Its my first guest poster! Totally appropriate that its one of my best blogging buddies, Maren! I love Maren’s blog and her fun outlook on life. Plus she has an awesome jeep, wears super cute glasses and isn’t afraid to show her abs on the internet. Two thumbs up in my book! Thanks Maren, for stopping by!!

aaaaandddd…if you haven’t seen all of the awesome link up from yesterdays first official 23PAWS pet party…you HAVE to go check them out. What a fun party! If you still want to join in on the fun, the link up will be open until next week! Plenty of time to join in on the fun….

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Hey Eat, Pray, Tri readers!

I’m Maren and I blog over at a little blog called Maren’s Morsels. It’s a blog about finding a balance between healthy eats and midnight treats.

I haven’t done too many guest posts. But when Cinnamon asked me “pretty please with peanut butter on top” I knew, this I had to do. I’ll do anything for peanut butter… let’s be real.

Cinnamon… i’m expecting peanut butter. And lots of it!

Finding a Balance

I started “clean eating” almost 2 months ago because I knew I had to make a change. I have some digestive problems and I was ready to feel awesome again. Plus I was a little over weight. I’m 5 foot 10 and should be between 135-170 pounds. I weighed 175 pounds and was ready to lose a little bit of muffin… I still eat the muffins, please don’t freak out!

Let me say right now… I’m a very all or nothing kind of person. I’m either going to go 148% balls to the wall, hard core. Or I’m not going to do it at all. This makes dieting, training for races, and doing fitness regimens sort of challenging. I start a lot of things and quit them.

But this time was different. I knew I had to change my diet (when I say diet, I just mean how I eat every day) and it had to be for the long haul. None of this 2 weeks of success and quitting stuff. So I set out on a mission to

1)      Make my own new clean eating diet and
2)      Balance it out so that I could do it in the real world every day for the rest of my life.

Holy Moses, it sounds really intense just re-living it through this post. But it wasn’t. It was easy!

I’ve done countless diets, and they all worked. But I couldn’t ever maintain them once the strict “diet-phases” was over. So I knew I had to make something new that would work for me.

I made a few healthy guidelines to follow every day:

1. eat 2 servings of probiotics a day
2. drink 3 servings of tea (mostly green) a day
3. eat 2 servings of fruit a day
4. eat 2 servings of healthy fats a day
5. eat lots and lots of veggies
6. swap simple carbs for complex ones
7. limit sugar!!
8. eat dark chocolate every day
9. exercise at least 30 minutes
10. drink 8 8oz glasses of water a day

And that was it. Just by following these 10 little guides my diet completely changed. I quit eating processed food (naturally without trying). I started feeling awesome! I had more energy for workouts. And I was excited about food. Heck, I even started cooking.

There are days where I check off everything. And there are days where I don’t get all my fruit, or healthy fats. That’s okay. Every day is different, with different situations. The important thing is to try and get them all every day.

I still enjoy all my favorite foods. Ice cream, pretzels, blackberry margaritas, burgers and french fries. And do you want to know something awesome… I lost 15 pounds!

Yep… not even trying to.

They key for me is eating healthy but also having splurges. It’s all about balance. The splurges are what keep me on track. They keep me refreshed and ready to tackle a new day.

Honestly, I can count 1500 calories of food a day. I can even count 24 points worth of food. Anyone can. 2 months of counting isn’t too bad. But I don’t want to count every day forever. So making my own diet that let me be successful in the day-to-day real world was what I had to do.

In 2 months I’ve cleaned up my diet and feel awesome. I’ve created a way to eat healthy in the real world without cutting out my favorite foods. And I’ve lost between 15 and 20 pounds without trying.

Who says healthy living has to be hard?

Tagged as: guest post, healthy eats, Maren, Marens Morsels