Its been 8 weeks tonight since I had my baby boy. I’ve been cleared by my doc and I’m ready to run! I’ve been upping my workouts and intensity slowly, but now I am ready! Now where do I start? As a fitness coach I am asked this question A LOT and being on this side of the journey (again) I know EXACTLY how it feels!
Where do I begin? How can I do this? CAN I do this? Is it possible?! questioning myself and double thinking my ability to meet my goals is normal, its human-BUT- its what you do from here that counts! I will not let it stop me! So back to the question- where do I start?!
To answer this I will reflect on the last time I started my journey, before becoming pregnant with Ezekiel I had logged in a 75lb loss and I started that journey horribly! I spent countless hours working out, was at the gym daily, was pushing myself more then ever before- but was getting zero results! Because my nutrition was what needed adjusting. Its easy to sweat, we all know how to workout- but we don’t know how to eat, or should I say- how to eat CLEAN! So I will be spending the next month focusing on clean eating and I have a goal of reducing my weight by 15lbs! yes! My goal is drop 15lbs in a month-impossible? we’ll see! Will you join me? I’d like to have you on this journey with me! I will be hosting an Eat Clean & Get Lean challenge- you want in? please post here & like my page on Facebook www.facebook.com/fatmomtofitmom
Be checking this blog & my facebook page for more details to come and for updates on my journey! I’d love to hear from you! please comment below!
Posts Tagged lose fat
My journey to fitness part 2! Where do I start?
Join My November Eat Clean & Get Lean Challenge!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGng6ZFFszU]
Interested? Go to challenge.fatmomtofitmom.com for more information and to sign up!
Why it’s important to take a before picture
Everything has a beginning, every book, every life, every journey. There is always a start. Your fitness journey will/or did also. Do you have a before picture? Do you have a physical way to remember the way you were before? Do you have a way to visually measure and see the difference your efforts have made? I can personally tell you that having that before picture makes all the difference when you’re busting your butt or when you feel like you are spinning your wheels for nothing, or when that plate of cookies looks so yummy. Empower yourself with a before picture today. Go find those jeans that you keep avoiding to get rid of because you WILL fit in them one day. Put them on, even if they only pull up to your knees and take a picture. Use your phone, no one else has to see it. It exists to empower you and to help you see the changes when you feel hopeless or like you want to give up.
my before picture:
I’m not proud of the way I look here. This was taken May of 2008 and I am 201 lbs here. I had my baby girl in March of 2008 and well ya know I’ve already been on this soap box. But something about this picture- it now lives on every one of my business cards I hand out. My 19 month old daughter held my business card and pointed at my current picture and said “Mommy!” then I asked her who was in my before picture. She stared at it, then shrugged her shoulders and said “I dunno!”. Wow, my baby doesn’t know that woman, and I never want her to.
My current picture:
60lbs lost and feeling like a rockstar!
So I never thought I’d EVER post pictures of myself anywhere, let alone the internet- where ANYONE can see them. I’m kinda a private person, but I have learned the benefit of taking and posting my before and current pictures.
I had initially resisted because i thought it would be so embarrassing for people to see me especially in a bikini. And its online so my nephews or my pastor or my husbands co-workers could see them! But I did it, i took a leap of faith and I did it because I realize two things. 1-People needed to see the change and 2-I needed to see it too.
You can tell people all you want about the benefits of getting fit or how awesome a workout is or how eating clean makes you feel, but when it comes down to it, when I slap down my business card with my pictures on them thats when I get a response. They can see the change. I wholeheartily agree that the change inside is soo much greater then what can be seen outside, but what I display outside is my only way to communicate the wonderful changes inside. I have blogged before of how I felt physically and emotionally before the fat loss, but no words can really do them justice so I can give you my pictures.
In seeing the responses and people telling me how motivating my success was being for them, I became a believer in posting pictures.
We are the only one who is with ouorselves every minute of the day. We are the ones who see ourselves in the mirror, we are the ones who can feel that bulge over our pants when we sit. We are the ones who notice the jiggly or bumpy or whatever on ourselves. Something I noticed is that the self critiquing, though is lessens and the focus shifts, it’s still there. I don’t hate myself anymore. I don’t get depressed and cry endlessly because nothing will zip or sit right, but It is so easy for me to feel like I am back at square one and feel like I look yucky because that old fat Rossy is still in there deep inside and she tries to come out and bring new Rossy down and she is so sly sometimes. But I am empowered with that before picture. I know I am a different woman now, because I can see it!
Well? Go take your picture! You’ll be so happy you did!
first things first!
When I started my journey to fitness in March of 2008 I was lost, but I had motivation; 1- my daughter and husband & 2- my pre-pregnancy jeans.
When I got home from the hospital and quickly grabbed my jeans and put my feet into the legs of the jeans and pulled them up. I was still bent over when the tops of my jeans with zipper undone came to an abrupt stop at the bottom of my thighs. Though this and stepping on the scale the same day were the most depressing realizations of my life I was determined! I didn’t know how, or when, but I was going to get those jeans back on!
At this point of my life I knew two truths about losing weight; 1- I needed to eat less & 2- I needed to workout longer.
It was about 5 months of working out 2-3 hours a day 5-6 days a week and eating what I thought was about 1000-1200 calorie diet before I found out that my fitness truths were the biggest lies!
I don’t even know how, but I stumbled upon an amazing resource called clubfym.com. There is where my whole world was rocked and everything I thought I knew about getting fit was thrown out the window.
I will blog about clubfym in the very near future; I really urge you to check it out yourself, but for now I want to clear up something I think EVERYONE will think is crazy- to lose the weight I have in the last 6 months I have eaten MORE then I have ever in my life! Yup, you heard right, I eat waaaayy more now then I did ever before and I am still losing weight!
What stops you from wanting to believe me is the programing we have all done in our minds that eating less(aka- dieting)= losing weight. But let me school you a bit 🙂 Your body is an amazing machine perfectly designed to work in your best interest and keep you alive. So with that let me explain some extreme basics of nutrition.
Calories=energy
your body uses energy for EVERYTHING that is does, breathing, eating, digesting and every other function your body does without you doing anything to actually get it done. So your body needs energy! another words- your body needs calories. Naturally you want to know how many, your BMR basal metobalic rate- is your bare minimum. Your BMR is what your body needs to do all of those basic things. Before I help you find that number (which is different for everyone, let me explain further). If you are currently eating lower then your BMR then you are telling your body that you will not give it the minimum it needs to stay alive and this is when your body goes into starvation mode; holding onto anything it can to keep itself alive. Want to guess what form it keeps it in? You guessed it! FAT! yay!
So! if you are eating below your BMR, cause of whatever lie you have bought into, but you are so frustrated cause eating should= losing weight OR you say, well I’ll eat less for like 2 weeks and I can drop 5lbs and then I’m fine. Let me school you some more. Dropping your calories will make you lose weight, but the drop on the scale is going to be water weight or worse, muscle loss!
Then you may come back at me and say “I don’t care what I lose, I just want to lose lbs!” I beg of you to keep on reading and listen to this! Muscle is where your metabolism lives! Muscle burns fat! Muscle takes up less space! You lose muscle if like you are losing horses pulling a chariot. Less horses pulling, the harder the others have to work to pull the weight. Get it? more horses= easier, faster, smoother ride. I’ll get off my muscle soapbox now and return to my calorie one 🙂
ok, lets recap; BMR= the least amount of calories you can eat to keep your body alive, you go under your BMR and you are spinning your wheels and packing on more fat- no matter how hard you work out.
Now, lets visit the other end of spectrum. Max calories (for someone wanting to maintain or lose weight) is your TDEE(total daily energy expenditure). This takes into account your BMR and how active you are. Going over your TDEE is extra calories and what do you think your body does with the extra? yup! right again! FAT!
When I learned this last Oct. when I joined clubfym.com I was blown away. I was being told that my BMR(or minimum calorie intake) was 1550 and my TDEE(or max calorie) was 2300! And all my prior information from various sources told me that I should be eating 1200 calories! This was epiphany #1
Epipahny #2 came when I decided right then and there that I was going to log my food intake with a food log, I was going to eat normally and just write it all down and count calories- I had never done this before. But I could eyeball a serving size, calorie ranges etc, right?… WRONG! After week one this is what my calorie intake looked like:
monday-800 calories, tuesday: 2300 calories, wednesday: 400 calories, thurday: 2800 calories, etc.
So what was I telling my body nutritionally? I was telling it, I’m not going to consistently give you enough calories to live, I will give you an abundance one day and barely anything the next. My body was out of control and all my efforts were in vain.
Up until these epiphanies I really thought I ate healthy and that I didn’t need much help nutritionally. Everything I bought was low-fat or fat-free, I bought 100 calorie packs instead of the regular stuff, we drank only soda. What I failed to understand is what my body needed. I was feeding my gut, now I feed my muscles- more on that to come!
So here are some links for you to find out where your calorie intake should be:
BMR: remember this is the bare minimum calorie intake your body NEEDS!
http://www.bmi-calculator.net/bmr-calculator/
TDEE: this is your max to stay exactly where you are! you can minus 500 to go for -1lb/week w/ exercise and good nutrition!
http://www.bestdallaspersonaltrainer.com/energy-expenditure-calculator.html
Find out what it is! I bet you’ll be surprised, now this is not a free pass to make you feel like now you can order that six-dollar burger 2x a week, but fill your body with clean food- you will be so surprised how much more you will have to eat to make up your calorie goal- on the other hand you will be surprised how fast it can go if you are eating out or eating a lot of processed foods.
Track your current calorie intake! I was sooo surprised that my calorie intake was out of control before, I seriously thought I eyeballed about 1200 calories a day- I was so off. I love thedailyplate.com to track my food, I tell it what I eat and it tells me how many calories! use it! They even have a cool iphone app!
First things first- everyone needs to know their daily calorie range/goal to lose fat and gain lean body mass(muscle), whether you are a calorie counter or not. I now only count calories one week a month to make sure I am still on track. I also use a food scale to make sure I know my portions better.
To your health & fitness!
ps- I got to my pre-pregnancy weight and fit back into my pre-pregnancy jeans on December 21st, 2008 🙂