Yesterday, I made the decision to try to pursue a different lifestyle. For the past few years, I have been practicing intuitive eating - that is, eating what I crave when I'm hungry, a perfectly normal and healthy lifestyle. However, I was curious if I could take a more proactive approach in my diet and exercise, and choose to watch what I ate more carefully and work out more. I wondered if it was possible to attain that "K-pop idol body" ideal without going to extremes - if its possible to safely and healthily attain ideals at all.

Therefore, I came up with a plan. First outlining the rules in order to keep myself safe, I then downloaded the MyFitnessPal app in order to track my progress. 

MyFitnessPal keeps track of your calories and macronutrients for the day, giving you a calorie allocation based on your height, weight, and goal weight. The lowest calorie limit you can go, however, if 1,200. Any lower and it becomes unsafe. 

I'll be clear - any diet plan that recommends staying below 1,000 is DANGEROUS and should not be attempted. By K-pop idols or anyone. It's not healthy, it's not sustainable, and its miserable. 1,200 is the lowest you can go to lose weight and still be healthy, and even then that really depends on how well you know your body. Please see a doctor if you have questions about this, and if he/she tells you that <1,000 kcal is fine, find a new doctor. 

Also, a disclaimer: the following diet and exercise plan is a plan I created myself with a knowledge of my body and its needs (with the help of MFP). But, since everyone's body and tastes are different (I happen to really like egg and rice for lunch, for example), a plan you create for yourself may look different. Someone else may eat more food, or less food, and that's completely fine, as long as their minimums are hit and they don't go below 1,000 kcal (even below 1,200 kcal is...iffy.) But if you eat a hamburger for lunch, don't think that's "less healthy" than my rice and egg, because, really, what's a hamburger? Beef and bread. Protein and carbohydrates. What's rice and egg? Carbohydrates and protein. Tomayto, tomahto. 

I've already promised myself that I must hit at least 1,100 calories per day in order to stay healthy. That's nonegotionable. 

My first day of eating looks something like this: 

Breakfast
Scambled eggs (one egg, one egg white)
2 whole grain English muffins
1/2 cup of strawberries

Snack
Baby carrots (4.5 oz)

Lunch
1 cup of white rice
1 egg yolk 

Snack
Chai iced tea

With my 1,200 calorie allocation, I still have 611 calories left. I have not had dinner yet (most likely rice and salmon with some sort of vegetable), but I also might want to go get frozen yogurt after I finish writing this. Which is fine. It's okay to crave sweet things and it's okay to give in to those sweet things. I might just have 1/2 cup of frozen yogurt whereas before I might have gotten a whole cup. But when you deny yourself the things you crave, you just become miserable and more likely to binge later. And again, there's no such thing as "bad" or "good" or "unhealthy" food. 

My macronutrients for the day are:

68% carbs (MFP gives me a goal of 50%)
16% fats (MFP gives me a goal of 30%)
16% protein (MFP gives me a goal of 20%) 

Dinner and the frozen yogurt should balance it out, so I'm not particularly worried. 

In terms of exercise, I'm planning on going with on a walk with my dad after dinner, and using a seven-minute high-intensity workout app I downloaded on my phone. However, if I don't make it through the full seven-minutes, that's okay. I know my body's limits, and if I need to stop, I will stop. 

Also, I'm making sure to drink lots of water. I had a cup of coffee this morning because I just like coffee, but so far I've drank around 24 oz of water so far today, plus a 24 oz chai iced tea, so more like 48 oz of water. It's pretty hot where I live, so I should probably drink more water today to avoid heat exhaustion. 

So far, I'm pretty happy. I feel very accomplished, not hungry at all, and actually woke up earlier than I usually do with a lot more energy. Off to get my frozen yogurt now, so see ya!

- Kristy