Becoming healthy after exam stress and overeating

It's hard to believe we are more than half way through this year already! I have subsequently posted less blog posts than I did this time last year, but I guess I'm spreading out my ideas for the future more. I was initially going to write a blog post entitled 'How I balanced my fitness during my GCSE's', however I would be lying if I said I managed to completely balance my fitness. Between the 15th of May and the 21st of June, I continued to Irish Dance, eat moderately healthy and go for long walks. However, I stopped my Olympic Weightlifting, my cheat days and my daily workouts. My GCSE's were a mixture of hard and easy and I'll just have to wait until results day to see how i've done. However, even if you've not done your GCSE's but you have completed some form of exams, this post may be appropriate for you. The difference between this post and all my others is that literally today I went for a run again and felt motivated after a long break to begin working out again, therefore I'm writing this as it happens not from my past experience. Then, if after reading this post you are trying to become more healthy after your exams, I am too trying to follow my own advice and get back into things. A few of you have asked about some of the subjects in this post so carry on reading to hear my advice upon the current situation many teenagers may be in right now.

Overcoming any remaining stress

During exams, I'm sure most people have felt some form of stress whether it was a few months before the exams began or the night before. However, although everyone says you can relax after your exams are over, many people may still feel stressed not knowing what their results could be. If you're anything like me, you may feel stressed if you've been lacking a workout session and haven't been eating particularly healthy. Your mental health may have became worse during the exam season, but perhaps focusing upon yourself during the summer may help you to feel improved. I feel that acceptance is important in this section of this post. Whether you're trying to improve your mental health or overall health and fitness, you'll have to accept that sadly although those things may have worsened or lowered, that now there is time for you to focus upon yourself. It really is upsetting that I'm having to write about improving your mental health after your GCSEs, in all honsety the education system needs adjusting.

I went on holiday a few weeks ago to Ibiza (not San Antonio bay, don't worry) and I finally got a chance to begin reading a book I've been wanting to read for a long while now. I heard about the book through instagram when I was indeed struggling with motivating myself and I wanted to fully grasp who I really was. I picked it up and no doubt about it, I felt better. 'Who says you can't? you do' By Daniel Chidiac is such a great book, I'm only a few pages in but I have already noticed I feel in a much happier and less stressed mood. The book involves simple writing tasks and questions which help you to delve right into your personal thoughts and feelings. The book is for sale on amazon and ebay.

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Refraining myself from overeating and beginning to workout more

My current route will just involve me resulting back to how I used to be before my exams began. I've set myself some tasks and some goals that I can stick to inorder to get back into the swing of things.
These tasks are:

1. Create new workout programs and stick them up in my room (either two for legs, core and arms, or one each).
2. Rethink my Olympic Weightlifting schedule and train with additional exercises and powerlifting.
3. Restart tracking my macronutrients on the Lifesum app and gradually introduce cheat days again.

These goals are:

1. Increase my personal best for my Olympic lifts and Power lifts.
2. Gain at least a kilogram of muscle (get back into my body weight category).

​I'll probably think of more goals as I restart, but for now these will do.

Exercising again

Whether you have taken a break from working out or you are beginning to again, I have decided to provide some motivation that may help you.

• Exercising at first may not be the most joyous thing you experience and even the word exercise could bring you complete misery or even joy. But try to look at it as something that will change you and make you better.
• Not much or little at all can go wrong when you are exercising, it is in fact what you don't do that makes it worse. Not exercising for instance, will have reverse impacts.
• After a while, you will see results. But you won't see results if you keep putting off working out. Even if you don't want to workout or exercise one day, just do half a workout and see if you feel like doing the rest. If you don't feel like completing the rest, then at least you've done something. 
• Are you really going to continue saying that you'll start on Monday but then you will never start? There is little point in saying you'll try working out for a month and then stop if you aren't seeing results. If you stay committed like most people in the fitness industry do, then you can only be proud of what you've accomplished.
• What have you got to lose? Yes, weight perhaps. But other than that, literally you should only gain from exercise apart from the odd injury and muscle pain. But soon, you'll own and feel proud of your delayed onset muscle soreness. Trust me.

Since I read somewhere that every three months you should alter your exercise program, I am currently rethinking and rewriting my plan. However, that means I can share with you my previous workouts that I have used and that have worked for me. Please note that your fitness ability may or may not reflect number of repetitions completed. By this, I never mean that the completion of an excessive amount of repetitions truly shows how strong you are. Although I have set a limit of 8-12 reps per exercise, there is no worry if you cannot complete 8-12 but perhaps a lower amount.

Tip: If you wish to alter the number of repetitions you complete. 
8 to 12 repetitions trains for Muscular strength (mainly if you want to tone up and gain muscle more quickly, this is what you should do) Any repetitions less than this is still acceptable if 8 is too difficult. But one repetition is likely to get you nowhere.
12 to 20 repetitions trains for Muscular endurance (if you want to keep exercising for a long period of time, like a marathon runner)

Here attached are some of my previous workout pdfs, created and used by yours truly. Feel free to use these: 

fartlek_training.docx
File Size:	18 kb
File Type:	docx

Download File

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hard_core_workout.docx
File Size:	18 kb
File Type:	docx

Download File

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simple_plyometric_workout.docx
File Size:	20 kb
File Type:	docx

Download File

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two_no_equipment_core_workouts.docx
File Size:	20 kb
File Type:	docx

Download File

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workout_routine_2018.docx
File Size:	24 kb
File Type:	docx

Download File

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Also, feel free to check out this old post of mine with some more workouts on: 

My Workouts

Eating healthy again

Again, with eating healthy or healthier than usual I have decided to provide some advice involving how to begin to change your diet.

• Try to eat 5-7 fruits and vegetables per day. Remember these can be in dried, frozen and sometimes liquid form, not just whole fruits and vegetables.
• I've discussed this in another post before, but try to drink less fizzy, caffeinated drinks and smoothies. Sticking to water and milk should be better for you, although water is the most important. Have a search online to see how much water you should be drinking depending upon your weight, age and level of exercise. I roughly drink 1.5 to 2 litres of water a day, often 2.5 litres in hotter temperatures and when I exercise more. Here's the link to my post about drinking correctly: 

Blog post

• Before a workout or any sporting activity I tend to eat a lot of carbs for energy and never any junk food. Fruit is a good source of sugar if you're lacking sugar. After a workout, I'll usually drink or eat something with protein in it which may contribute to muscle growth.
• I feel that it is vital for me to track what I'm eating, otherwise I'd forget the standards I was trying to stick to. Therefore, I use an app called 'Lifesum' which helps me to track my macronutrients.

A short but in depth explanation upon Lifesum and macronutrients 
The app helps you to track how much protein, fats and carbohydrates you intake by scanning, typing in your food and typing in the measurements and portions you are going to consume. You will begin the app by setting yourself a goal of how much of these food types you wish to consume daily. Then this amount in grams will also be counted into calories. You will be given a total daily calorie number which the app wishes for you to hit. Not always will you hit it and may be under or surpass it, but it is a great way to really see what's in the food you're putting in your body. There are other things you can track like your water amounts, exercise and other food types (if you pay extra for the additional food types). The app helps you to set a goal weight, but you don't have to follow it if your only interest is to track your food. 
The macronutrient side of things (Ratio of carbs, fats, proteins)
If you're looking for the best amounts of fats, proteins and carbohydrates to enter into the app, it will depend on whether you're trying to gain weight (muscle), or lose weight. Ofcourse your age and metabolism should come into account when changing your diet. To be on the safe side, I did a lot of research to find out which would suit me best for muscle building. I google searched for a while and then eventually adjusted through an average amount of the food ratios from all the plans I had written down and liked. All I can advise, that if you are a young and slight female girl looking to tone up and gain muscle. You could use the same ratio that I use. This is:
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Carbohydrate daily intake: 285 grams (1140 kcal)
Protein daily intake: 114 grams (456 kcal)
Fat daily intake: 76 grams (684 kcal)
Daily kcal amount: 2280 calories
Ratio: Carbs 50%, Protein 20%, Fat 30%
Carbs: 4 kcal per 1 gram
Protein: 4 kcal per 1 gram
​Fat: 9 kcal per 1 gram

Additionally, here are my measurements so you can know whether to use the same plan or not. In no way at all am I saying that my body is ideal or not, this is just a rough guide as to what works best for me.

Bodyweight: ranges from roughly 46 kilograms to 48 kilograms (101 - 106 lbs)
Height: 5ft 1 (61 inches, 154 cm)
Waist: 24 inches
Bicep flexed (pre workout): 23.5cm
Quadricep flexed (pre workout): 52cm
​Calf flexed (pre workout): 31cm

An ending (finally)

That's pretty much all the information I can give you. If you've just finished your exams, then I hope you're satisfied with how hard you've worked. Don't worry, you can retake almost everything! It's just easier for you and your school if you don't. Life doesn't just give up and not give you multiple chances. Now that I've finally finished my GCSE's, I'm excited to post new content more often! Except, I has taken me days to write this as I went on my Silver Duke of Edinburgh expedition in between writing (oops). There will be an exciting new post soon as I was presented with a fabulous opportunity to review a little something for my blog.

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