Having balance in your life is an important thing. There’s work/personal life balance, school/social life balance, work/school balance, etc. But right now I’m talking about the healthy lifestyle balance. The hardest one (I think) to keep up.
Having a healthy life isn’t about 50/50 balance, even though I freaking wish it was. It’s more like 80/20. And not the way I would like it to be. 80% of the time I’m supposed to be eating healthy, working out, doing healthy life things. 20% of the time it’s okay to not workout, eat the food I really want to eat, and just lay around and binge watch Black Mirror or Grey’s Anatomy. But like lately in life, I’ve been doing it the other way around. Which is whatever. Except when I am on my healthy kick I feel soooo much better. But right now, I’m feeling pretty great as I binge watch Chicago Fire, eat ice cream, popcorn, and Twizzlers, and type this. I know I’ll be paying for it in the morning but ya win some, ya lose some, amirite?
When I DO want to do the right thing, there are a few rules I like to live by.
- 1tbsp of apple cider vinegar, lemon juice, and water as soon as I wake up. It helps fight bloat and helps me kick start my day the right way.
- I practice intermittent fasting. A lot of people (like Brittany Dawn and Whitney Simmons) suggest it. I love it. I try to do the 8 on 16 off method. In other words, I’ll only allow myself to eat during a block of 8 hours a day and the other 16 I don’t eat. It’s pretty easy for me and my lifestyle to do this right now because I don’t work until 4pm. So I won’t eat until around 12-1pm and then my last meal will either be at work or right after work before my workout.
- Make sure my meals at home are simple and healthy. Simple as in eggs, whole wheat toast, turkey bacon, protein pancakes, jasmine rice, beefless beef crumbles, etc. I hateeeeeeee cooking more than like almost anything. Almost. But I really hate it. So I have to keep things simple if I want them to be healthy. Otherwise, I’m about to make macaroni and eat the entire box.
- Prepare. Prepare. Prepare. Meal prep. It should be your bestie fo the restie if you’re trying to work on that 80/20 lifestyle. You can do it yourself by reading the millions on millions of articles on Pinterest about it, watching a Youtube video on it, or using a meal prep service.
- Make myself go to the gym. If you haven’t already, read my post about staying motivated and how to just make yourself get off yo ass and to the gym.
However, some days you just have to let all of that go and do you. Whenever I post a picture of my Phish Food and put #balance, I mean it. I did well today but when I got home from work all I wanted to do was snuggle my puppy and eat Phish Food. So I did. And I’m not going to feel TOO bad about it. Just a little. But I’ll wake up tomorrow, take it one healthy meal at a time, get to the gym after work, and then I won’t even care that I ate hella ice cream tonight.
How do you keep the balance in your life? Let me know in the comments below!
