It’s Ok To Change

September 1, 2014 / ktbuchs87

I would say that one of my mantras is that each person has a different definition of healthy. What you deem to be healthy for you and your body might not be what I deem healthy for me and my body. That’s what makes health so great and unique. It’s not just a cookie cutter diet or lifestyle where everyone eats or does the same thing. That would be boring! For some reason though, the idea that one persons healthy might not be anothers causes a lot of problems among the health world. There are some people who believe that the way they choose to live is the ONLY way to be healthy and everyone else is doing it wrong. This of course sparks sometimes vicious debates and causes some disrespect between people with different lifestyles when there is really no need. It’s ok to be different and have different goals and want different things health wise. It’s also ok for those goals and ideas to evolve and change over time, which is something I struggled with a bit.

I have always believed that it is ok to have a different idea of health from other people, but I haven’t always been as receptive to having my own personal ideals change or evolve. I thought that I had to do the exact same thing and eat the exact same way as I had when I first made the decision to be healthier. Why would I change? This is what had worked for me in the beginning, and if it ain’t broke don’t fix it right? Well, yes and no. To a certain extent you need to keep things the same. It isn’t good or healthy to constantly be changing things week to week or day to day. Your body needs a certain amount of time to adjust to things before you start to see results. That’s one of the problems people have today. If they don’t see immediate results from an exercise routine or a diet change, then obviously it isn’t working and they have to do something different. No, you just need to give yourself a fair amount of time to see the change. But on the other hand, what has worked for you in the past might not always work for you in the future.

Your body is a magnificent machine. I don’t mean that we’re all robots, but that there are so many complex processes and functions that your body has to go through to do certain tasks, that it really is an amazing machine. From the tiniest thing, like blinking, to the largest thing, like digesting a whole meal, your body is a wonderful system, and it likes to be efficient. Your body wants to accomplish its tasks with the least amount of energy spent, it’s kind of lazy that way. So in terms of exercise, beginners will experience a higher amount of energy expenditure running a mile than a seasoned marathoner. As you run more and more, your body will adapt and become more efficient. This isn’t a bad thing, becoming more efficient is what makes running, or whatever exercise you’re doing, seem easier. But that also means that you will need to find new ways to challenge your body. Crosstraining (doing different types of exercise different days) is one way to do this, as is HIIT or high intensity interval training.

This idea also goes for food. If you have been consuming a certain amount of calories for years and suddenly cut that number down, you are going to experience weight loss. Your body essentially will be shocked by this sudden change, but not for long. It will start to adapt to that new calorie intake and adjust accordingly. Again, this isn’t a bad thing. It’s good that your body responds to things like dietary intake, but you need to be aware of this and be able to change with it. Meaning, what has worked in the past might not always work in the future. Varying your diet and the way you eat is a good practice anyway. You want to make sure you consume a variety of foods to make sure that you are getting all the vitamins, minerals, and nutrients that you need to function. That’s another reason that I support a whole foods diet rather than fad diets. You can’t go wrong with real foods like fruits, vegetables, and whole grains in their simplest forms.

When I first realized I would have to adapt and change with my body as it got more efficient, I resisted. I tend to not like change and love a routine. It helps me feel organized and in control. I also worried that people would think I was being wishy-washy with my health. I thought they would think I was just jumping on another health band wagon and going with the flow. But being resistant to change wasn’t doing any favors for my health and worrying about what others think never does any good. If I wanted to keep with the progress I was making, I would have to change. Not huge major changes, but little tweaks and adjustments as I went along. Once I stopped fighting it, I realized having those little adjustments made things more fun. I could start to experiment with different recipes and branch out and see what I could come up with. I could challenge my body and see how strong it was and try new exercises. And I surprised myself, I could do more than I thought I was capable of. Seeing how far along I was helped spur me along even more.

Don’t be too resistant to change. When you start to see a stall in your health or you’re feeling stuck in a rut, don’t be afraid to try something new. Don’t worry about what others might think. They aren’t you and they don’t know what your body needs. Be confident in your decisions and do what you need to do to be the healthiest you!

Unhealthy Is Hard

August 25, 2014 / ktbuchs87

About a month ago, I wrote about how it was hard to be healthy. It takes a lot of willpower, motivation, and just plain old work sometimes to be healthier. This post is about the being unhealthy and how it can be just as hard to be unhealthy as it is to be healthy. Stick with me on this one, I promise it will be alright in the end!

The first thought that might cross your mind when you read that unhealthy is hard is, “Yeah, right”. When you glance at the surface of being unhealthy, it looks pretty easy. You eat whatever you want without caring about the effect it will have on your body. You don’t exercise and spend your free time sitting on the couch or computer. You don’t have to sit there and plan our meals and do prep work so you can eat well the whole week. In fact, it seems really nice and carefree to be unhealthy. But like I said, that is just the surface. When you really look at an unhealthy life, you see the challenges and the struggles.

For me, one of the hardest things about being unhealthy was my confidence and self image. I had zero confidence and my self image was fairly low. My goal in life was to blend in and in a large crowd, I was good at that. Sure, with my friends and family I was outgoing and personable, but put me in a room with a bunch of people I don’t know and I tend to blend right into the woodwork. I knew that I was overweight and didn’t look good and wasn’t eating healthy. Because of that, I also thought that everyone else thought the exact same thing about me. I figured that they took one look at me and knew how unhealthy I was and judged me as a lazy person. I realize now that probably wasn’t true, but at the time that is how I felt. Due to my natural inclination to fade into the background of most situations, it was really hard for me to finally break out of my shell and take steps to be healthier. Working out in front of other people terrified me because of course they were all watching me sweat and struggle. Making healthier food choices was worrisome because they might take notice that I was eating better and then start talking to me about it and I would have no idea what to say. These may sound like silly struggles to you, but for some of us this is really difficult. It seems easier to just stay in our shell and live with being unhealthy than try to take on the monumental task of taking steps to be healthier.

Which leads to another challenge of being unhealthy, the whole aspect of, well, being unhealthy. It is hard to deal with all the consequences of unhealthy choices. There are the medical consequences, things like diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, and a myriad of other ailments. There are the physical consequences, such as not fitting into clothes, aching joints, and weak muscles. There are the mental consequences, being made fun of or put down because of your weight, not feeling or looking like you want to, and being judged by others around you. Those are a lot of struggles for one person to take on and some people have been doing it for years. That is a lot of stress.

Why don’t they just change? If you’re unhealthy, just do something about it. Sure, it might be hard to live with all of those challenges, but it’s within their power to turn their lives around. To a degree, yes. Many of us do have the capacity to “fix” all these problems ourselves and start being healthier. But it takes a lot to get to that point. No amount of other people telling you to get healthy can actually make you get healthy until you reach the point where YOU yourself want to get healthy. The other side is that sometimes when you’re on the outside looking in, you can be made to feel like you don’t belong. How many times have you seen someone who is clearly struggling at the gym? You’re running along at your solid pace and the person next to you is sweating to maintain a brisk walk. You’re flying through your reps while the guy on the next machine can barely do one. I’m not saying that healthy people shouldn’t work out in public, but they need to remember that they started at the bottom too. Don’t forget what it was like your first time working out and show a little compassion to others who are just starting.

The same goes for eating. You didn’t just instantly start eating kale salads with homemade dressing one day, you built yourself up to that point. Slowly making changes and evolving the way you eat. Don’t judge the person eating a huge cheeseburger with the tiny side salad. That might be the first time they decided to get a salad instead of fries and that is a big deal to them.

Life is hard, whether you live it in a healthy or unhealthy way. There are challenges that each lifestyle has to face and neither one should feel diminished because of those challenges. It takes courage to stand up and decide to change your habits and start being healthier. It takes strength and motivation to keep going on a better path when there are temptations all along the way. I want you to realize that each choice you make, good or bad, is unique in it’s own way. It will present it’s own set of struggles, but you can meet those struggles head on. If you are still on the unhealthy side of the tracks, believe in your potential and don’t be afraid to take that first step. For those of you on the other side of the tracks, you’ve come so far and you can keep going. It may be tough, but you are tougher.

Staying Power

August 18, 2014 / ktbuchs87

There are many steps when it comes to leading a healthier lifestyle. First, you have to actually want to make that choice. No matter how many people tell you that you need to change, if you are not willing to change then nothing will happen. Then you have to figure out how you want to change, what you are going to do, and then actually put it into practice. Along the way there will be a million other little steps and choices that will make up your healthy journey. At many points during this process, it is very likely that you will be met with challenges and possibly even failure. I’ve talked about failure before and it doesn’t have to be your undoing. I’ve also talked about the desire as well as the motivation to change. Today, I want to talk about maintaining your choices for the long haul. What happens once you have done everything else and want to keep living healthy for the long haul?

It’s very common, and helpful, to have goals when you decide to start being healthy. Whether that is to exercise more, eat better, lose weight, or even just relax more, it is good to have something to work towards. Not many people plan for what they’re going to do once they reach that goal. For the longest time, I just wanted to lose weight. That was my ultimate goal. Some days I had a set amount that I wanted to lose, other times I just wanted to lose something. I never really thought about what would happen once I reached that goal, in part because I never seemed to reach that goal. I would lose a little, then gain it back. Start eating better, then quickly fall off the wagon. Get on an exercise schedule for a few weeks, then start making excuses to skip. The whole see saw of good and bad that a lot of people go through when they decide to be healthier. After years of the teeter-tottering back and forth, I finally got my act together and made the commitment, not to just lose weight, but to be healthier and feel good. After a good amount of dedication (and my fair share of sweat and tears), I reached that goal. I felt awesome and proud and… what do I do now?

I had focused for so long on the end prize that I never really thought about what to do after that. I knew that I couldn’t just go back to what I did before, a mistake that many people make. They think that once they get what they want they can just go back to living their “regular” lives. The problem with that logic is that often, their “regular” lives are what got them to unhealthy place that they were. Knowing that I couldn’t go back, I slowly began to realize that my lifestyle was forever, and that scared me. I began to panic and worry that I couldn’t keep this up for the rest of my life. Could I really keep myself healthy for the next month let alone the next 50 years? When you are working towards small goals, it doesn’t seem as daunting. That’s why it’s good to make small and manageable goals. You won’t feel overwhelmed by having to completely overhaul the way you eat if you just work to change a few meals a day. It doesn’t seem as scary to just lose 5 pounds in two weeks compared to losing 100 pounds total. But now that I had reached my goal, I had the seemingly big and scary goal of maintaining this for the rest of my life.

Maybe you have reached that point in your journey. You have managed all the little goals that have added up to your ultimate goal and you’re now faced with the unknown. What do you do now? Take a deep breath and don’t worry. Once I got over my initial panic, I started to think of how I could handle this new challenge. I thought of all that I had accomplished, and realized it was a lot. I could handle a lot of things, challenging things, and come out on top. I had just proven that to myself. I didn’t get healthier overnight, in fact it took a few years to get to a good place. If I could do that, surely I could handle the rest of my life. Building on that confidence, I also realized that I could still set small goals to work towards and not look at this new part of my journey as a huge chunk aka the rest of my life. I could still break it down into small and manageable pieces. My new goals would just look different than my other goals. Try new healthy meals, train for a longer race, buy one new workout DVD a month, there were still plenty of things to work for.

The truth is, if you want to be healthier and feel good, you’re going to have to be in it for the long haul. You can’t just decide to be healthy for a month and then expect to reap the benefits forever, that’s ridiculous. But you don’t have to be intimidated by forever. Continue to set goals for yourself. While the goal might not be to lose weight or start making healthier choices, there are still things for you to accomplish. Be empowered by the fact that you have reached a major goal and use that feeling to keep going. Journeys aren’t short things. They’re long and they’re lasting. Your health is a journey, one that I know you can excel and thrive at. Meet your challenges head on like you have from the beginning and you will do just fine.

Are You Projecting?

August 11, 2014 / ktbuchs87

My husband, Adam, and I went to Indianapolis this weekend to watch the DCI world championships. We’re both big band nerds and watching drum and bugle corps perform is something that we both love to do. We had about a five to six hour trip back home and long road trips are always a great time to talk about any and everything. One of the topics that came up was health, go figure. I tend to eat very differently from the way that most people eat. It can make it a bit tricky to go out with a big group of people, especially for someone like me who doesn’t like a spotlight shone on me.

I tried to explain to Adam why I get a little stressed out when I have to deal with a group outing that involves food. I don’t like to be an inconvenience to others and I always feel like the way I eat is a major inconvenience to the general public. Whenever someone asks, “Where should we eat?” I inwardly cringe. I know that the real question behind that is, “Where can Katie eat?”. As I got to think about this a little more though, is that really the question or is that just how I am perceiving others to feel? Am I projecting my own feelings onto them? The short answer, probably.

Do you find yourself doing this? You feel that how you choose to eat or workout or live your life is a little bit outside the general norm and that in turn puts the people you come into contact with off. It tends to bother me when people demand things be a certain way just to make their life easier. I totally understand that in some cases, people need to demand the way they eat for the sake of their health. Those who have Celiac’s disease HAVE to avoid gluten in every way possible or else there can be major medical complications. They deserve to have their food prepared in a way that is safe to them. Other people though have abused things like Celiac’s or lactose intolerance or other eating issues just as a way to lose a few pounds or because it is the fad of the moment. I am not here to debate whether this is right or not, I just know that I don’t want to contribute to the difficulties some face by having to eat a certain way for medical reasons. Because of my desire to avoid that issue, I realized that I am projecting my own feelings onto those around me without ever really knowing if that is how they truly feel.

When I think about it more, I am pretty positive that most people do not care that I eat differently. They probably do not feel overly burdened with trying to accommodate me. When they ask me what can or will I eat, they genuinely care about my answer and don’t think that I am being demanding or a spoiled brat. That is all in my head. As I told this to Adam on our ride home, his response was to just relax. Try not to worry so much about what other people are thinking. Because I am not a person who demands that things need to be a certain way or else I won’t participate, most people are happy and willing to help me out. I would imagine if you feel this way too, you might be overthinking the situation exactly like I did. Making the choice to be healthier and to eat in the way that makes you feel good and allows you to be happy is something that I fully support. Much to your surprise, your friends and family will feel that way too. As long as you aren’t throwing a temper tantrum if something isn’t exactly the way you need it or demanding that they do it your way or the highway, the people around you will be more than happy to work with you. And if you want some tips on how to help them accommodate you, check out this post.

Don’t project your own feelings and insecurities onto others, because like in my case, you’re probably wrong. Try to relax, enjoy time with your loved ones, and don’t worry about what people think. You will have a much better time, I promise!

Scenes From A Chicago Summer

August 8, 2014 / ktbuchs87

Even though I have lived in Chicago for about three months now, I still can’t believe it sometimes. Don’t get me wrong, I love this city, but if you had told me that one day I would live here, I would have laughed. If you had told me that I would absolutely love it, I would have thought you were crazy. But it’s true, I live in this beautiful city and I totally love every minute of it! I thought that today I would share the pictures I have taken these past few months. Some of them are from my runs along Lake Shore Drive, some of them are from my walks all over town, and some of them are from places Adam and I have gone this summer. These have been the scenes of my Chicago summer. Enjoy!

Lake Shore Runs

I am so incredibly blessed to be able to end all my runs right at the lake. Most days I get a beautiful sunrise, or waves crashing up onto the steps. It’s a really neat way to end my run and start my day.

Walks all over town

Everyday I try to get out for a walk. I have literally walked all over the place, seeing the sites, getting to know all the streets and shops, and seeing the things that this city has to offer.

View of downtown from Belmont Harbor

I literally live down the street from Wrigley. It is AWESOME. GO CUBBIES!

Random guy playing the marimba right across from Millenium Park. He was pretty good too!

Excuse my finger, but a pretty nice shot of the skyline other wise

Had to race a summer storm home on one of my walks

Super foggy day on the lake. It was eerie and cool

Things to do, people to see

There are literally thousands of things to do on any given day in Chicago. Adam and I have tried a few things out and love what this city has to offer!

Windy City Rib Fest. He was a happy boy

The aftermath of a 1/2 rack of ribs. He says it was worth it

Listening to a band at a street festival

More food. Enjoying an italian beef at Portillos. The boy loves his food

Kind of hard to see but that couple down by the lake just got engaged! I was a total creeper and clapped after the dude proposed. Sorry I’m not sorry!

Seriously, this summer has been amazing and I am beyond blessed to be able to live in Chicago. I can’t wait to see what else this town has in store for me!