When my jeans are a touch too tight I pull out the food scale, cut calories, and make myself miserable by piling on the cardio.  That just gives me a headache, makes me grumpy, and leaves me hungry.

I get that adding more fruits and vegetables is a good thing to do when you want to lose a few, and those are things I already enjoy, but no matter how hard I try, the joy of eating like something other than a rabbit and the desire to lose a few pounds always seem to stay at cross purposes.

I have always believed you can’t lose weight while still enjoying an unrestricted diet.  I’m not good at starving myself, sticking to a diet or counting calories.  I don’t  overeat, but I do like to eat food that tastes good.  To be perfectly honest, it isn’t even always about wanting to lose weight. Most of the time I just want to tighten up.

The blogger profiled in an article I read today in Shape Magazine makes more sense to me than cutting carbs, logging hundreds of miles on the treadmill, doing hours upon hours of crunches, sit-ups and other ab focused exercises that just seemed to leave me hungry and with an aching back, ever did!

Faith Brar profiled 24 year old Instagram fitness blogger, @Lindseylivingwell, who had open heart surgery at only 7 years old.  With her history, she has great inspiration to keep herself fit and healthy.  Like many others, she has tried many approaches to do that, finally settling on something that worked for her, and I think, works for me too!

“#transformationtuesday “skinny” v. strong 💪🏼 and sorry, I’m about to get sassy. • first of all, I hate the word skinny. I hate that people tell me I was “skinny” in my before pictures – I didn’t need to lose weight. and maybe they’re right. but the truth is I don’t give two shits about being skinny 👋🏼👋🏼 I don’t care if I have a fast metabolism. at the end of the day, if I’m not eating to fuel my body, it doesn’t matter if I’m skinny if I’m not healthy. • the girl on the left was doing whatever she could to keep a flat stomach. endless hours of cardio, restricting carbs and other food groups, limiting calories to 1100/day. weight loss was her number one goal. and honestly, she felt awful. • FLASH FORWARD to the girl on the right. hi, that’s me 🙋🏼 present day. that girl is lifting weights 3-4x a week. yes I still do cardio, but my main goal is to gain muscle, not lose weight. I count macros, consume 400+ more calories, AND still eat an occasional donut 🍩 I don’t care that I don’t weigh any less. I feel good. I don’t care that my thighs look bigger. it’s MUSCLE. I don’t want to look skinny, I want to be strong 💥 • my point is, don’t fixate yourself and your fitness journey on some skinny bullshit (sorry for the language). and if you’re one of those people messaging me, or anyone else, saying I “don’t need to workout,” shame on you. do whatever routine works for you and helps to be your best, HEALTHY self. healthy looks different on everyone 👊🏼 you got this. #YouKnowILoveAGoodRant #SorryNotSorry“

Posted by l i n d s e y ❃ 24 (@lindseylivingwell) on Jan 31, 2017 at 4:39am PST

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And, lest I fall down on my own blogger job, speaking of traditional ab routines that leave you with an aching back:

Keeping Lindsey’s lessons in changing my mind set at the top of my list, I’m off to the rowing machine to burn some calories and build some muscle at the same time.  Then I’m texting my husband and asking him to stop at In-N-Out on his way home.  What?  I’m not having him bring me a shake 😦 or a soda.

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