Can you believe its already March?! The months are flying by, which means a very good thing – we’re that much closer to marvelous-ness!!
Hopefully February has helped you find time for an exercise regime, time you never knew you had. And hopefully you are starting to see & feel some positive results from adding/increasing exercise to your life. Hopefully your diet has improved with all the healthy protein sources you’ve added to it. It is timely to keep track of exactly how much protein you are consuming everyday. However, now that you know your best sources, including enough of these in your diet will assure you are getting enough. But now its on to March’s Marvelous challenge =a doozy. More laughter, which we can all benefit from, is not too scary of a challenge. However, less or no sugar, now that’s tough!! But I hope you all know I would never set you up to fail. You can all do this. Will it be easy? No. But you WILL reap the rewards and thank me later;)
Did you know March is considered to be the most depressing month of the year for Canadian’s? In a typical winter (not the non-existent one that occurred this year), March is that month that teases you by making you think spring has arrived. Temperatures rise to the highest we’ve seen in over 4 months, the sun finally appears and buds are even beginning to sprout on the trees. Just after you pull out all of your favorite spring tops and put away those salt stained, clunky winter boots, the biggest snowstorm of the year hits. All while ‘ol man winter just points his finger, laughs and yells “Gotcha!”. Yeah, it hurts. That is exactly why we can use a little more laughter in our lives this month. As for sugar, well it is always a good time to cut this poison out of our lives. However, thinking ahead, April is when we do our spring cleanse where we cut many things out of our diet. Sugar, or the lack thereof, will be one less thing to worry about as we will already be used to living without it.
Basic rules:
#1: Laugh everyday! I don’t mean a little bitty chuckle. I’m talking a belly-hurting, teary-eyed, weak-in-the-knees-type laugh. For many of you, this may already occur. Therefore, your challenge is to find ways to increase the laughter in you life. For the first few days of March, become aware of how much you laugh in a day. When these beautiful moments occur, jot it down quickly in your agenda or write a memo in your phone. Do you laugh once a day? Or do you go a whole week without a laugh such as this? Many of you may not be aware of how lacking in laughter you are. Throughout this month I will be exploring new ways to add laughter to my life and potentially yours. I will be attending my first Laughter Yoga class, head out to a live comedy show, download some stand up comics for my ipod to listen to in the car or on the TTC and spend time with some of the funniest, happiest people in my life.
#2: Cut sugar out of your diet radically or completely. Whenever asked for nutritional advice, no matter who I am talking to, I will always suggest cutting out refined sugar from their diet. I have not found any benefit to this over produced, nutrient-deficient substance other than its cheap for food producers to use. That’s it. I will not even claim that refined sugar tastes good because once you cut it out, you will realize it actually doesn’t. However, for some reason this white poison is found EVERYWHERE!! That is what makes this challenge so difficult. Many of you may not even be aware of how much sugar you consume in a day. If you eat out and/or consume processed food often, my guess would be you’re eating a lot! Therefore, your challenge this month is to cut out refined sugar completely, however you can substitute it for natural sources instead (honey, maple syrup, agave, stevia). Raw sugar cane is not the best alternative so I suggest using this in moderation (if at all). For those of you who, like me, have cleared your life of the ‘White Devil’ and made the switch to natural sugars long ago, don’t think you are off the hook. Although these sugars are metabolized differently and do not affect our blood sugar levels like refined sugar does, they are still in fact sources of sugar. Cutting these out would still be highly beneficial. As well, eliminating these of the diet also means getting rid of many unwanted calories. Being that I have a HUGE sweet tooth, I will provide some sugar free recipes to get you by as well as some tips to curb your cravings.
We made it 2 months so far! Although our motivation may have slipped at times, remember that wagon. Don’t wait to jump back on because it will leave without you! These wouldn’t be called challenges if they were easy. And if they were easy, this would all be so boring and the outcome would not be so rewarding. But what could be more rewarding than looking into a mirror and saying ‘I am MARVELOUS!”
No comments:
Post a Comment