Weigh in, Old is the new new, & influencers

How about a monthly weigh in here?

And not just a weigh in of my weight loss progress, but what I'm doing that is working or not working for me and other random thoughts I have about things.

If you read February's post about weighing in, you know that I'm going back to sharing my weigh in's this year. I'm not going to share them weekly. But I would like to share them monthly to you. It's partly in hopes of encouraging you and it probably mostly for me. In the beginning of this whole journey, way back in 2013, sharing all of the things helped hold me more accountable. I need that right now.

My goal is to lose 3 pounds a month, that's a goal for the year of 38 pounds. In January I lost 3.6 pounds. And drumroll please, in February, I also lost 3.6 pounds!

I have to admit I'm a little surprised with a loss in February. With all that has been going on the last month, I've been a little distracted. As much as I did not enjoy the stomach flu, it has ended up being blessing for me. That little unplanned extended fast really helped me. It helped my body feel like I was getting a fresh start. Fresh foods are what sounds good so far, so I've stuck to a lot of them. I'm sure getting good and cleaned out with the bug really helped the loss this month, but I'll take it. I'm going to use it to try and encourage me to make even better choices the WHOLE month of March, instead of the last little bit like I did in February.

On thing I did recently that has seemed to help me is adjust my nutrition goals. I looked back at several months in 2017 and 2018 when I was REALLY focused and examined what I was doing then. One of the biggest things I noticed was that I was eating smaller more frequent meals instead of larger meals and trying not to snack, like I have been doing most recently. I've implemented that this past week and it seems to be a huge game changer. Maybe that's what my body needs. We are all different. No two journey's are going to look the same.

Maybe at some point in time I need that shift in eating to the larger meals and less snacking. I don't really remember when I shifted from smaller meals to larger less frequent ones. What I imagine happened was that somewhere along the way I heard I could/should eat more at a meal and that for whatever reason I shouldn't snack. So, away I went. 

We do have to be flexible on this journey. We have to be able to consistently evaluate what's working and what's not. Our body is always changing. That's why tracking can be really beneficial. Having data to look back on was really helpful for me. I could see the types of foods I was eating, when I was eating them, what my macros looked like. I could also see what my workouts looked like. So, for now, I decided, the old way is now the new way. A week isn't enough time to tell if this is a difference maker, but unless it goes crazy bad, I'm going to give it the month of March to see how it goes.

That leads me to my final thoughts for this post. I have plenty more thoughts for posts for another day. But I got to thinking about the power of social media influencers. I do not consider myself in this category, however I can also see on a small scale how I could be in this category.  But, I digress.

That being said, I hope you know that social media influencers, people sharing things on social media, are just people sharing what works for them. I think it's amazing that we have so many people interested in trying to share their health and wellness journey to encourage others. 

But, I do caution you to take all the recommendations with a grain of salt. You need to do your own personal research for every one of the recommendations you think you want to follow. Find people who are professionals, find out what their qualifications are to make the claims they are making. Are they just sharing their thoughts, sharing their latest trend on their journey, trying to sell a product or do they have the education to support their claims. There are LOTS of good influencers to follow, just do your homework about the ones you trust.

And for what it's worth, know that a lot of what I share is my personal journey. It's not a prescription for every person who follows. I strongly encourage finding your own way. That being said, I am a American Council on Exercise (ACE) certified Health Coach, an ACE certified Group Fitness Instructor, Certified Revelation Fitness Instructor and Certified Wellness Revelation Facilitator. I am always working on keeping my credientials current. So, while, my journey is personal, I do try to provide current education on relevant topics as well.