As my 6 month deployment winds down, I wanted to look back at my time here and to reflect upon my fitness goals. Deployment can be very unpredictable and the hours spend working can get a bit overbearing at times. A friend of mine told me that deployment can make a person one or two things in terms of fitness. You can either come back super fit and in the best shape of your life and what is widely known as “ deployed body ” or you can come back to the states fat and even worse than before. I was actually questioning the second part of the whole thing because I thought that deployment consist of 3 things: Lift, Sleep, Work, Repeat. The one thing missing in that phrase is actually the most important one: Eat. You see just like back in the states, there’s bad food everywhere – pies, croissant, ice cream, cake, chips, pop tart, and crepes.
I also had the best of luck (insert sarcasm) of being deployed around all the major junk food holidays starting with the candy filled Halloween. Boxes and boxes of care package arrived full of snicker bars and twizzlers and it just sits on a table and stares at you, knowing that sooner or later, you will give in. Did I mention the long hours ranging from 8, 12, 16 hour days with no days off? The candy bars just smiles…evil candy bars. We trying to get buff over here people! After Halloween there’s Thanksgiving and the big Jesus Birthday of Christmas in December. The old phase “ you are what you eat ” still rings true and it will never change. My goal was to actually lose 25 lbs when all is said and done but hey better to aim for the stars and land on the moon than to aim for the moon and get stuck on the light post. So how did I miraculously drop 15 lbs while deployed? Here are my top secret super squirrel tips on shedding the grizzle.
• Green light: The more greens I ate, the slimmer I felt. I felt like a rabbit half the time and I also ate my food with no dressing whatsoever. That got old after a while so I started adding..
• More colors: Beans, tomato slice, cucumbers, legumes. Those vegies added more color and variety to my diet and I didn’t feel like a big rabbit anymore.
• Be a chicken: Love to add that chicken breast. Pure protein and low on fat. But don’t forget to change it up.
• Sea it to believe it: Eating chicken gets boring after a while so I incorporated salmon and other seafood into my diet. It felt natural to me but I am an from the islands so if you’re a little iffy when it comes to seafood, I suggest starting with beginner seafood to ease you in: tuna, salmon, tilapia. You can’t eat chicken all the time. Live a little and “sea” what you’ve been missing.
• Avoid starchy food: White rice is the devil (my mother just disowned me) so avoid at all cost. Traditional pasta is also very bad for you so keep it to a minimum while deployed. I did have spaghetti on spaghetti Fridays or else spaghetti cat would cast her wrath on me.
• Don’t drink calories: Juice, soy milk, and sweet tea can stack up your calorie intake and throw your diet out the door. H2O. We are not robots so if you must have some sweet tea, limit intake to a minimum.
• Lift challenging weights: There’s a motto in the gym wall here that says “If it doesn’t challenge you it doesn’t change you.” Don’t limit yourself to certain amount of weight because you feel that it will bulk you up (ladies) or afraid to move up because…reasons. Step up, move up, and keep clanging and banging those weights. Speaking of challenging weights make sure that you do…
• Challenging workouts: Deadlifts, squats, lunges, planks, bench, and pullups. If you do just those exercises alone, you will be jacked!
• Don’t forget that cardio: I remixed my workouts with a 60/40 split. 60 percent weight lift and 40 percent interval treadmill running. I’m always toast when I do that workout but I succeed in my goal of…
• Ultimate sleep: Did you know that when you’re sleeping you burn a ton of calories? Get plenty of rest to maximize your gains. I know it seems counterproductive but its works.
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