The Other Side of Healthy That Everyone Seems to Forget

Not many times in my life will I admit that something is more challenging than gaining the motivation to work out. This, however, is one of those times. This is even difficult for the avid workout-aholic. What is this death trap we all seem to forget when talking about fitness? Food! We all seem to be so focused on working out our bodies, that we forget to do the whole healthy feeding part of it as well. The problem is that being fit and healthy is not a 99% working out and a 1% food division. It's more like a 30% working out and 70% food division. We all seem to forget how important that other 70% of dedication to food when we aren't seeing great results from working out.

This is something that has taken me an extremely long time to comprehend. To this day, I still will eat pancakes for breakfast, a hamburger for lunch, and then pancakes again for lunch because I had leftovers every once in a while! It's a work in progress. It just seems so much easier to workout to make up for unhealthy eating, but it doesn't work like that.

(photo from here) 

You wouldn't believe the difference that healthy eating has made in people's lives. It's not just all about burning the calories. The purpose for working out is to keep your muscles toned. If you ate healthier, this would be the only thing you would worry about (plus, your extremely shy abs would show through without all of the fat covering them). I'm just saying it like I mean it, everyone. No sugar on top. You've got to feed your body correctly.

With that being said, there is nothing wrong with loving to work out every day. However, it you want to live a real healthy lifestyle and have tons of energy for your morning workouts plus ten hours after that, you've got to make some more focus on what you eat.

(photo from here) 

Believe me, I know this is an extremely difficult thing for many people to do. I was raised around a very active family, and my mother tried to fill me with the healthiest foods she could find, but I have always been a picky eater, and that side of my life hasn't stuck as easily as the other. I was blessed with a high metabolism as a kid, so that meant I was super skinny for most of my life. I can tell that my metabolism is not at it's peak anymore, and I know it will only continue to drop.

Because of this, I know I need to focus more on my eating. I have really enjoyed using the My Fitness app to track what I eat. It is a bit of an eye opener as to what goes into my body every day, and motivates me to eat healthier because I am physically writing down (or type up, I guess) what I have eaten.

(photo from here) 

I completely understand the difficulty of eating healthy on a regular basis. It's not as bad is it's made to seem. You can make some super easy foods that are extremely healthy, but also mouthwateringly (pretend that's a word) good. You just need to be willing to spend a little extra time figuring out what those meals are.

I hope I have convinced you to take a second look at your meals for the rest of the day. My intent was to spark a little something in you. Take the challenge to treat your body with some real food. Happy eating, my friends!

I have been posting all week about fitness and health on my blog! Check out my post yesterday by clicking here, and come back tomorrow for my Friday wrap up for the week. As always...

Stay classy,
Molly

Cover photo credit: here