T.A.L.K.: BECOMING HEALTHIER: MY STORY PART 2

AH. This has been very difficult. A little over whelming. I want to eat healthier. I've found that the hardest part of actually eating healthier is knowing what product to buy and where to buy it. When I looked online, I found all the criteria for my new healthy food, but heaven forbid anyone give me any examples of these actual foods!

It all started a while ago as you all know, but it more recently started when I realized I was no longer losing weight, I was maintaining my weight, regardless of all the working out and running I've been doing.

When I decided I was going to lose weight, I honestly had no idea what I was doing! Thankfully for me I have a sister, Lindsay, who is studying this stuff in school and working at her schools health and wellness center. Before I talked to Lindsay my plan was to cut out sugar. But not just cut out the treats but ALL sugar, in breads, pastas, everything you find sugar in. (Which your about to find out isn't the best thing to do.) Lindsay started to tell me, all things in moderation. Its okay to have sugar, whats not okay is if you eat too much sugar. She then told me I was one of those people who eats too much sugar! Anyways she gave me a plan, which I am very excited to tell you about now!

There is an app called My Fitness Pal. I have now been using it for 6 days and I LOVE IT! It counts your calories. If you want to loose weight, the thing you need to know is how many calories you are eating, in addition to exercise. It is a pretty tedious thing when you start, because you do have to type or scan in everything you eat. BUT it saves it for you! So once you've scanned it in once, you don't have to do it again! (I've been eating a lot of the same things for these last 6 days ;))

Back to the no sugar thing, when I originally decided that I wasn't going to eat sugar, I was going to start the Monday after Easter. (That way I could eat all my Easter candy!) This is still the plan, with a few moderations. I am only not going to eat treats/desserts/candy and substitute it for, nuts/fruits/veggies, and other things that are better for my body and I am going to do it for 1 month. I invite ALL of you to do it with me if you would like!!

As I have been trying to eat healthier I have been wanting to find the healthiest foods to eat. More specifically the healthiest breads and pasta's and other grains. When I google searched it, everything I found was, you want to find breads with these ingredients and that say this or have this symbol on it or whatever! I did read all of that information, but I don't want to go to the grocery store and look at every bread item just to find the perfect bread. So I then went in search for the best bread/pasta and this is what I found.

In my NON-EXPERT opinion...

Look for these words in the title of your bread- 100% WHOLE GRAIN or 100% WHOLE WHEAT

There are other things you can take into account, IE calories per slice, fiber per slice, sugar per slice, which are all good things, but if you don't want to look through all the bread at the grocery store, stick with the 100% whole grain or 100% whole wheat.

Now for my NON-EXPERT opinion on pasta's...

I actually found one brand that looks promising!

RONZONI- find their website HERE.
With pasta's you are also looking for the same key words, 100% whole grain!

After all this research, I was so excited to share my new found knowledge with my husband! He listened to everything I said and how long it took me and said, "Why don't you just go to the health food store?" What a smart idea! Which really is a terrific idea, and is what I am going to do, but I am very grateful for all the research that I did, because now I know what I need to look for! Some good health food stores near me are Whole Foods, and Trader Joes. Click on the links to find a store near you!

I am so excited to become healthier! I am thankful for the resources I have to actually do it! Please join with me in becoming healthier! Get the My Fitness Pal App and add me as your friend, ashleypeterson07@gmail.com! It is so much easier to do it when your doing it with someone else!