Adventures of an ISFP and Pals

 As a follow-up to a previous post about  losing weight , here are some detailed tips on how to start building healthy eating habits to help lose weight:  Eat less. This meant that I:  Only ate when I was hungry, until I was full. Stopped eating breakfast and instead now I have a small snack (like a handful of nuts or a bit of granola) mid-morning to tide me over until lunch.  Split takeout/restaurant food across several days (ex: eat as much as I want at the restaurant and take the rest home). Sure, the portion size might be small but I can always augment the remainder with veggies or chips or stuff I have at home and make it into a fuller meal. Give in to cravings. This meant that I: Didn’t restrict myself. Instead, I just ate a single or smaller portion.  Realized when I’m eating a stand-in for something else.  For example, sometimes I eat potato chips when I really want fries, because it’s the only thing I have. It’s usually better in these cases...

As a follow-up to a previous post about losing weight , here are some detailed tips on how to start incorporating exercise into your lifestyle. Come up with a compelling reason for why you’re exercising. Connecting your actions to a higher-level purpose gives meaning to what you’re doing and keeps you going when things get tough. My reason for starting to  exercise was to stave off anxiety and moodiness that were making me miserable. I was so tired of being miserable all the time that I did what I could to feel better. Long-term consistency matters most. You don’t have to go all out in each workout. It’s more about showing up and building up your number of workouts over a long period of time. Consistency builds muscle! There’s no point in being miserable every workout if it causes you to not want to work out. Similarly, if you’re feeling tired or sore, it’s ok to skip a day and pick up the next day, or the next next day, or the next next next day– as long as you eventually come ba...

I've always struggled with feeling fat, even when I was at my skinniest. Going off to college, coupled with starting a job with unlimited food and snacks, caused me to gain weight as an adult. Not enough to feel too self-conscious but enough to realize that I wasn't at my peak. I lost about 10 pounds during the first year of the pandemic, thanks to the tips below: Focus on one thing at a time. There are two main inputs to losing weight: diet and exercise. Choose 1 to focus on first to decrease the friction of having to adjust your lifestyle dramatically. The other will come naturally later. The two happened to come together due to the pandemic but in the future, exercise will likely be easier to pick up first for the following reason Internalize the big-picture “why.” Exercising and dieting became a lot easier once I was able to understand how they caused my life to be better and made the connection between feeling better/bad and my choices. I think being able to see the dire...

 "Letters to Myself" is a series of posts dedicated to the tips that I've learned while progressing through adulthood. By recording my experiences on different topics like making friends, dating, and finances, I plan to explore what I learned about myself as well.  As someone with a terrible memory, I hope that re-reading these posts will be helpful in new situations by reminding myself of who I am.

Four Weeks of Focus is my favorite online workout program so far (and believe me, I’ve done a lot). It's the first online workout program I’ve undergone where the pre-taped participants are at my level of fitness (intermediate beginner) and who were clearly struggling through the workouts with me, so it was extremely motivating to me that I could match the same amount of effort the other participants (Shay Mitchell in particular) put in. Because Shay and I started with the same dumbbell weights, whenever she started lifting heavier weights, I did as well. Having her as a benchmark fast-tracked my growth, resulting in an inch lost off of my stomach and being able to do 2 to 20 push-ups in a minute. If you’re a beginner, I highly recommend this program. There’s a 2-week free trial so there’s no risk in trying!  TABLE OF CONTENTS Overview What is 4 Weeks of Focus ...