Hi There,
Welcome back to the blog. We hope it was an acceptable week for you. Our week was quite unique and interesting. Tshepi had to leave the family behind to go on a 3-day vacation with some of her colleagues . It was a much needed break for her and it was also a dream come true to visit the destination as she always wanted to visit the place, so this is ticked off her wish list 🙂 . Kat had to figure out how to fulfil all the family responsibilities in Tshepi’s absence, for three days, the function of the stove was to only boil and fry eggs. But the family survived, thanks to the pre-cooked meals that Tshepi had prepared, they really filled the void.
Due to Tshepi’s absence, our normal routine had to change. Kat had to train alone whilst Tshepi had to miss a few training days. The eating plan remained the same for Kat, and Tshepi had to make some adjustments and to be careful on her vacation, by the looks of the scale, she made it 🙂 . Tracking the food was still consistent, this is now a priority and a vital key to our success on this journey, we cannot afford not to track our foods. The weight loss progress seems to have taken a hit from the past week’s celebrations and indulgence. Kat’s weight has increased drastically and requires a detailed and immediate attention (the price of indulgence 🙂 ), Tshepi’s weight seems to be in a manageable state and does not require a lot of attention and adjustments.
This week, we experienced a rollercoaster of emotions. Change always brings with it uncertainty and anxieties. The changes brought about by Tshepi’s vacation gave us a chance to reflect on our path in life, on our family vision and on our individual needs and desires. It is very rare that we don’t get to do things as a family except for work obligations, so Tshepi’s vacation challenged our norm and routine and we had to face and reflect on the meaning of this challenge. With this challenge in mind, we come to this week’s topic “Going against the grain”.
1. Going against the grain.
One of our certain human nature is that we have an innate need and desire to belong. When we are kids, we have a need to play with other kids and are deeply hurt when we are casted out. When we are teenagers, we submit to peer pressure and end up doing senseless things just to belong. When we are adults, we buy cars and houses just to belong in a community we think we belong to. It is all well to belong as it is an innate human desire, the problem comes when we go against our beliefs, values and principles for the sake of belonging. It is here where we are not being true to ourselves.
We are living in a society where convenience and striving for convenience has become a norm. We try to simplify things for ourselves and others in all areas of life. We are constantly looking for a convenient manner of doing everyday tasks. And this have long spilled into ways of preparing and consuming foods. Before we knew it, we were no longer preparing and cooking food as we used to at home, no more endless hours in the kitchen peeling and chopping vegetables, no more knife cuts and burns from the stove due to lack of focus. It is now convenient to prepare a meal, meals are pre-cooked and frozen for us, all we need is a few minutes of microwave action or boiling on the stove and then we are ready to feast. The other option for getting our meals comes from a plethora of fast food restaurants that are popping up in all neighborhoods whereby a meal for a family is ready to go within 15 minutes, very convenient.
Although convenience is good as it makes our lives easier and enables us to reduce the amount of time labouring on monotonous tasks. When it comes to weight loss and fitness, convenience can do more harm than good on one’s fitness goals. Most convenient food choices are high-calorie sugary or fatty foods, most health products and supplements don’t look and taste like food, most fitness products and gadgets looks convenient and promises a lot but delivers very little…. not to mention the expense that goes with it. Because all these convenient options are becoming a norm in our societies, we somehow unconsciously start to be favourable to them without questioning them. Is this a case of unnoticed human need and desire to belong?
We are influenced by those around us, when they rave about foods from this and that new restaurant, about this great meal from this fast food joint. We see people every day with beautifully designed takeaways boxes and packages, we are bombarded with fast food advertising and marketing wherever we go, they pop up on billboards when we are driving, they pop up online when surfing the internet, they are in your face at every corner of the mall, you can’t help it but be hungry and willing to try these well-presented and raved-about foods …. and they taste really good. Subconsciously, we get accustomed to these practices and it starts to become what we do as well, we start to eat as those around us are eating, not out of choice but out of what seems to be a norm.
On our fitness journey, we have paid attention to the value of foods we eat. We made efforts to learn about at least the basics of nutrition and we have discovered that the convenient options that we are bombarded with on daily basis go against our goals. These convenient options are designed to keep us wanting more and to keep coming back. The sugar, salt and fat content in the foods that are considered a norm now are certainly addictive and we unconsciously crave them not for satiety but to fulfil the addiction they have established in us, the more we eat them, the more we need them and we are not getting full. With this realization, we had to change our eating habits and go against the norm, we really had to go against the grain if we were to achieve our fitness goals.
We have now reverted to the old ways of preparing and cooking foods. Our food choices are mostly whole foods based, it is foods that are in their natural state (at least close to) and these are fruits, vegetables, legumes and free range meats (when we can afford 😦 ) . These foods require some cleaning, peeling, chopping and cooking. It does take time to prepare these foods in comparison to the readily available convenient options, but it is certainly worth the sacrifice due to their nutritional values and low caloric nature. We avoid the fast foods restaurants as much as possible even those with raving reviews from the media and people around us, the only thing we can eat at a restaurant is grilled chicken, that’s it 🙂 . We have also paid attention to the ingredients and calorie values of foods when are doing grocery, the back of the product packages is of more interest now than the glossy and colourful front. We have also build the courage to be selective and not eat everything that is available when in a family, friends and work gathering, in these settings you really stick out that you are not eating according to the norm and this invites questions, suspicion, curiosity, resistance or even alienation.
We can conclude this week’s topic by saying that to lose weight and reach a fitness goal, one needs to pay attention to the nutritional value of foods, question the eating habits of the norm and have courage to go against the grain and establish their own norm when it comes to food choices. Weight loss and fitness journey can feel very lonely because it does not comply to the norms of our society, but the benefits are worth travelling the road less travelled, you can only grow and become a better and healthy version of yourself.
That’s it for this week. In the coming week, we will be paying attention to losing the weight we have gained in the past week by adjusting our training and meals. We will also be working through the reflections on our emotions and resolutions in order to find balance. We will also continue to question the eating habits of the norm and only subscribe when it fits our beliefs, values and principles. Until then, stay blessed.
Kat & Tshepi
Kat & Tshepi 