Hello! I hope you are well!!
Going into my senior year of college at Muskingum University I was over weight, unhealthy, unsatisfied, and un-energetic. Why? Well working 50-70 hour weeks with a fast food ridden diet to much partying and not enough sleep will add 20 lbs around the middle. Just like many Americans I thought to myself “I am going to lose this weight.” When I started my senior year of college I weighed 215 lbs (august 2013) and I now weigh 170 lbs (July 2016). As you can see it took me almost 3 years to change my life for the better.
I started out doing yoga once a week, playing basketball and weightlifting. In August of 2013,I started to do yoga and by December I had overstepped my limits and overworked myself. I did too much and re-injured a hamstring strain I had sustained in baseball the year before. This caused me to have to take time off from exercising so I thought “what can I do now that I can’t exercise? I can change my diet!”
In February 2014, I started researching what foods would be healthier for me and I found out that chicken and fish were great meats for me. I should eat more fruits and vegetables because my diet did not contain many whole foods. The problem with all this was that I wasn’t actually working to become healthier. I was working to build a six pack, so that I would be more attractive. This was the wrong thought to think. I tried all kinds of different plans but none of them worked.
For the next 8 months I tried of running and weight lifting regimens to help build my body and help me lose weight. This was done to no avail. So I switched yet again, back to yoga but this time it was different.
October 2014, I decided I was going to try 2-3 20 minute yoga sessions of modified Sun Salutations to help me build my body.
I started doing more research on the connection of Mind, Body and food as well. I found out that we should each eat the colors of the rainbow to nourish our body. This is because the seven chakras correspond with the colors of the rainbow: Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. We should also take 10 deep breaths before eating to relax the parasympathetic nervous system which is the controlling factor of chemicals associated with the “fight or flight response”.
I noticed that my diet was best suited to eat:
(4 am) Breakfast : 3 glasses of water( 1 with apple cider vinegar), 1 banana 1 salad :spring mix, baby romaine, baby kale, baby spinach, grape tomatoes, pistachios, honey,
(7 am) 2nd breakfast: salad (same as breakfast)
(8:30am)Snack: 3 kiwi, cup of cherries, cup of grapes, oranges (if available),1 banana
(10:45 am)Snack: blackberries, blueberries, banana
(12:30-1:00 pm)Lunch: cooked on low in coconut oil: 1 onion, 1 summer squash, 1 zucchini, 1 tomato, 1 chicken breast (sliced thin)
(2-3 pm)Snack: 1 banana, cup of pistachios and kiwi
(5-7pm)Dinner : 1 onion, 1 red bell pepper, 1 yellow bell pepper, 1 green bell pepper,
(9pm) late snack: 2 handfuls of pistachios ( this way the body has a food source for the night and does not feed on your muscles, this is called catabolism)
After completing this journey to a better me I feel better than I have in almost 10 years.
Thank you for reading & have a great Day!!
Take care!!
God Bless!!
Dirk
Mindfulmessenger 