The Bare Basics: Kristie. 24 years old. Canadian. Currently a third year post-university working non-student. Living. Figuring out how to figure things out.

I love food. I love nutrition. I love to be healthy.

A few years back I was overweight, unhealthy and unhappy.

Exercise? Nope. Pizza and chips? Yep.

Then I finally got fed up. Fed up with being unhappy with myself and uncomfortable in my own skin. I wanted to change. I needed to change. So I DID change.

Slowly but surely I started to ditch the junk food and bring in the vegetables. I started to get off my butt and get moving.

Now, with three years and over 40lbs of weight loss behind me, I’m finally there. I’m comfortable with my eating habits, I’m comfortable with my exercise habits, and I’m comfortable with myself. It’s taken a long time to get here, much longer than I ever anticipated from the start, but weight loss is not an overnight transformation and I had to learn that all by myself through trial and error.

There were no crash diets, no miracle pills, no secrets. Just small switches, one by one, to slowly but surely uproot and transform my entire lifestyle.

Healthy foods, exercise, motivation

That’s how I did it. That’s how I continue to do it. I’ve been maintaining my “happy weight”, give or take a few pounds, for almost a year. Now I’m concentrating on toning, broadening my exercise horizons, optimizing the quality and nutrition of the foods I eat, and expanding my passion for healthy living.

Guidelines:

- I eat as healthy as I can, incorporating plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables and trying to keep processed foods to a minimum. Nothing is off limits. I like my sweets. I try to keep it balanced.

- I exercise most days, trying to incorporate both cardio and strength training. I tweak and vary my exercises from day to day to keep it interesting.

- I fit in little bits of extra movement wherever and whenever I can. The extras add up.

Food makes me happy. I love messing around in the kitchen, I love trying new things and I love to eat.

Photography makes me happy. I’m a visual person and love going snap crazy with my meals.

Exercise makes me happy. I love pounding out a great run with the music blasting and I never feel better than after finishing a great workout.

Healthy makes me happy.

——-You can also read My Weight Loss Story at That’s Fit