Kat & Tshepi

Hello there,

Welcome back to K&T blog, how are you doing?

We hope your fitness and health efforts are going well and are yielding enjoyable results, such as being energetic, strong and having a sharp mind that is ready to tackle life’s daily demands. On our side, we are starting to see a consistent descend of our individual weights, we’ve been gaining a bit of weight in the past few months (see graph below), but now we are happy that we have broken the streak. If you have bread (or baked goods) on your diet, you might want to consider reducing its consumption, we found it to be a key driver of our weight gain.

The ascend that you see from June is the re-introduction of bread in our lives. It is shocking how small dietary changes and the sneaky old habits can drastically affect your weight loss progress, if you don’t address these small changes early enough they turn to grow perpetually and become a source of constant struggle. This quote spell this reality well when it states that “It is easier to keep the enemy out than it is to expel him after he has gained entrance.” , if you know something is not good for you, fight it and stop it from the word go.

This week, we talk about a morning routine that supports weight loss. A strong morning routine sets the tone for the day, it has the ability and power to dictate how you will counter the effects of the day’s unknowns . Life seems to follow-on from the direction of the morning energy and mindset, e.g a crappy morning mostly seems to be followed by a crappy day and a good morning mostly attracts a good day. A solid morning routine sets you up for a focused and energised day – Carl pullein.

We see the morning as a good opportunity to kick start our weight loss for the day, we set a routine that is intentional towards our weight loss goals, which means that we make “weight loss” high priority from the moment we wake up. The tasks we carry out and actions we take in the morning speaks and are aligned to weight loss, they are intentional and purposeful towards achieving our goals . Our morning routine includes the following:

1. Wake up at 4 am and take the scale reading – A scale is a good reminder of our weight loss goals, when a goal is not constantly in our mind we turn to forget about it, “Out of sight, out of mind”. Waking up at 4 am is not so ideal and really not easy but it is the only free time we have that enable us to workout in the morning , making time from your busy schedule to workout begs the question ” how badly do you want it?”.
2. Drink 500ml of cold water mixed with a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar, aloe vera juice, lemon juice and a pinch of pink Himalayan salt – Thinking about it, this is a terrible tasting mixture but we somehow have gotten used to it 🙂 and does not bother at all . The purpose of this concoction is to improve the proper functioning of our body : the apple cider vinegar, aloe and lemon kickstart the digestion and metabolism, the water and salt replenishes the minerals(electrolytes) lost during the night from sweating and breathing.
3. Consume pre-workout meal 1 hour before workout – This includes overnight oats that we prepared the night before and coffee, the purpose of the meal is to get sufficient energy for the workout. Previously we used to workout fasted or have coffee and a piece of fruit but we changed when we decided to start increasing the intensity of our workouts and therefore required more energy and oats is one of the good quick sources of energy out there.
4. Plan our workout – We are not so rigid anymore on our workout regiment, we normally plan our workouts in morning based on how we are feeling and what we did the day before, or we check Crossfit workout of the day and do a scaled version of the workout. The planning takes 10 to 15 minutes, it sets a challenge for us, and it primes, pump and motivate us to hit the gym.
5. Morning workout at 5am – The morning workout, which takes around 30 minutes (including warm-up 🙂 ), not only helps with boosting metabolism and energy production but also gives the rewarding sense of accomplishment , a feeling which we carry with to the daily tasks ahead. We certainly see the difference on days that we did not work out in the morning, we feel sluggish, normally get late and are easily irritable.
6. Prepare meals for the day – Nutrition is key for weight loss, it has been said many times that weight loss is 80% nutrition and 20% exercise, we agree. This is where we make sure that all the meals for the day are prepared, organized and ready for consumption. This takes more time than all the preceding actions(roughly 1 & 1/2 hour) , but this is the key investment in weight loss, it is where you make it or break it.

That’s it for this week, our weight loss routine is contextual to us and it is by no means excellent, best or prescriptive but through it we have realised that setting an intentional and purposeful morning routine geared towards your weight loss goals reinforces your commitment and helps you to stand a better chance of succeeding on that day. The by-product of this routine is that it sets the tone for the day, a tone of commitment, resilience, bursting energy and healthy living, and also gives you an upper hand on what lies ahead, we think it is a good by-product 🙂 . How strong is your morning routine towards your weight loss goals?

Until next week, Stay blessed.

Kat & Tshepi