Getting Healthier in a Month

No, I'm not having a body image crisis. No, I don't think I'm fat. No, I have not developed an eating disorder.

However, following my super-duper intense 14er training this summer and successfully summiting seven 14ers, my level of fitness has indeed slipped. When one is consuming the same amount of food as when training, but no longer training, things happen.

I wasn't concerned until the jeans started feeling a bit tight despite exercising most days of the week. Time to get back into some healthier routines! This is good since my group of girl friends is going to be the Spice Girls for Halloween and I got recruited for Sporty Spice. While I have no desire to emulate the mid-1990's version of anorexic-sportyness, there is room for improvement and a whole month to get there!

I googled losing five pounds in a month (figuring that goal relies more on healthy lifestyle and less on crash dieting/cleanses/maple syrup concoctions/strange teas/weird supplements/"Follow This One Weird Tip!"/snake oil/etc.) and found a pretty good article with some simple tips. For me, seeing the math behind calories is a huge motivator for self-control. I love numbers! Each of these ideas is pretty straightforward and very do-able in everyday life since sadly, there is no magic solution.

1. Ditch alcohol: I'm not a huge drinker, but let's figure in a week, I typically consume 2 light beers (~100 calories each), 2 real beers (~150 calories each), 1 glass of wine (~100 calories), and 1 double mixed drink (~400 calories. If it's an 8 oz margarita, ~560 calories. Ouch!). Right there, I'm consuming between 1000-1160 calories in alcoholic beverages a week. Math time! Four weeks of skipping alcohol will save me 4000-4640 calories. 
2. Skip junk: I don't eat a lot of junk food, but I have lots of room to make healthier choices. Time for some serious discipline! Part of this for me will be skipping pop as well. I drink 2-3 servings of pop a week, but that still adds up to 300-450 calories. In a month, that's 1200-1800 calories. 
3. Eat more fiber, drink more water: Fiber is magical. It acts as a gut filler to help prevent hunger and also helps move things along. Drinking water also helps with both! Plus, we often eat when we're actually thirsty, so drinking lots of water will help out with that too. One healthy lifestyle challenge I did a while back set a goal of drinking 3 liters a day. That's a lot of water, but also a great goal to shoot for. For fiber, I'll be upping my whole grains, fruits and veggies.

So we'll see how this goes. Goal: Sporty Spice! I also need to find a wig and a temporary armband tattoo in the next month.