Do you struggle with managing your weight? Go to this website to calculate your BMI and see if you need to be worried about your weight and to see wehre you fall.
Managing ones weight is something that I struggle with as well.
I had a horrible food day today. The cravings and accessibility and MSG got to me again. Cici's Pizza got to me. Ugh. I literally ate 1,639 from one to go meal from Cici's. That's not counting the salad I had from CiCi's (which wasn't bad calorie wise). Had I not eaten the items other than the salad at CiCi's, I would be at 1047 calories for the day. That's including a lean cuisine, pudding dessert, some indian corn, apple, and walnuts for dinner and evening snack!!
Do you realize what you're putting in your body?? The crazy amount of calories, fat, sodium, and sugars you're consuming???
If you don't and you're even partly aware of how negative the effects of obesity are, you need to educate yourself. There are countless sources of information -- some good, some bad. But if you need to become more aware of your food intake, I highly highly HIGHLY recommend that you begin a food diary.
There are many ways that you can keep a food log. You can get a cute notebook, a little notebook to fit in your pocket/purse. Or you can use a fantastic free tool that is available to anyone --- Livestrong.com. All you do is register, and you can enter everything you eat and when you eat it. It adds up your calories, fat, fiber, sugar, and sodium to help you track your nutritional intake. It also has a coordinating tool that lets you log the exercise that you do. It calculates those calories and helps you see the caloric balance.
When it comes to weight loss, it's important that you consume enough calories for your body's needs. These need to be good calories, however. That give you the vitamins and minerals and basic needs. To calculate your Basal Metabolic Rate, go to this website. If you choose to diet, you should NOT go below this amount!!
Weight loss is all about caloric balance -- balancing the amount you take in (food) with the amount that you burn away (exercise). When this balance is negative (the exercise outweighs the food), you should be in weightloss. When this balance is positive (the food outweighs the exercise), you will be looking at weight gain.
However, it's not as simple as stopping eating. Like I said before, you have to eat. If you do not eat (balanced, healthy meals), your body goes into starvation mode. It begins to eat itself -- and I'm not just talking about fat. Your body will go after your muscles first because it's high in protein and nutrients that it needs. And when you starve yourself, everything that you do consume (healthy or not) is converted to storage (fat). So you have to eat!!! The key is eating balanced, healthy meals that are lower in calories, fat, sodium, and sugar.
This is certainly no easy task. But it's not impossible. Start with a food diary. Don't try to change your habits the first couple of days, and then look back on what you wrote down (write everything down -- you'll be the only one who sees it anyway!). Did you get the recommended servings of fruit and vegetables? How much of what you ate was convenience food (fast food)? How much was pre-packaged (typically loaded with sodiums and sugars)? What were you drinking? Water? Tea laced with sugar? Soda? Alcohol?
Then ask yourself some questions -- how can you start making some changes? Can you make homemade potato chips in the microwave instead of pre-packaged fake chips? Can you substitute carrots for chips to get that same crunch factor? Can you trade in soda for diet soda, or even better for water? Can you switch out the pork and hamburger for turkey and fish? How can you get more fruits and vegetables in your diet??
Diet is crucial to weight loss.
But so is exercise.
Here's a butt kicking workout you could try:
Elliptical: 10 minutes, resistance 10
Tabata Elliptical: resistance 12+ (google "Tabata" for more info)
Elliptical: 10 minutes, resistance 10
Circuit:
- Suicide
- 20 pushups
- 20 lunges
- 20 squats
- Military Crawl or Inch Worm across basketball court
- 20 full sit ups (no cheating!!!)
- High knee run across basketball court
- 4 laps around basketball court
- Repeat at least 3 more times for a total of 4 rounds
This workout will kick your butt!!! It will burn some serious calories, and leave you feeling deliciously sore. If you're new to exercise, you may hate this soreness. But if you've been exercising for any length of time, you know how much you look forward to that feeling. I love the soreness. Yes, it's like that song "I get off on the pain"
Hope those were some good tools! :)
I'll be posting more on this topic as time continues on.
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