FMM: Health and Fitness tips

Since my brain is slow at getting into gear today, figured I'd do this week's Friend-Making Monday.

If you’ve taken part in FMM then you know the rules. If you’re new, please take a moment to answer this week’s question on your own blog then add your link in the comments section here at: http://www.alltheweigh.com/ so we can all see your FMM questions and answers. Please invite your blog readers to add their links here too so everyone has to opportunity to be seen. The idea is to connect with other awesome bloggers so take a moment to post your own FMM post and comment on a couple of other posts. Now it’s time for this week’s topic!

FMM: Weight-Loss Tips

I'm not a good person to ask about this since I'm not in weight loss mode (don't get me wrong, I'd love to lose weight, but I'm just more focused on being healthy).  But this is what I've got in terms of my healthy habits:

Fitness/Exercise Habits

• Having friends or spouse with whom I work out 6 days per week.  I know they're counting on me to be there.
• Having a fitness goal I am working toward for most months of the year.  There are occasionally weeks or even a month after meeting a goal (like post-marathon), where I temporarily am just running for fun or something, but I'm most motivated to get in my workouts when I'm working toward something over the course of several months. 
• Getting in about an hour per day of activity, with maybe one rest day per week.  No excuses for weather, schedule or fatigue usually.  Occasional excuses if I'm really, really sick but even then I usually remind myself that sweating it out might help.  For my hour per day goal, I don't count walking, yoga or stretching time because my heart rate pretty low for most of that. 
• Including strength training in my activity at least 3 days per week.

Dietary Habits

• Not eating meat.  While it's possible to be an unhealthy vegetarian, I think it helps to make healthy choices when you immediately rule out all the meat options at a restaurant for example.
• Eating organic fruits and vegetables almost always.  More costly, but I think much better for my health.  Plus, organic has the bonus of tasting better, making me want more fruits and veggies. 
• Bringing my own lunch to work.
• Having Greek yogurt with fruit, honey and/or granola for dessert on the average night where I want dessert.
• Not snacking after dinner.
• Not eating out very often. 
• Not drinking alcohol at home (though I occasionally break this rule, such as when we have guests, or a glass of wine every few weeks maybe)
• Saying goodbye to fettucini alfredo at restaurants.  Man, I love it but that stuff is bad for you!  I was shocked when I figured out how bad.
• Adding extra activity to my schedule when I feel like I've been in an unhealthy eating stretch.
• Not doing my own grocery shopping.  I'm more tempted to buy junk food than my husband is.  Since he shops, we just don't have it in the house.  I make a list with what I want for meals, etc., and he buys it, but there's no impulse buying.  And even if I put Pringles on the list, I don't think he'd buy them for me. 
• Drinking mostly water all the time.  Some espresso and a fruit/veg/milk smoothie in the morning, but other than that, usually all water, all day.  Sometimes one soda on the weekend, but not much else.
• Pretty much never eating fast food. 

Lifestyle/Other Habits

• Weighing myself most days and keeping track of it in writing twice a year (New Year's and my birthday).
• Not buying a lot of new clothes means I want my existing wardrobe to fit.  It would be hard for me to gradually move to bigger clothes without noticing it.  I mostly just hate shopping for clothes, but a function of that is that I count on what I have to fit me. 
• Having a supportive family.  Hubby goes to bed early with me so we can both get up early to work out.  When we're visiting our folks, we get to tag along with them to their gyms.  My brothers can be convinced to do some race with me every few years. 
• Living somewhere that I can work out outside almost every day.  I don't do well with long periods of working out indoors (I tend to quit doing it after a while, a week at Christmas is fine, but a month would turn into a month of slacking), so I'm lucky to live somewhere with good weather most of the year (very warm on summer mornings, and we definitely have some cold mornings in the winter, but it's usually manageable).  And I'm lucky to live in an area that isn't high crime.  I'm sure stuff happens, but I'm not so paranoid that I wouldn't be able to head out my front door anytime between 5 a.m. and 10 p.m.  to go for a solo run if I were so inclined.  I'd be a little more nervous between about 10 and 5, but I'd probably still do it if for some reason I wanted or needed to, there's just never much want or need on my part! 

Those are my good habits.  Glad I don't have to list my bad habits!  I think that list would be just as long if not longer...