Healthy
About two weeks ago, around the time of my last post enthusing my awesome new job, I figured it might be a choice time to get right back on that horse and ride to the land of fitness.
I've tried a lot of different diets and healthy eating plans in my time, and the past two years I worked out very regularly at my gym in the Pilbara. I may not be some size 6 (and seriously, I wouldn't want to be), but despite that I do actually live a pretty active life style. I may not be a member of any gym right now because I'm a little poor due to my 6 months or more of travelling (this year only), but we really don't live in a world where fitness is tied to being a member of a gym. It's easy enough, and significantly cheaper, to make use of the bevy of work out applications available for smartphones as well as go for walks, run, skip, jump and swim the way we used to before the treadmill was invented.
Like I said, I'm actually a pretty active person most of the time and I tend to eat relatively well when I'm not trying to save money by skipping meals (I don't recommend it). But since I indulged too much as a child and I've always struggled to drop weight, I carry enough extra curve to make myself want to get a bit more fit for my own piece of mind. Hear me world and women alike, I'll be getting fit and sexy for me. I'm all about that bass, but being a 'skinny bitch' is just as acceptable if you do it for you. So I'm back on the bendy road to losing a little bit of fat. Plus I want to reduce my risk of diabetes when I'm older, that my family history seems to suggest could be a problem.
Since I have tried this before, and actually succeeded to a point, I figured just getting back into it would be simple enough. I refuse to say 'easy' because there is nothing easy about losing weight, especially if you're thinking 20kg like myself (45lbs more or less). In theory it's all very simple: you eat healthy, plenty of fibre and protein, less sugar and fats, and you exercise regularly enough to burn off what you eat. But being simple in theory does not mean that it is actually simple in reality, and for the sake of a little extra help I decided to try something new: dietary supplements.
Now, before I get into this let me just say that these literally what they say they are: supplements to a healthy diet and exercise regime. They don't replace meals, they don't replace the need to work out and they certainly don't work like miracle fat disappearance pills. And I'm not expecting them to.
So, the supplements I decided to try are something that I read about recently and figured it wouldn't hurt to try out and record my progress. After all if they do help then my experience may work as a positive influence for someone else to do the same. The supplements I decided to try are Green Coffee Bean and Garcinia Cambogia, the two natural extracts that seem to be relatively popular right now, kind of the way chia, quinoa and kale seem to be as well.
Green Coffee Bean is basically the raw product before they roast and whatever the beans in order to use them to make coffee. It supposedly slows down the rate of glucose release and forces the body to burn fat more quickly, thus making it more difficult for fat to settle. Plus, it is a natural energy booster even if it contains a little of the recommended daily intake of caffeine. Garcinia Cambogia, on the other hand, is more commonly known as Tamarind, and contains a HCA (Hydrocitric acid). It claims to slow down fat storage from carbohydrates, suppress the appetite, reduce stress (by raising cortical levels), and raise seratonin. The best recommended results are to take both Garcinia and Green Coffee Bean twice a day roughly 60-30 minutes before a major meal.
Everyone responds to different foods and whatnot differently. so after two weeks of plenty of exercise, very little fatty or sugary foods, and taking both the Garcinia and Green Coffee Bean, here's how it's going:
I definitely feel good, for starters. I have more energy, I'm sleeping better, my system seems to be moving better (let's not get into that part too much), and I certainly feel pretty happy most of the time. I haven't done too much to be stressed about so I don't know if I feel less stressed, but I feel fuller quicker, feel less hungry and don't seem to crave much sugar - a plus since I'm not eating much of it (one treat a day that I enjoy so much more). So far there seem to be so many upsides to the whole thing, the least of which being that I actually feel really good about my body right now.
But obviously there are downsides to something like this: over-eating is a bitch when it happens, and so is pushing too hard with exercise. Since my appetite is suppressed I have to be so careful to not eat more than my body needs, something that green tea and increase water intake help with also (I'm also highly addicted to coconut water now). If that happens, and it has, it almost makes me want to embrace bulimia - just to get the excess food out of me so that my stomach will stop hurting. But its not a pain kind of hurt, so much as it just feels like having eaten too much Indian food: like your stomach is too tight it may just explode. So its a downside that is controllable, just like pushing too hard with exercise which is a problem combined with the Green Coffee Bean. Because exercise seems to only make it work harder to push all the toxins out of your system the only way it knows how: the digestive way. If anyone has ever eaten an entire bag of sugar-free gummy bears in one sitting you'll know how that feels.
The last thing that isn't quite what I was expecting is the fact that despite everything I haven't actually lost any weight at all. It is more or less exactly the same right now as it was two weeks ago. Its my saving grace that I keep telling myself that muscle weighs more than fat does and I would hope I've at least toned a bit.
At the two week point my results are better in a less tangible way, and even if I haven't dropped any kilos just yet it hasn't made me want to give up. I feel too good to quit and I don't want to; its a game, a challenge, and at the end of it Rome wasn't built in a day. No one drops 20kg by trying to be healthy for two weeks and giving up. So I'm going to keep at it and continue to record what I'm finding.
I've tried a lot of different diets and healthy eating plans in my time, and the past two years I worked out very regularly at my gym in the Pilbara. I may not be some size 6 (and seriously, I wouldn't want to be), but despite that I do actually live a pretty active life style. I may not be a member of any gym right now because I'm a little poor due to my 6 months or more of travelling (this year only), but we really don't live in a world where fitness is tied to being a member of a gym. It's easy enough, and significantly cheaper, to make use of the bevy of work out applications available for smartphones as well as go for walks, run, skip, jump and swim the way we used to before the treadmill was invented.
Like I said, I'm actually a pretty active person most of the time and I tend to eat relatively well when I'm not trying to save money by skipping meals (I don't recommend it). But since I indulged too much as a child and I've always struggled to drop weight, I carry enough extra curve to make myself want to get a bit more fit for my own piece of mind. Hear me world and women alike, I'll be getting fit and sexy for me. I'm all about that bass, but being a 'skinny bitch' is just as acceptable if you do it for you. So I'm back on the bendy road to losing a little bit of fat. Plus I want to reduce my risk of diabetes when I'm older, that my family history seems to suggest could be a problem.Since I have tried this before, and actually succeeded to a point, I figured just getting back into it would be simple enough. I refuse to say 'easy' because there is nothing easy about losing weight, especially if you're thinking 20kg like myself (45lbs more or less). In theory it's all very simple: you eat healthy, plenty of fibre and protein, less sugar and fats, and you exercise regularly enough to burn off what you eat. But being simple in theory does not mean that it is actually simple in reality, and for the sake of a little extra help I decided to try something new: dietary supplements.
Now, before I get into this let me just say that these literally what they say they are: supplements to a healthy diet and exercise regime. They don't replace meals, they don't replace the need to work out and they certainly don't work like miracle fat disappearance pills. And I'm not expecting them to.
So, the supplements I decided to try are something that I read about recently and figured it wouldn't hurt to try out and record my progress. After all if they do help then my experience may work as a positive influence for someone else to do the same. The supplements I decided to try are Green Coffee Bean and Garcinia Cambogia, the two natural extracts that seem to be relatively popular right now, kind of the way chia, quinoa and kale seem to be as well.
Green Coffee Bean is basically the raw product before they roast and whatever the beans in order to use them to make coffee. It supposedly slows down the rate of glucose release and forces the body to burn fat more quickly, thus making it more difficult for fat to settle. Plus, it is a natural energy booster even if it contains a little of the recommended daily intake of caffeine. Garcinia Cambogia, on the other hand, is more commonly known as Tamarind, and contains a HCA (Hydrocitric acid). It claims to slow down fat storage from carbohydrates, suppress the appetite, reduce stress (by raising cortical levels), and raise seratonin. The best recommended results are to take both Garcinia and Green Coffee Bean twice a day roughly 60-30 minutes before a major meal.
Everyone responds to different foods and whatnot differently. so after two weeks of plenty of exercise, very little fatty or sugary foods, and taking both the Garcinia and Green Coffee Bean, here's how it's going:
I definitely feel good, for starters. I have more energy, I'm sleeping better, my system seems to be moving better (let's not get into that part too much), and I certainly feel pretty happy most of the time. I haven't done too much to be stressed about so I don't know if I feel less stressed, but I feel fuller quicker, feel less hungry and don't seem to crave much sugar - a plus since I'm not eating much of it (one treat a day that I enjoy so much more). So far there seem to be so many upsides to the whole thing, the least of which being that I actually feel really good about my body right now.But obviously there are downsides to something like this: over-eating is a bitch when it happens, and so is pushing too hard with exercise. Since my appetite is suppressed I have to be so careful to not eat more than my body needs, something that green tea and increase water intake help with also (I'm also highly addicted to coconut water now). If that happens, and it has, it almost makes me want to embrace bulimia - just to get the excess food out of me so that my stomach will stop hurting. But its not a pain kind of hurt, so much as it just feels like having eaten too much Indian food: like your stomach is too tight it may just explode. So its a downside that is controllable, just like pushing too hard with exercise which is a problem combined with the Green Coffee Bean. Because exercise seems to only make it work harder to push all the toxins out of your system the only way it knows how: the digestive way. If anyone has ever eaten an entire bag of sugar-free gummy bears in one sitting you'll know how that feels.
The last thing that isn't quite what I was expecting is the fact that despite everything I haven't actually lost any weight at all. It is more or less exactly the same right now as it was two weeks ago. Its my saving grace that I keep telling myself that muscle weighs more than fat does and I would hope I've at least toned a bit.At the two week point my results are better in a less tangible way, and even if I haven't dropped any kilos just yet it hasn't made me want to give up. I feel too good to quit and I don't want to; its a game, a challenge, and at the end of it Rome wasn't built in a day. No one drops 20kg by trying to be healthy for two weeks and giving up. So I'm going to keep at it and continue to record what I'm finding.
I'll keep you posted!
Sam xox
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