Finding Good Balance

Trying to balance healthy eating, healthy living and occasional indulgence. 

I have touched upon my realisation that I was not content with my pathetic physical fitness after my time at university but I wanted to dedicate an entry on how I have managed to navigate balanced living. The process was gradual, with some of my favourite jeans becoming more snug or not feeling as confident in clothes I would have worn a couple of years ago but I managed to push aside the insecurities. This was until I was due to be going to holiday with my friends in June and all of a sudden the fear of summer clothes came in hot and fast, with too little time to resolve this issue. I was equally quite scared, as stupid as it sounds, to start working out and come to terms with how unfit I was. So I put this off to no end, until I finished university, returned home and at one point expressed to my mum that I wanted to join the gym at home. The visits were fairly irregular but I wanted to get my body moving as soon as possible. With a slight blip mid August when I went to Italy for 6 days, and then my boyfriend was coming up to visit me for another 5 days, I accepted the fact that I would enjoy this 11 days and then put some good habits in place. 

I had always been an active person before university, joining most sports clubs when I was at school; netball, rounders, cricket, football, road running in the winter and athletics in the summer. Even during lockdown I, like many other girls my age, fell victim to the Chloe Ting ab routines on YouTube. Therefore, going from this to essentially nothing when I started university- I joined the uni gym but genuinely went 6 times in first year- was a shock to the system. Luckily I have always had a fast metabolism so this did not catch with my physically until around July 2023. I even went through ‘gym phases’ at university with my housemate Elin but these would usually last around 2-3 months, I would get the results I was happy with and then all of a sudden, 4 visits a week would become 1 and then none. It is only natural, and I have always respected people that sustained a good fitness routine whilst at university, I honestly just didn’t have it in me. 

I have mentioned in other blogs about my point of no return in Third Year. The dreaded bar job that fed me with pizzas and chicken tenders most 9 hour shifts and manifested some stranger eating habits. After leaving this job I attempted to be healthier but failed miserably and around February I attempted (emphasis on attempt) to go for runs around Cathays and Roath. It seems this year there was a huge influx in people running so I wanted to see what all the fuss was about, and safe to say the first few times I did not get it. My cardio and muscular endurance was practically non-existent which is far from ideal when someone is trying to get into running. After a while, and when Cardiff got gradually warmer in the summer, I cancelled my gym membership and stopped running entirely. That was until the end of August when I downloaded the Coach 2 5K app to gain some confidence. 

I won’t bore you more with running chat, I am equally aware that it can be very dull, but after 4 runs on Coach 2 5K I realised my time at the gym before this had made some improvements and had the capacity to run further than C25K was allowing me to. Before I knew it I was running 3-5K without stopping. As it stands, I have been actively trying to lose weight for 4-5 months and have managed to lose nearly 2 stone, after being snug in a Size 14 pair of jeans for a while I can finally get back into my Size 10s that have been in the back of my wardrobe for almost a year. 

The key for me was routine, initially I toyed with doing one of those ’75 hard challenges’ which I knew would inevitably fail. I didn’t mind working out a couple of times a day, drinking more water, reading more and eating healthier but I did not understand why I needed to cut out drinking or some of the other rules within the challenge. In place of this I made a daily checklist on the 25th August for 75 days and said I would track my fitness and weigh myself before and after. I finished this around the 4th November but still do it to this day. 

These include: 

• Work out

• 10,000 steps (interchangeable with workout but ideally in addition to)

• Healthy Breakfast (no skipping meals)

• Lunch

• Dinner

• One snack/sweet treat

• Duolingo

• Time away from a screen (reading/cooking etc) Reading (time away from a screen)

• Substantial amount of water

• No coffee

It is also important to note that I cannot achieve all of these every day. Last week, I had work experience in London, working 10-6, leaving the house at 7.30am and returning at 7pm and I was only able to go on a run on the weekend. My mum tends to go to spin classes a couple of times a week before work but I did not share the same motivation sadly. 

In the time that I have spent getting healthier I have endeavoured to maintain my love for food, by making great lunches and often having some form of chocolate in the evening. In truth, I could have lost more weight in less time if I wanted to be stricter on myself but is the joy in that. In October, I had great weekends arranged, one in Cardiff visiting my friends, another in Paris with my partner and my parents, a night out in London etc. because of this my weight stayed the same for the whole month. Granted I did not gain more because I was working out in the week but I did not lose anything. I wanted to enjoy my weekends, not restrict myself and have fun! Which is the key to any balanced lifestyle, during the week I would run and eat my fun salads and have slightly smaller dinner portions than normal but when it comes to social events you have been looking forward to there is no need to take out the joy of seeing your friends or loved ones because of the promise you made to yourself that you would cut out carbs for October! These diets are unrealistic, far from fun and ultimately destroy your metabolism which can end up doing more harm than good. Balance is truly the key to contentment.