My mother for years had tried to get me to eat real almond butter, which is basically almonds grounded up to a paste, but I just wasn’t interested in it at the time. I finally gave in and tried it but in all honesty I didn’t like the way it tasted.

Shortly after I started changing my diet I noticed that my taste buds were also changing. I decided to give almond butter a second try and ended up really liking it the second time around.  I also discovered at that time that the natural peanut butter tasted pretty good too.

Not long after that I switched to almond butter I started reading the ingredients of the peanut butter I was buying for my kids.  I couldn’t believe what I saw; basically the peanut butter I was buying was loaded in sugar and Trans fats.

So I switched to buying real peanut butter, which is very similar to almond butter except that it is peanuts instead of almonds grounded up to a paste.  At first I had to slowly mix in the natural peanut butter with the regular store bought peanut butter for my kids.  It wasn’t long that I was eventually able to get my kids on the real stuff and completely off the store brands. Now days I mix the peanut butter and almond butter together and everyone loves it.  It is a great snack and I recommend trying it on the Cinnamon Raisin bread by Ezekiel.

Enjoy!

A short while after I started the diet I got really sick. I kept getting sick and I am not just talking about the cold and flu thing, I am talking headaches, joint pain, canker sores so bad in my mouth where I couldn’t eat, yeast infections and list goes on from there. I would be sick for two weeks and then well for one week and then sick for two weeks again.I was concerned with my health and scheduled an appointment with my doctor to see if he could figure out what was going on. At first my doctor thought that I may have Lupus. After pulling blood and running a bunch of test I was surpised at the diagnosis of my problem. The problem I had was a yeast overgrowth witch is commonly known as Candida. Because I drastically changed my diet my body was like ” WHAT ARE YOU DOING!”.I visited a few natural doctors and while some helped only a little, I did learn a few things from all of them. One of natural doctors put me on a Candida diet which was much harder then my regular diet. I believe what may have contributed to my yeast problem is that Saturdays are a free day in which I can eat anything I want. Allowing myself to freely enduldge in cheat foods on Saturdays has been one of the key ingredients to my diet success. Cheat days allow me to stick to my diet over time versus the Yo-Yo diets I did in the past. The Candida diet prohibited me from eating anything processed or with yeast and sugar in it. There were no cheat days with this diet so you basically have to stick it out day after day and week after week.

Lately I have discovered that eating canned vegetables has not helped at all with my hunger. As an experiment I recently started eating raw vegetables like crooked yellow squash, zucchini and red and yellow onions.  I simply just cut up and mixed the vegetables in a large bag with my own homemade dressing.  The ingredients are:

• Grape Seed Oil
• Olive Oil
• Flax Seed (liqued form)
• Paul Newman’s Italian dressing
• Salt (just a little here)
• Pepper
• Vegetables

I just dumped all the ingredients in a large Zip Lock bag (didn’t use specific measurements) and shook the bag to mix everything together.  Not only are the fresh vegetables better for you, they taste really good this way too. Not only is this low in calories, it is also great in the good fats. The plus side is that eating my vegetables this way seems to help with the hunger too.  Why don’t you give it a try and let me know what you think. 

The one thing I have learned from helping people and being a member of a few weight loss forums is that a lot of people do not know how to figure their calorie intake. Sometimes their caloric intake will be a little too high or too low but I see some cases where the caloric intake is extremely low.

When you reduce your calories at extreme amounts your body will think you are starving it. What usually happens is that you will lose weight at first but eventually your weight loss progress will hit a plateau and stop losing weight. As a result a lot of people will decrease their calories even more which ends up causing their body to burn their muscle for energy while saving the fat.

The most important thing I tell everyone is muscle is so important and you NEVER want to compromise it. The more muscle you have the more fat you will burn. Yes muscle does weigh more than fat, but in the long run if you have a “well built” machine then you don’t have to worry as much all the time about the calorie content in food. For example, have you ever seen a hard core athlete? They can eat things like pizza or ice cream, in moderation, and not worry about it as much as the rest of us because their body burns it up so quickly. Of course they can’t do this all the time or they would eventually have a weight problem. So my advice is don’t shoot in the dark on calories.  I recommend using the instructions below to get an estimate on how many calories you should eat in a day.

The first step is to calculate your BMR which is the number of calories you burn at rest.  Click here to calculate your BMR.  The next step is to multiply your BMR by your activity level.  This is used to calculate how many calories you burn a day (also known as your TDEE - Total Daily Energy Expenditure).

I personally decrease my TDEE by ~500-750 calories per day.

*It takes 3500 calories to burn a pound of fat so you will need to consume fewer calories than your TDEE if you want to lose weight. However, you don’t want to go too low and starve yourself!

Activity Levels 
Sedentary - 1.2 x BMR - television or office work as main activity
Light - 1.375 x BMR - exercise or workout 1-3 days per week
Moderate - 1.55 x BMR - exercise or workout 3-5 days per week
High - 1.725 x BMR - exercise or workout 6-7 days per week
Extreme - 1.9 x BMR- exercise or workout twice per day

I have really only hit the tip of the iceberg on how you can calcualte your calories but it should help you get started thinking that just eating less isn’t the best solution.  I highly recommend you learn more about your TDEE and the book that has really helped me understand a lot if this is Burn the Fat Feed the Muscle.  I have already recommended this book in a few of my previous post and if you are really serious about losing weight the right way then I personally feel it is a must read. Click here for additional details on Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle

Hello everyone,

I am back, not fully recovered, but I am back in the gym 3-4 days a week, well sort of.  Over the holidays things were kind of crazy for me with my knee surgery and both of my children’s birthdays also being in December. There were things that kept coming up and I didn’t always make it to the gym but I did always make it to the physical therapy sessionsJ.

We had a great holiday, a little too great. Since I wasn’t following the diet real well and not being able to work out the way I would like to, I gained 14 POUNDS in about 6 weeks L

I started back at work January 8th and I work 2nd shift in a hospital.  I’m now back into a schedule of not getting as much sleep and I was recently hit with a BAD cold. I was sick for 2 ½ weeks so of course I didn’t follow the diet that well (didn’t eat much) and didn’t workout.

I’m finally over my cold now and this past week was the first week I followed the diet to a T J and worked out 3 times, including PT.  I would have liked to have gone to the gym more this past week but life does happen (Dr.’s appt.’s). However, I lost 4 pounds this week and feel like I’m back on track again.

Lately I have been reading a few health related web forums and it appears that most people are looking for the same thing.  I think that a lot of us are searching for the magic solution to get rid of the fat and permanently become thin. There are so many people, including myself, that have spent hundreds if not thousands of dollars searching for the magic pill.

However, the funny thing is that I have personally seen men and women transform their bodies without a magic pill but through diet and exercise alone.  I have seen examples of both men and women that started at around 20-30% body fat slim down to a low 3-12% body fat in a matter of 12 to 20 weeks. I even witnessed my husband accomplish these types of results when he competed in a bodybuilding contest several years ago. It is amazing the amount of will power it takes to stick with the diet and exercise routine but the results are astonishing.

I always tried to lose weight via a random diet and/or exercise program but failed to no avail. It wasn’t until I became sick and tired of being fat and feeling unhealthy that I decided to change me life (the weight loss contest was a big motivator too). I never thought I would be able to stick with a diet routing but then again I never thought I would achieve the results I have accomplished so far. I can truly say that the only solution to lose weight is getting the RIGHT information and putting it into practice.

If you are just starting out on a diet program then I highly recommend reading Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle.  I have learned a lot about what to eat and when to eat from this ebook.  However dieting alone, as Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle will tell you is only half the equation.  You still need to exercise and for that I recommend joining your local gym or fitness center.  It’s not the easiest journey but if done right it is the one that produces the best results.

I wish everyone the best of luck on their journey

Since changing my diet this past year I have learned so much about the American diet. I now read the ingredients of everything that I buy and have discovered that most of the foods we eat are REALLY bad for us.  Take for example enriched flour; do you know what that really means? It means that the flour has been processed so much that they have stripped out the good stuff and had to then enrich or add back to it the quality nutrients. Yuck!

Another example of a common ingredient in a lot of our food is corn syrup.  Have any ideas of what corn syrup does to your body? You have sensors in your body that tell you when you are hungry and when you are full. Well, corn syrup stops the sensors from telling you that you are full which results in you eating more.  Corn syrup will also spike your glucose levels which in return will cause the glucose levels to go down fast, crash, resulting in you wanting eat more.

Milk, wow I can’t say enough. The milk you buy at the grocery has been possessed so much that there really is nothing left that is good for you. Not to mention the antibiotics and hormones that goes into the cows.  YUCK!! Now if you love milk then I recommend finding a good source that doesn’t give there cows all the hormones and antibiotics. My kids can’t drink it and I don’t really like it either. Most of the time we use almond milk as a substitute which has as much calcium in it as regular milk and almonds are REALLY good for you too.

One last example of a bad ingredient that is commonly found in a lot of the foods we eat is Trans fat or hydrogenated fats.  These fats have to be one of the worst things for your body!  One of the major side effects of Trans fats is that your body can’t recognize it so it stores it in your arteries.

Make sure that you read all your labels when buying groceries.  You will be amazed at the amount of junk that is included in most of the products you buy.

It is pretty common knowledge that you are suppose to drink 8 to 10 glasses (size 8 oz) of water a day but if you are working out hard each day your body will require more. I personally drink 1 1/2 gallons of water a day but I do have a very active workout routine.  I workout in the mornings and probably drink around 1/2 a gallon when I am at the gym (between my cardio and weight training).

Benefits of drinking water

• Helps remove toxins and waste from the body
• Helps metabolize body fat
• Helps pass nutrients into the muscles

A few of the negative effects of not drinking enough water are:

• Headaches
• Fatigue
• Muscle weakness
• Dizziness
• Excessive thirst

A few tricks when drinking water.

• Drink it cold (uses a few more calories to warm up the water, plus warm water does not settle well with my stomach)
• If you are having a hard time drinking a gallon a day then take an old one gallon milk carton and fill it up with water.  Make sure you take your gallon of water with you wherever you go and don’t go to bed until you finished the entire jug.

Keep in mind that drinking lots of water is not a weight loss gimmick but one of many tools to help you achieve a healthy and leaner body.  You still have to exercise and eat right if you want to achieve great results.

 

Looks like I am heading for another big challenge in my life, I am having knee surgery on Monday (December 4th). I tore my ACL a couple of years ago and have never done anything about it till now.

I am nervous and scared, however the funny thing is that I am more scared about gaining weight then I am about the actual surgery. Just the other day I was talking to a good friend telling her I was more nervous about having a root canal than major knee surgery. I am so scared of the dentist (I think they are evil ). It’s an old story, I had a bad experience with a dentist once and that scarred me for life. However I have discovered that nitrous is a good thing :-).

But anyway, the knee surgery is supposed to be bigger than what I originally thought. I told the doctor that I had 2 c-sections and recovered very well from them and I wasn’t worried.  My doctor said this surgery is going to be a lot harder of a recovery.  I asked the doctor when I will be able to get back in the gym.  My doctor informed me that I will be seeing a physical therapist shortly after my surgery and they will work with me on my recovery. So I will keep you updated as I can through all of this.

Today I was looking on the net at a few weight loss stories to help motivate me (yes sometimes I need a little motivation too). I was very saddened that a lot of these people lost weight but still did not look very healthy. They didn’t talk much about weight training and cardio, just the food they ate. I mean if you are over weight and want to look good without extra skin or fat rolls you still need to work out. Exercise not only helps you loose weight, it is also good for your heart, lungs, and joints. Another great benefit of working out is the more muscle you have the more fat you burn which in turn means you can eat more( doesn’t mean you can go crazy and eat what you want all the time).

Food is definitely a big part of loosing weight but not all of it. You can only cut back on your calories so much before your body adapts to it. This brings me to the concept of my cheat day. Six days a week I eat clean like the weight loss diet that is posted on this site.  On Saturday I break free from my weekly routine and eat what I want all day long.

Not everyone agrees with the whole day as a cheat day concept.  Some experts only recommend a cheat meal but so far the entire cheat day has worked well for me (plus if it isn’t broke then don’t fix it). The cheat day also really helps me to stick to the diet all week. However, the greatest benefit of a cheat day is that it shocks my system enough so that I have many few weight loss plateaus. If you think about it, I get to eat whatever I want once a week and still come in 1-2 pounds lighter every week.

Basically my weekly routine is like this.  On Saturday morning I wake up and measure all the body parts that I want to track my weight loss progress on (arms, belly, waist, etc).  I also weigh in to keep track of my weight loss.  Just the other day I went back and looked at my measurements from a year ago and I have lost 10 inches in my waist and another 10 inches around my belly. I wrote my old measurements down and put them on my bathroom mirror to remind me that I DON’T ever want to go back there.

Once my measurements are done, I then make a B line to the fridge. About every other week, depending on time, my husband and I will calculate our body fat percentage to make sure that my body fat percentage is decreasing.  Another modification that I have made with the diet, in addition to my cheat days, is how I handle holidays and special occasions.  Last year during the holidays or special occasions we didn’t budge from the diet during the week. 

Now days we allow more flexibility in our diets during the holidays and/or special occasions.  For example if it is my mom’s birthday I will enjoy a small piece of cake. However, I will do ~ 10 extra minuets of cardio the next morning. My body now seems to burn calories better than it use to and the holiday or special occasions do not seem to hurt my overall progress.  As long as I am conservative about everything I can quickly get back on track to losing 1 - 2 pounds a week even after a fun holiday.