Home Blog Page 4

Am I Supposed to Be Fat?

Heather Morneau
-
0
Am I Supposed to Be Fat?

I really don’t know if any of you have had this thought or if it is just me.  I would take a guess and say that at one time or another each and every one of us that would like our bodies to look different than they do have asked themselves;

“is this what I am meant to look like for the rest of my life?”

I don’t want to get all down and whoa is me, but, after all the years that I have been chasing that elusive perfect weight and/or size, it occurred to me that maybe this is just who I am,  overweight and disappointed at what my body looks like in the mirror.

Sure, if I go onto Instagram, I will see endless pictures of slim girls desperately trying to empathize with us larger girls by sitting in such a way that their skin folds just enough to say, ‘see, I look like that too’.  Then I will see the posts that will tell me to stop comparing myself to other people blah blah blah. Yes, I know all of that. I have been overweight for a long time. I know all of that stuff and frankly today it feels like crap!

Ok, ok, it is just one of those days.  We all have them, but then I think, maybe this is truly the way I am meant to be.  If we are all made differently, made to be who we are, made to be unique, maybe I do need to embrace what I look like instead of what I thought I was supposed to look like.

But if that is true, then what now?  What do I do now? Just resign me to being a fatty, order up another pizza, hit the drive-thru, dig into a tub of ice cream?

The answer I know in my heart of hearts is NO.  

Just because I am not the size I wish I was, doesn’t mean that I choose to give in and give up.  It may just mean that I will carry more weight than some other girls do.

Although I am not a size 6, my goal size btw, I know a lot of size 6 people that are totally out of shape.  Their body on the outside just doesn’t show it. I also know that I like the way I feel when I am going to the gym on a regular basis and I don’t like the way I feel when I have a few days off in a row.  That is when I truly feel fat and sloth-like.

Another thing that I am certain of is that I am healthy on the inside.  I may eat too much, I may indulge more than I should if I want to be smaller, but most of the time I eat in a very healthy way.  We eat most of our meals in. We eat very few processed foods. We take our time and eat that the table, believe me, this also matters.

We have taken high-quality vitamins for years because we are aware that most of the food we eat no longer contain the nutrition it once did.  We do our best to get good quality sleep. We drink water on a regular basis. So now that I say all of that out loud, why am I not smaller?

Actually, I truly have no idea.  That is why there is a multimillion dollar industry totally dedicated to the weight loss industry.  It is an industry. You know those things we used to think belonged in huge factories, well the factory is now online and it makes those brick and mortar buildings look tiny.

We, in the west, are obsessed with what our bodies should and should not look like but at some time we simply need to understand that the world is made up of different size people.  The thing we should be obsessing about is becoming more healthy. Your size is irrelevant if you eat well, get off of the couch and move, and surround yourself with loving supportive people.

Admitting who we really are and also who we are meant to be is a quest most of us spend our whole lives on and maybe the real answer is not who we are supposed to be but who we are right now and are we living our best life.

I know that I will spend the rest of my life striving to be the person God made.  I will continue to grow and change. That is the way it is supposed to be. I may never reach the goal size in my mind, but then again, I may actually realize that I am already perfect in God’s eyes and I will be ok with that.  

 

So I will continue to eat well, get exercise, rest, and surround myself with people who love me.

 

Your turn to do the same.

 

Ps: if you need a head start on finding people who love you, I am right here, just let me know.

 

There's a lot more to life than how fat or thin you are. Kirstie Alley

 

Man, Am I Sore

Heather Morneau
-
0
Man, Am I Sore

We seem to think that we are the only ones in the world that feel the way we feel.  Well, I am here to tell you that it is not true. In fact with so many people on this planet, I would feel pretty confident to say that there are at least 100 other people feeling the way you feel right now.  Actually, I am quite sure that it is more like thousands, but let’s leave it at 100 because you really are that unique after all.

How is it that after going to the gym fairly consistently I am still sore fairly regularly?  

Actually, the answer is pretty simple, I continue to push myself, that’s why.

Today I am sore.  Actually, I am sore most days.  My joints ache. My muscles hurt when I move and again when I don’t move.  I groan when I get up and again when I sit down. But, I know that I am not alone, and I am ok with that.  I remember showing up to the gym a while back and I was really sore from a workout a few days earlier. One of the other people in our class came to me and asked if my butt was sore.  I looked at her and almost yelled at her “ yes, I thought it was just me!” she thought it was just her. We laughed and proceeded to ask the others that were there if they were sore too.  Yup, everyone who had taken that last class was sore.

I actually felt some kind of relief.  I am close to the oldest person at our gym and I tend to use that as a reason for most of my discomfort.  It is usually the truth, but if I am pushing myself hard then it is true that the others are too. We may not do the same number of reps or use the same weight, but the effort is probably just as intense.

When Doug and I first started going to the gym there was a part of us that just assumed that eventually, we wouldn’t hurt quite so much after a while.  That is what I call naive. As long as we are pushing, we will be improving and therefore we will never stop striving for better.

I think that is a common misconception.  Once we achieve our goal, we can stop doing whatever it was that we did to get there.  The problem is that if we stop, we stop. When we are on a weight loss journey, we need to remember that if we stop eating healthy, we won’t be that healthy anymore.  If we stop working out, our muscles will stop performing as if they get to work out. The lie we have told ourselves is that when this…then that.

The truth is that once you start on a journey toward better health through diet and or exercise, you will never be the same again and won’t ever be able to go back to your old behavior.  If you stop the healthy behavior, your body will begin to go back to where it was before.

This is probably one of the hardest truths to deal with and accept.  But it is one of the most important things to understand and accept. The journey to better health actually never has a destination. It is a journey that never ends.

I am actually ok with that. Just like any other journey, there will be detours, flat tires, snacks, missed flights, lost luggage, amazing surprises, lots of laughs, some tears, and so many unexpected events.  The end of this journey is when you are on the wrong side of the grass.

In the meantime, I would rather;

  • ache,
  • hurt,
  • wince,
  • use Epsom salts,
  • stretch,
  • hobble

than

  • hurt from inactivity,
  • become sedentary,
  • wonder what if, or
  • just watch life happen to other people, not me.

So, yes, I am sore.  But it is a good sore.  It is a sore from living life rather than from watching life.  Step out of your comfort zone, find something new to do or place to go, food to eat, friend to make.  You never know where your next adventure will take you but it will be just that, an adventure.

 

Exercise to stimulate, not to annihilate. The world wasn't formed in a day, and neither were we. Set small goals and build upon them. – Lee Haney

 

Simple Food Truths

Heather Morneau
-
0
Simple Food Truths

There are a lot of people out there telling you and me just what to do.  ‘They’ are telling us what to wear and what not to wear. What activities we NEED to do and what to avoid.  What foods are essential and what ones will kill us tomorrow. But, with so many people offering advice, where do we find the truth?

Would we know what the truth is even if we actually found it?

Probably not.  Sorry. We live in a time where the truth is no longer black or white, on or off, right or wrong.  Yup, that sounds weird, but it is now an unfortunate truth. With so many people on our planet, there will always be an exception to the rule and so now people are no longer giving an absolute truth.

Let me clarify this.  We know that we should all eat protein.  But some people don’t, won’t, or can’t eat meat.  We know we should eat veggies and fruits, but there are allergies everywhere and some people won’t eat certain veggies and some people don’t think you should eat fruit.

Some people make dietary choices but make you believe that their choice is a health issue when it is their choice.  Some people have cost as a real factor. How in all of that mess are you supposed to know what to eat?

If you have never paid any attention to food, how much, when, what types you should eat, this is an amazingly tough time right now.  The internet should offer solutions, but you don’t have to look too far to find contradictory info.

Unfortunately, most of us have not been raised with common sense with food and schools didn’t teach us proper nutrition and our parents didn’t, for the most part, know what they should be passing on.  And, with current research, we know so much more than ever before what we should and shouldn’t eat.

This problem is actually larger than we realize.  The people in the health and fitness industry seem to fall into one of two camps;  either they have always been health aware or they were fat and now are sharing their stories and knowledge.  So, even here, we have people who have never been unaware of how bad eating really is a problem and the other side totally gets it and can be sold on their solution only.

This sounds really bad.  It probably isn’t making you feel any better.  Sorry!

But, let’s face it there is always a but, it really doesn’t have to be all doom and gloom.

There are some simple things that we can all do to help with getting the right balance of nutrition and the right amount of food in our routine.

  1. Learn to eat the way our grandparents ate.  Food that needs a little prep. Less processed.  
  2. Spend a little more time actually eating, not stuffing food into your open face.  Eating should take some time. 20 min is ideal. Slow and steady is best.
  3. Make sure you have a variety of color on your plate.  The easiest way to get that is an assortment of fruit and veggies.  Fresh, frozen, raw, cooked, who cares as long as it is eaten.
  4. Carbs are not the devil, just make them complex and not most of your plate.
  5. Each and every meal, including snacks, must have protein.  MUST!
  6. Healthy fats make you smart.  Your brain requires them to function. Not the deep-fried kind of fat either.
  7. Drink your water.  Not juice. Not pop or soda.  Get over it and get used to it.
  8. When you are starting out, record your food.  Good or bad, you become more aware of good and bad when you record it.
  9. Get used to the idea that this will take a little work, in the beginning, especially.  All good things take a little work. It will be worth it.
  10. Find a resource to go to for answers to your food questions.  This one is easy, it is us, Q4fit.com. Ask us the questions and we will do our very best to get the honest answers to you.  If you are asking, so is someone else.

Unfortunately, we are not a society that knows how to feed ourselves to live a healthy life.  If we did know, we wouldn’t be so out of shape and we wouldn’t be so overweight. Learn how to feed yourself to make yourself the healthiest you possible.  

It is not about being skinny, it is all about being healthy.

 

I still indulge in a glass of wine or chocolate – treats are mandatory. Without deviating from the day-to-day healthy diet once in a while, it wouldn't be sustainable for me, and that's what I wanted: an approach to eating to last my entire life. – Alanis Morissette

Why Are We Unaware of Ourselves?

Heather Morneau
-
0
Why Are We Unaware of Ourselves?

Why do we fail to see in ourselves the things that others see in us?  

You know what I am talking about.  Superficially, we see people heading to work and you look at them and ask yourself, ”do they even own a mirror?”  People sit in their cars and do all sorts of things that you do only in private, like things with their noses. People wear some of the oddest combinations of clothes.

But on a deeper level, why is it that when someone pays you a compliment out of the blue, we are so surprised?  Why are we ashamed when somebody calls us out on something we said or did that hurt someone else’s feelings?

Why are we so unaware of our own selves?

Let me make this abundantly clear, I have no idea!  I am not an expert in this field, I am simply asking a question.

Over the years, I have attended many networking events.  I go to both to further my knowledge path and to meet and talk with other people in the hopes to expand my horizons.  One of the things that people do is ask you about your business. Perfect, I can do that. I love to talk about the stuff that I learn while I find things to write to you about.  What is weird for me is when you find somebody else talking about me in front of me. So, it's not a secret. It's not gossip. It is somebody else’s opinion of me and my business.  That should be cool. Why am I so uncomfortable?

Part of the reason why, in my opinion, is that we have become an amazingly self-centered world.  Even if you are not naturally self-absorbed, we have become a society of talking about ourselves.  But, I find, that we rarely listen to what other people think about us. Hmmmm!

If we have differing opinions on social media, we block people.  If the opinions are really different, we simply refer to it as hate, rather than listen and learn, or even try to understand, we turn it off.  We rarely take the time to actually listen and learn about somebody else’s viewpoint even if the topic is YOU.

So in a world so self-absorbed with ourselves, how can we be so oblivious?

I believe that it is that we are not willing to truly be honest with ourselves.  Honesty leads to other people confronting us and most of us would rather do that online than in person, so we just do our best to blend in.

But, I think that means we are living a lie because we aren’t willing to hear what others say.  True, our opinion of ourselves is way more important than what others think about us, but we still need to be honest with ourselves and each other.

How, then, do we learn to be more aware of who and what we are?  Simple, ask people.

Let’s face it, most people are quite happy to be brutal online.  It may not be the truth, but they will definitely share their opinions with you.  The trick, I think, is to ask as many people as possible. But, you must be prepared to listen to the answers.  Keep asking. Ask easy questions, ask the hard questions. Ask things that seem obvious, and ask things that are subtle.  Just ask and then listen.

Listen with an open mind and an open heart.  You may be very surprised at what you find out.  You may hear a world of hurtful things, or you may blush from all the love, but if you are not willing to hear it in the first place, how will you know how you are impacting others?

The biggest favor we can do for ourselves is to be the best self we can be but if yourself is naturally aggressive, sarcastic, hurtful, and/or negative, then we are not being the best we can be, we are simply being annoying.

If you really want to improve your outward appearance, maybe you should start with your insides, aka your attitude.  Learn to love yourself and be loving toward others and you may find that your outward appearance, becomes as loveable as your inward self.

 

When people express opinions that differ from yours, take it as a chance to grow. Seek to understand over being understood. Be curious, not defensive. The only way to disarm another human being is by listening. – Glennon Doyle Melton

 

1...345...71Page 4 of 71

We offer a fun and fast way to unleash the athlete within you. Supporting health by all means necessary, with valuable information and dedicated programs.

© Q4FIT.COM 2023 | All rights reserved

Company

About us
Terms
Privacy
Careers
Contact

Quick access

Latest articles