Thanks!

Making meat a side dish just helps me eat it in proper proportion to serving size...much better to eat one delicious juicy BBQ rib on the side and serve yourself a big mound of veggies than to eat 3 or 4 ribs and just give yourself a little scoop of the good stuff.

I'm a carnivore at heart, so I kind of make meat my "reward" for eating healthy stuff I'd really rather not eat, like squash and broccoli. (I HATE broccoli and squash...)

I've also found that whatever you restrict actually tastes better than if you pigged out on it, because you slow down to savor the taste and experience.

As far as working out goes, I was trying to work out 7 days out of the week, but there's always one day where it's more difficult than usual - either I'm really sore, or I sleep in and don't get enough stuff done, or the gym is really busy and I don't feel like jostling for position on weights or machines.

No gym day usually falls on my cheat day, where I eat one meal of whatever I want (within reason). But even on the days I don't go to the gym, I still do a few sit-ups, push-ups, lunges, that kind of thing, just to keep in habit.

That's one thing I forgot to mention that works for me: "commercial" exercise. When I'm just lounging around doing nothing (which is a lot of the time because I'm a Leo and naturally very lazy ) whenever a commercial comes on, I do either 5 push-ups or 20 sit-ups. It really adds up and helps build my stamina overall.

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