How far before your wedding did you start really working out hard/eating amazingly?

kalinskik

My wedding is July 4th...I already am into health and fitness but I do loveee my sweets too so I started around New Years trying to eat very healthy and work out more and cut back on desserts but so far it seems like an epic fail!

Its been so hard to not want a healthier dessert after dinner or to work out 5 days per week.I do have P90X now and started doing some of that and insanity on top of normal trips to the gym to lift weights & do the elliptical, etc. But how far in advance are you starting to work out hard? Any tips/suggestions? 

Thanks!

unchatenfrance

Ditto Liatris. 

OK, so you're already "into health and fitness." Are you fairly lean and healthy, then? Perhaps the reason you're experiencing an "epic fail" is because you haven't set a goal of what exactly you want to achieve. "Avoiding dessert" indefinitely isn't really a tenable (or purposeful) goal. Do you want to drop 10 lbs? "Tone up" (build muscle) in your upper body to look better in your dress? Look into HIIT rather than steady-state cardio for quicker results. Allow yourself to eat a healthy dessert 1,2,3, however many times a week. Enjoy it on your dessert days, then be stricter on your non-dessert days so you can be good and earn that treat! That, or get your diet in check because you may not be eating as optimally as you think you are. Are you undereating on fat? That will cause sugar cravings. Eating enough fat and other nutrients will reduce sugar cravings.

Lobsters25

I'm with unchat on this one - if you already lead a relatively healthy lifestyle, then have you set any additional goals to hit before the wedding?  If not, that is probably the reason you don't feel on track.  IMO, you can't really be failing at anything if you have no tangible goals.

For me, I started p90x with H before the wedding, so that our last day of the program was two days before the wedding.  I also used MFP (and still do) during this time to keep my food accountable.

AdeleDazeem

I dunno... maybe the reason you feel like you've done an "epic fail" is because you tried to do too much.  Cut out all sweets, plus work out five days a week, plus eat even more healthily than you did before sounds like a recipe for disaster.  Too many changes at once and all of them hard.

I started about six months before my wedding with counting calories and running three days a week.  I knew there'd be a learning curve so I wanted to figure it out while I had time.  The calorie counting made all the difference in the world.  I picked "mildly active" as my lifestyle (I was walking two miles to work and back every day) and I tracked what I ate.  If I wanted a sweet or a glass of wine, I accounted for it.  If I worked out on top of everything I did every day, I accounted for my calories. 

There was no pressure to cut out each and every sweet or eat perfectly all the time.  There was no pressure to make it to the gym every single day and as long as I reasonably met my calorie goals, I considered myself a success.

I lost all the weight I needed about four months before the wedding, so I was able to bump up my calories to maintaining until the wedding.

lovelyheather

I was working out regularly before I got engaged in July, so I didn't really have to change anything there.  I started focusing on what I was eating (just a blanket cutting back on crap and booze) about a month after getting engaged.  And then I got so sick that I couldn't workout for over a month (the doctor specifically told me no running).  That was a huge set back for me.  I lost a lot of muscle tone and endurance for running and gained a few pounds as well.

So at this point, I am considering December as to when I got back on track with exercise.  January is when I started tracking calories through MFP.  Which was definitely an eye opener as I was eating all healthy foods, just too much of them.  My wedding is not until November, so I have plenty of time to deal with set backs and plateaus. 

[Deleted User]

I'm not getting married til late 2014, and I'm looking at getting a gym membership now, just piggy backing off my fiancé so we motivate each other to go!

kalinskik

thanks for all the tips. I completely agree with everything everyones said...I'm overall a healthy person but I set no specific goals for myself so I just need to decide what is most important to me, set a goal so I have a specific goal to work towards. I've tried tracking my calories and I did it for a bit but I did not follow through with it so I think I will try that again to help me stay on track. Thanks so much everyone, appreciate the advice!