(smooth jazz music)
- Hi everyone!
It's your girl Jenn and today I am finally filming
the how I lost weight video.
If I'm gonna be completely honest,
I kinda put this video off because I know diet and nutrition
can be a very controversial topic online.
First off, I'm not a dietician, I'm not a nutritionist,
I just literally used these tips
that I'm about to share with you and I lost weight.
I can't guarantee that it's gonna work for you
because everyone's body is unique
and some bodies just react differently.
All I know is that these tips have helped me lose weight
and that's all I can claim.
So now that's out of the way,
let me just give you some stats about my bod.
Last year in 2016, I was the heaviest I ever was,
I was 120 pounds and for my frame, that really showed.
And now today in 2017, I am a 100 to a 105 pounds.
This took a full year to lose the weight
so please do not expect this to happen overnight.
It is a gradual process.
The only advice I can give you is to start today.
Start on your next meal and don't look back.
So I'm gonna rundown the 10 tips
that have contributed to my weight loss.
A lot of it is common sense
but sometimes you just need a little refresher.
My first tip is to find healthy foods
that you actually love eating.
It's not realistic to have a salad
for every single meal for the rest of your life.
It's just unattainable.
Go out there and go on a food tour,
find the healthy foods that you
just freakin' love eating and create a list.
So throughout the years, I've learned
that I love broccoli, green beans, mushrooms, tofu,
I can eat so much of that and never get sick of it.
Don't force yourself to eat that dry kale salad
if you don't like dry kale.
And I don't go out of my way
to eat healthy foods that I don't like.
For example, I don't like cucumbers, I don't like tomatoes,
and I don't force myself to eat it
just because it's healthy.
I just avoid them and eat other healthy foods
and it's really worked out well for me
so go out there, create a list, and stick to it.
The second tip is very important,
it is to have no distractions while you're eating.
I know it's like second nature at this point
to get your hot pile of food, turn on the TV or laptop
and just tune out and eat.
Your brain takes around 20 minutes to realize that it's full
and when you're not paying attention to your body,
you don't know when that time comes.
And I've noticed that whenever I watch something
and I'm eating, I tend to eat even more and even faster
and a lot of the times, I'm finished with my food
but the show's still going so I'll go back
and get seconds just so I can like, let the good times roll.
But if you wanna lose weight, it's easier to know
what your body is saying to you when everything is off.
I always try and stop eating right when I get
to the sweet spot and that is the spot where
I'm not hungry anymore but I'm not like, completely full.
It's that really nice in between
and I feel like the Japanese have a word for it
but I don't know, that's where I try and stop eating
and that's really helped me maintain my figure
and it's tricky, believe me.
It's really hard to get that spot
because it's so tempting to just eat
until your stomach's like, "Oh god, No!"
like, that's where I used to love being.
It's been easier to maintain my weight
because I'm not overindulging and overeating.
This next tip is something that I've using since college
and it's to have smaller plates and bowls.
So if you look in our shelves
you'll notice that we have two sizes,
we've got a normal big one for Ben,
and we've got a smaller one for me.
We've nicknamed it the baby plate
because it's just little.
And yeah, when I have a bigger plate
I tend to want to over-portion myself.
I wanna cram and fill the plate
so with the smaller plate, I can still cram
all the food in but it's actually
the perfect portion for me.
Tip number four is to get a water bottle.
I feel like drinking water is one
of the most common diet tips but it's so true.
When you are hydrated, you're not really that hungry
and for me, I love having my sippy cup
because this makes me drink
so much water throughout the day.
And it's the CamelBak specifically,
I love the like, the bite valve
and I love how you have to like suck the water in.
I go through maybe three or four bottles of this a day
and so I make sure that I'm very hydrated.
Whenever you have a craving, chances are
you're just dehydrated or you're bored
and so whenever when I have like, a hankering for some chips
or like any sort of snack or something,
I will chug half a bottle of this
and I'll wait 15 minutes and if I'm still hungry
then I'll go have a snack
but most of the time, after I drink it,
I'm completely fine and I can wait 'til my next meal.
I also should mention that I don't drink any juices,
I don't drink any soda or like milk.
I only stick to water, unsweetened tea, black coffee
and like, soda water, that's pretty much it.
My favorite is La Croix, it is so delicious,
it has zero calories and it just gives you
that carbonated kick if you are missing it.
My fifth tip is to never skip
any meals especially breakfast.
I feel like I have kind of programmed my body
to just wake up hungry so I always, always have breakfast.
There's a reason why it's called
the most important meal of the day.
It's because it kicks off your metabolism.
And I've noticed that when I skip my breakfast,
by the next meal, I am so hungry
I end up making really stupid food decisions
so I'll just end up overeating
or I'll order something like, really gnarly
like nachos or something.
It's easier to make mindful food choices
when your body is not starving.
Personally, I only eat three meals a day.
I know some people like to have
four to five smaller meals a day
but for me, it's just too much effort
to think of that many meals to eat
so I like to keep it simple, breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
For my breakfast, that's when I have most of my carbs,
I'll have beans on toast or like an egg wrap.
For lunch, I can treat myself
of a sandwich, a burger, whatever,
But for dinner, that's when I'm kind of the most strict.
When I was at like, my most motivated to lose weight,
for dinner I would never have any refined carbohydrates
so I wouldn't have any pasta,
I wouldn't have big fried rice dishes,
I would probably stick to veggies,
and a protein and that's it for dinner.
And then for breakfast, I'll have my carbs.
This next tip is something that I really struggled with
when I first moved back to LA in 2015.
I was eating out at restaurants all the time
and I was ordering Postmates all the time.
When you go to restaurants, even if you order
the healthy dish, you don't actually know
what the restaurants put into it.
Sure, there's a list of ingredients
but you don't know how much butter they put,
you don't know how much oil they put or msg,
the restaurant's objective is to make the food
taste as good as possible and keep you coming back
and it's a business so it makes sense
so that's why it's just easier to just cook your own meal.
You know exactly what you put in it
and I know it's like easy to say
like, "oh, I'm not a good cook, I can't cook"
but you just need to cook three recipes.
Learn how to make three healthy recipes
and then you can build from there.
It's impossible to just completely avoid restaurants
for the rest of your life, it's not gonna happen
so when I do eat out, I like to have a balance.
So I have this rule called The 2 Rule.
So I either pick an appetizer, an entree
or an entree and dessert.
I'll never get all three,
or if I do get all three, it's like a special occasion
but yeah, you don't need all three,
you don't need an appetizer, entree, and dessert
that's just a full package.
You just need two.
Tip number seven is to reduce your alcohol intake.
When I was at my heaviest, I was probably drinking
may two or three times a week and it definitely showed.
There's a lot of empty calories in alcohol
and the problem with me was I would always have drunchies.
When I would come home drunk,
I would just open up my cupboard,
make a snack, throw it in the microwave
and I would just eat all of it to soak up the alcohol
and then go to sleep.
But I mean I don't even know if that's scientifically proven
but basically, I would eat all that shit
and I would wake up the next morning, hungover
and I would always order a burrito.
Yeah, it was like a vicious cycle.
Obviously, I still drink.
I like to go out and have a good time
but I only drink once a week now.
If I'm gonna drink more than once a week,
then I'll only have one drink, that's it.
And every time I go out, I only have a vodka soda
with fresh lime, that is my favorite drink of choice.
But then I call it the Skinny Minnie
because it only has the calories of the vodka
and I think a shot of vodka is what,
like a hundred calories, and that's it!
This next tip is about snacking.
I don't keep any snacks that tempt me in my house
because I'm the type of person
where if I have Hot Cheeto Fries
or just any form of Hot Cheetos, I have to eat the bag.
It's kinda like, calling my name as I'm just in the house.
So I just like to cut the temptation
and not have any of it in my house.
If I really, really want them,
then I'll have to get off my ass and go by them.
But if they're not in the house,
then I'm not thinking about it.
So I know I've been blabbing a lot about food and diet
so I'm gonna talk about
the next obvious thing which is exercise.
I like to exercise around three to five times a week
and when I was training super hard,
I was going five times a week
and that in combination with all the tips that I said
made me really shredded.
For the first two months,
a lot of that weight came off because of those.
I know the ratio is something like 80% diet and 20% fitness
but when you put the exercise in,
that 20% goes a long way
and when you are just combining both those forces,
a lot of it just melts off.
So it's really important to find a form of exercise
that you hate the least.
So whether it is kickboxing, palates, swimming,
running, whatever, for me, it is to train alone.
I love going to the gym by myself, it's become
my own little sanctuary.
Each of my workouts are around 50 minutes long.
I am obsessed with this app called Seconds.
I have talked about it in a previous video.
It's basically like my little personal trainer.
So I like to start off with 20 minutes of cardio.
I'll use my high-intensity interval training workout
so I'll be on the StairMaster for five minutes
just walking normally, and then I'll run
on the StairMaster for 30 seconds,
and then I'll walk again for a minute and 30 seconds,
and then I'll run again for 30 seconds.
And I'll do this six times and then I'll cool off
with five minutes of walking on the StairMaster.
And by the end of this, I am literally drenched in sweat
and now I'm ready for my strength training.
For my 30 minutes of strength training
I won't get too into it but I basically have created
a bunch of playlists that work
different parts of my body out.
So I have three full body workouts,
I have one for the waist,
one for the abs and arms, it all depends.
I feel like I'm just gonna do a separate video
on that workout because if I incorporate that
into this video, I feel like it'd be way too long.
So be prepared for my workout video in the future.
These days, I only workout three times a week.
It's because I'm not trying to lose any weight,
I'm only trying to maintain the body I have right now.
I'm really happy with my weight
and I'm not trying to change anything.
I've noticed that since I've been doing
the strength training and the weights,
it's been easier to just keep my body the way it is.
My last tip is to find motivation
that really resonates with you.
Back in the day, I feel like a lot
of my weight loss inspiration was quite superficial.
It was just about like, "I wanna be skinny for my birthday"
or "I wanna be skinny for Coachella."
Once I've found a deeper reason of why I wanted to be fit,
it just propelled me to stay in shape.
The reason why I exercise and I tried my best
to stay in shape is for my mental health.
I've noticed that back in the day,
when I wasn't working out consistently,
I had a lot more breakdowns, I had a lot of meltdowns
and I was just very sensitive to stress.
Now that I workout three to five times a week,
I don't really have that issue that much anymore.
I'm not perfect but I am so much better
than how I was last year.
Some days, I just wake up and I am just bummed
but before, I would just kind of be bummed
and just let it be like a sad day.
Now, if I'm feeling sad or if I'm feeling anxious
or stressed, I hit the gym because 95% of the time,
I come back after a workout and I feel better.
Ben is the most important person in my life
and he lives with me and I hated being the Debbie Downer.
Ben is generally a super positive person
and having a bad attitude is just so contagious
and I hated bringing him down
and so I knew that this is something
that I really needed to work on
and exercise has helped me so much.
So find a reason that really sticks with you
whether it's because you wanna be stronger,
you want to be able to lift something,
whether you wanna run a marathon,
or you wanna have inner with yourself,
once you find a deeper goal, it's easier to stick with it.
Alright guys, those are my top 10 tips on how I lost weight.
Honestly, the first month is the hardest, I swear,
but once you pass that hurdle,
it's all downhill from there.
And then once you start seeing physical changes
in your body, and once like pants start to feel loose,
then it becomes even easier.
If you'd like to leave any diet tips in comments down below
or words of encouragement, I'd love to hear them.
I just want this to be like a positive place
for people to talk about fitness and nutrition.
If there's something that you don't agree with me,
it would be awesome if you just said it
in a constructive way as opposed to
a way of just attacking me.
My point is not to shame people into losing weight.
It's just for the people that need that extra kick
to wanna live a healthier lifestyle.
So I hope you guys enjoy the rest of your day.
Thank you so much for watching
and I'll see you guys in the next one.
Bye!
(smooth jazz music)