protein

Protein is something that you should take in additional amounts after a hard strenuous workout. When you workout, your body has to break down the muscle in order for it to build it back up. When you eat extra protein it will help to repair the muscle and make it stronger the next time that you go for your workout. After I run, I make sure to drink a protein shake within the first hour. This helps with the muscle replenishing process and makes me feel better. In the picture above I have some of my favorite forms of protein that I take.

A boiled egg, 2 T Peanut butter on 1 slice bread, zone protein bars, Power bar harvest protein bar, Atkins protein shake (vanilla is my favorite), myoplex lite protein shake (powder form). You can also buy the myoplex in the already premade shakes at Sam's club.

If you want to know how much your body should be taking in each day for protein check out this link:

http://exercise.about.com/cs/nutrition/a/protein_2.htm

weight training

You want to consider adding weight training to your workout. Once you start to build muscle it will burn calories while at rest. It also will add a little shape to your arms and legs. Please do not worry about bulking up too much with weight lifting. You have to lift some major weights to bulk up as well as feed the muscle with protein. I do not think that any of us will lift enough to allow this to happen. Lifting weights is just something additional to change up your workout and keep your body guessing what will happen next. Sometimes we will get in an exercise rut where the body seems to have figured out how many calories we are going to burn before we even burn them. So it is a good idea to change up your workout every now and again to keep the body wondering.

benefits from walking

http://walking.about.com/od/weightloss/a/fitfatfast.htm

Walking is great for the body. It helps with bone formation and tissue regeneration with anti-aging benefits. In this article above it says that it doesn;t really matter if you are walking slow or fast, JUST WALK!

fruits and veggies

These little guys are very important to any daily diet. You want to make sure that you get your full servings per day. I do this by drinking an 8 oz. V-Fusion light (made by V-8) in the morning and sometimes for lunch and dinner as well. It has just the right flavoring to give you the sweet kick that you need and for every 8 oz. serving provides 1 full serving of vegetables AND 1 full serving of fruit. All for the low calories of 50 calories. I just love it! Please try this out if you can. It will become one of your favorite things to drink (besides water).

Another great snack that I LOVE is blackberries. You can eat a whole cup (around 20) for only 60 calories. Blackberries are high in fiber, vitamin C and abound in antioxidents. All may provide protection against cancer and chronic disease. Check out more blackberry and berry facts here.

http://www.southerngracefarms.net/blackberryinfo.htm

http://healthniche.blogspot.com/2007/06/grab-some-blackberries-even-while-using.html

week one weigh-in

1. Once everyone gets their blogs set up you want to make your first post with the picture of your scale and weight on it.

2. The next post you want to make is the exercise program that you will be following for the week. I have found that if you pre-plan your workout you will stick to it a lot better. There have been some days that I knew I had to run a certain amount of miles and could not do it until 9:00 at night after I put the kids down to bed, I ran to the gym to get the miles in. You want to burn 500 calories every time you go to the gym. You can do 20 min. on the treadmill, 20 min. on the elliptical, 20 min. on the bike and then if you still need to burn more, another 20 min. on the treadmill. You want to try and go 5 times a week. The more consistent you are with the exercise the more your body will take you seriously and start to drop the weight. Do not get discouraged after the first week. You usually will drop weight the first week of any weight loss program and then your body goes into a little bit of a shock and will hold onto calories the next couple of week. You need to just gear yourself up to seeing results more consistently after 3-4 weeks.

3. Go to my-calorie-counter.com and set up a free account and start to figure out the foods that you eat most regularly and add them to the journal. The great thing about this is that once you add a food it stores it and you can just find it easy at a later time. There is a place that will figure out your BMR and you want to click on that and add your weight/height/activity level and it will tell you how many calories your body burns each day on its own. In order to lose 2 lbs. a week you need to get rid of 7000 calories somehow. 1 lb. of fat = 3500 calories. What you want to do is take your BMR (it usually calculates a little high) and drop it some, then you want to take 500 calories off of that and that will be the calories that you can eat per day and then with the additional 500 calories that you will be burning you will be getting rid of 1000 calories per day and be able to drop the 2 lbs. that week. I need to be able to check these accounts regularly so you need to give me your username and password. I have found if you are held accountable for what you are eating, you will be more aware of what you put in your mouth. So with the weekly weigh-in and me checking in on your caloric intake it will help you control your eating a little easier. I can also give you some ideas of what to eat and you can always check out my calorie counter by using my username of kellybean407@yahoo.com and my password of skinnycow.

4. So now that you have a blog, exercise program, and calorie counter set up, you are ready to begin. Just know that this is going to be hard to form these habits and may take a full week to figure things out with keeping within the calories per day and such, but I guarantee that it will work for you and you will see results. Check back on this blog regularly for updates and helpful hints. Feel free to call and ask me questions at anytime and if you need some extra support. Good Luck!