We asked our clients to set some fitness goals for 2017. We are following up with them over the next few weeks. This week we connect with Stephanie and Jax to talk about how they focused on healthy and clean eating. Thank you for sharing your experience!

We asked:

1) Tell us about your healthy eating goal? What steps have you taken so far to help you to achieve your goal?

2) How do you feel so far? What are you experiencing as a result of you diet changes?

3) How do you power through those weak times where all you really want is a bowl of ice cream covered in brownies with a side of donuts? How do you stay motivated?

Stephanie:

1) My goal to eating healthy is to cook 2-3 times a week. Using whole grains and excluding white starches and flour. Some steps I have taken to help me achieve this is to plan out my meals a week in advance. For me it is hard to decide what to cook. So I had to throw myself into it and make my own recipe at first. As I began to experiment I could think about what types of healthy recipes I would like to try next week and so on.

2) By doing this for the last month, I feel like I have more energy throughout the day. I feel like my waistline is slimming down and I just feel better! Cutting sugar out is a big help in this department.  

3) Sometimes, it's just plain hard to eat healthy all the time. When I really want a cookie or a bowl of ice cream, I will usually eat an orange or berries! I also make protein balls made out of honey, oats, flax seed, protein powder and peanut butter. It helps cure the sweet tooth and fills you up! Keeping consistent with working out is a huge motivator for me. The people I work out with at AX Fitness and Christine the trainer are my friends and they help me stay accountable!

Jax:

1) I have cut sugary treats and as much processed foods as possible from my diet. The first step was to clear out all those kind of foods from our existing food supplies. Then to make sure we don't get bored, lazy and back to bad habits, we make a concentrated effort to plan out meals for the week. Lunches are pretty easy, I usually make up some bean-based soup (I am vegetarian) that freezes well and pair that with some veggies and fruits and that keeps me out of the Maple Grove fast food utopia during the work week. Plus when I'm sick of it at the end of the week, the extra leftovers make for good meals when I've forgotten all about it. For dinners, I plan out a couple of dishes where elements can be made ahead of time. This week we're enjoying some bean/temp-eh mix that can be utilized for tacos, rice bowls, or scrambled with some eggs.

2) I certainly am sleeping better and don't wake up in the middle of the night! While I haven't lost any weight so far, it seems that stuff has moved around a bit if that makes any sense. At the grocery store, my cart is probably 3/4 perishable foods which is fun to see! 

3) Yeah, about that :) The first hiccup was when we both came down with rotten colds and didn't have the energy to go shopping much less stand around and cook a good meal. Needless to say, pizza was ordered. Luckily I had some of that frozen soup I love talking about so much so that helped. I cannot say enough about meal planning thinking about stuff like "what snacks do I want to have at work?" When you're bored/frustrated it is way too easy to trot on down to the vending machine. Make sure you keep a variety going in your diet! If you only know how to make one thing, you're going to get sick of it. Buy a new cookbook and start flagging things that look good. Then whenever you sit down to plan out your next few days, you'll have some ideas already and can go from there.