The Skinny on my Skinny

     I'm often asked how I manage to stay skinny all the time. Let me tell you, skinny does not always equal healthy. I may have always been skinny, but I wasn't always the healthiest. I ate everything and anything. I didn't watch my diet. Some days I ate all day long. Some days I would forget to eat at all. Some days I ate nothing but candy or cake.


     I've never really had to do anything to stay skinny. After giving birth everything just went back to normal. In fact I was always struggling to keep the weight on and at times looked awful with my sunken cheeks and collar bones sticking out!!

     However, after my last 2 chickadees, things stopped going back to normal and I discovered I had diastasis recti. So I started a work-out routine to help heal it. There are tons of videos and exercises out there to follow. I mainly just did side planks and tightened my abdomen all the time. I also couldn't play with my kids without getting out of breath after only a few minutes of chasing them! I thought maybe I just need to build up endurance, so I tried jogging, which actually exasperated the diastasis recti so I had to quit. Then I discovered that for women my age, running and jogging isn't actually that great anyway. I just wasn't eating healthy. Slowly I started watching my diet, making sure I ate healthy and drank enough water, and I started trying different exercise routines.

Now these are not hard and fast rules.. more like guidelines.. but I try to follow this lifestyle..

• Little to no processed sugar. I try to avoid it, but around holidays and birthdays it's super hard lol.

• Minimal bread and pasta. I would say about 1/5 of my plate. Though off and on I follow a keto diet.

• Lots and lots of fruits and veggies, at least 1/2 of my plate.

• If I have meat, it makes up about 1/4 to 1/3 of my plate.

• Healthy oils on my salads instead of dressing. Avocado and sunflower oils are my favorite.

• Drink water throughout the day. I learned that how much water you need depends on your weight. Cut your weight number in half, the number you get is how many ounces of water you need a day. I weigh 145 pounds so I need at least 72.5 ounces per day.

• As mentioned in the beginning, I engage my stomach muscles, not just suck the stomach in, but actually tighten the abdomen.. I do this when going about my daily activities like lifting baskets of laundry or my chickadees, food prep, folding laundry, driving.. In the beginning it's a bit hard to remember to do it, but you get used to it and start doing it all the time.

• And last, but not least, I started working out a few months ago, 2-3 times a week. I don't go to the gym, I exercise at home. I'll do a separate post on my work-out routine if there is any interest.

    Well, there you have it. What I do to stay healthy and fit. But I didn't just start doing it all at once one day. It was a slow progress that I started at the beginning of this year. So start with what you can manage without getting overwhelmed and add things as you go.

     I should also mention that I'm not stick thin. I don't have a thigh gap, or that coveted hour glass figure, and I still have flab here and there.. But I am happy with my body and my goal is to be healthy.. the fit will follow..