From Fast Food to Fit Girl

In my first article I told you that I used to live a pretty bad lifestyle. A couple of months ago I met the girls of #FITGIRLCODE and felt really inspired to make a real change in my life. I want to share my story with you and maybe even inspire you to start (or continue) your own fit journey.

Fast food and energy drinks
I’m going to take you back to almost 8 years ago... When I was sixteen I started working in the fast food industry. I liked it a lot! I worked with a team of young people and not one day was the same. I’ve worked in several fast food restaurants since then. At some point I worked there fulltime and didn’t go to school. Almost four years later I was an energy drink-consuming, fast food eating, really unhealthy and unhappy girl. I wasn’t happy with whom I had become and I struggled with insecurities. I blamed everybody and everything for my unhappiness until I realized that I was the one responsible for my own happiness.

I decided I wanted to turn my life around and started with my education. I graduated with evening classes for my high school diploma (in Dutch: havo) and after that I went to college and started my communications study. Just after that I decided to quit my job at the fast food restaurant. It felt like a weight was lifted off my shoulders when I walked out of the restaurant for the last time.

The start of my fit journey
Walking out of the restaurant was the start of my fit journey. It took me a really long time and for almost a year it was really hard to adjust my lifestyle. I took many small steps. First I got a membership at the gym and started excercising about two times a week. I lost about 5 kg by eating - what I thought - was healthy. I still ate fries and I told myself that the sugarfree energy drink wouldn’t do that much harm. It took me a long time to be really honest with myself and to realize that my lifestyle was still really bad.

In September 2014 I met the girls from #FITGIRLCODE while I was doing my internship in the same building as the #FITGIRLCODE HQ. There I saw delicious meals they prepped every day. Especially the beautiful food that Fit Girl Anna created inspired me a lot. I ordered some Fit Girl goodies to motivate myself and read a lot of articles on Fitgirlcode.com to educate and inspire myself. Then I slowly started to replace some foods and drinks for healthier versions. Here are a few alternatives to my greatest sins.

•  Potato chips → nuts (almonds, macadamias or hazelnuts) or all kinds of fruits
•  Fries → homemade sweet potato fries, just peel or scrub your potatoes, slice them, sprinkle with some olive oil, sea salt and pepper and bake them for approximately 30-40 minutes at 220 degrees Celsius.
•  All sorts of candy → fruits, also sweet but healthy =).
•  Pancakes → banana and egg pancakes; mash up 1 banana and 2 eggs and bake in coconut oil.

One healthy meal at a time
If you want to change your lifestyle, give your body some time to adjust to the new food. At first I wanted to change my whole lifestyle in a split second. My body reacted really badly on the different food at first, I had real bad stomach aches and was nauseous. Then I realized I had to take it easy, adjusting my lifestyle one meal at a time. Of course your body may react differently, this is just my personal experience.

The #FITGIRLCODE goodies are really helping me to stick to my healthy lifestyle, I walk around with my Fit Girl beanie and bag all the time! It keeps me from buying bad food, because I would feel really guilty buying a hamburger while carrying my #FITGIRLCODE bag ;-).

I hope I’ve inspired you with my personal story. Feel free to ask me any question you may have and follow my fit journey on Instagram.

Love,

Lisanne