Healthy Living in Connecticut Blog

I read this in the news the other day. Stories like this make me proud... it's nice to see people losing weight with just diet and exercise. Papa Joe Aviance proves you can lose weight without spending too much money on groceries. He also shed the weight without resorting to surgery. 

Papa Joe Aviance basically did what I did... threw out the candy, gave up the soda and ate better food. He also started a walking routine. You might remember that I lost weight with walking myself. I still to this day walk 10,000 steps every day. This story proves that walking is a great form of exercise.

My body fat percentage has been fluctuating for a while now. A few months ago, it was 18.6, now it's about 20. According to experts, my body fat percentage should be below 18.

The strength training is working slowly, although the results are not as fast as they were with weight loss. I still like cardio more than the weights. I now have a personal trainer to go over the basics with the strength training. Hopefully I will learn enough as I only signed up for a few sessions.

I still find it hard to believe that people think of me as "slim". I know I'm not fat anymore but somehow, hearing names like "Hey Slim", or "wow, you're skinny", I think to myself, they can't be talking about me!

It's hard to get used to it. Most people were kind over the years and never really came right out and said I was fat back when I was obese. There were different things I would hear like "you're a big guy, you're gonna need a car with more room" (car salesman) or "Are you sure you're not diabetic?" (eye doctor).

Someone recently asked me about how I stuck to eating so healthy and maintain my weight. She was saying that she has trouble staying with healthy foods. After a while the food gets boring to her. This was someone who did a wellness challenge... as you know I participated in two challenges last year. One thing I learned from the challenge is it's a lifestyle change, not a temporary diet. The only way to lose weight and keep it off is to incorporate the habits from the challenge into your daily routine, even after the challenge ends.

So many people will go back to the foods that got them overweight in the first place. I think one reason that it's hard for some people to keep a healthy diet is that they didn't find food that they liked enough to stick with. If you don't like the food you're eating, eventually you will give up and go back to your old style of eating. It's important to incorporate a large variety of healthy foods and be creative. If you hear of a food that has a lot of health benefits, try it and see if you like it.

I know fish is very healthy, providing essential nutrients and most important, omega 3 fatty acids. If you like it, you will enjoy all the health benefits that fish provide. But, some people just don't like the taste of fish and I happen to be one of them.

I was a picky eater as a kid. Not only did I not care for fish, I also didn't like sausage, bacon, etc... That's probably why I loved junk food so much. My mom did cook a lot of chicken, beef and turkey so I did get enough protein! There were a lot of foods I loved, Italian being my favorite and still is! I grew to love healthier foods, mostly on the vegetable side but still do not have much liking to seafood.