like a domino effect.. the more i eat healthy the better i feel. not only do i feel better, but my complexion is nicer, my skin is softer, i have more energy.. the list goes on. all because i am focusing on a healthier diet.

i am going to continue to focus hard on my insanity challenge. i am going to focus on my fitness and focus on my food. i am going to strive to work hard at my workouts and eat healthy each and every day. and in case you are wondering, i am still going to eat that ice cream once a week. we all need our indulgences. that’s part of a healthy lifestyle, in my opinion.

i think that the real sense of accomplishment comes when we see that our bodies are reacting positively to the healthy changes we are making in our diet and exercise regimens. the cool part about this is that we can get instant gratification from gauging our accomplishments this way. if we rely on the scale, it could be months before we get to “the magic number” we are after.. but just after a week or two of focusing on healthy eating and diligent exercise, i feel like a whole new person with a huge burst of motivation to keep up the good work.

OKAY, the serious stuff is over. sometimes i have to get these deep thoughts off my chest! and now, a healthy recipe to help keep us all focused on our food.

these muffins aren’t as high in protein as my lemon chiaseed ones.. but they do have 11 grams per muffin.. and for a muffin, 11 grams of protein is pretty stellar.

high protein banana muffins.

makes 12 muffins

ingredients:

• 1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
• 1/2 cup vanilla protein powder
• 1/2 cup almond meal
• 1 T baking powder
• 1 T cinnamon
• 1/2 t baking soda
• 1/8 t salt
• 3 medium overripe mashed bananas
• 1 cup 0% plain greek yogurt
• 1 egg
• 1/4 cup xagave
• 2 T unsweetened applesauce
• 1 T vanilla extract
• 3-4 T unsweetened almond milk

directions:

combine flour, protein powder, almond meal, baking powder, cinnamon, baking soda and salt in a bowl. mix well.

in a separate bowl, combine bananas, yogurt, egg, xagave, applesauce and vanilla.

pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix well. add the milk—as much as you need to create a nice batter.

separate the batter into 12 muffin cups—either silicone, paper liners or a greased tin—and bake at 375 degrees for 15-20 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean.

try not to eat all 12 at once.

nutrition info per muffin:

well.. that’s enough out of me for the night. thanks for reading! have a great monday.

xo. janetha g.