It's time for a Healthy Lifestyle Update

Update time!!! Ok, so this time, it won't be a whopping huge weight loss number, lost only .5 lb of fat... but that's because I have gained muscle, that's right, according to my friend Janice (who took the pretty picture on the bottom), muscle weighs 3 times as much as fat. So far, I have lost 94.6 lbs of fat. That's pretty freakin' awesome. Check the 'during' and 'current' photo shots just to show off a little.

 

 During, having lost about 20 lbs   

 Now, having lost 94.6 lbs

So what amazes me is how awesome I feel now and how awesome I felt back then (December 2011), and how proud and excited I was to have embarked on this healthy living journey. It really is all about how you 'FEEL', I felt just as awesome as I feel looking at the picture of me now. But physically, my eyes can absolutely tell the difference, don't you agree! Sad to think that when I went for my Wharton Medical Clinic appointment I felt disappointed, deflated... really... that I had only lost  .5 lb. Well let me tell you, I decided to shake it off and decided to FEEL good by asking questions to my clinician about what I might do to make this process move along. Well she provided me with a wealth of information, that I will now share with you, so that I can get to my eventual goal of losing another 100lbs and I FEEL great about that challenge, because I have the drive, the energy and the passion to continue along my journey! Take that you half pound piece of .... fat. One of the big ones is to include more resistance training in my workouts to build more muscle.

Here's some helpful tips about weight loss plateaus provided to me by the Wharton Clinic taken from the advice of Dr. Natasha Turner, N.D.

• Mix up your workout. If you usually workout for 20 minutes, try 25-30 minutes and increase the intensity. Longer workouts are not always the answer, 150 minutes per week does seem to be the magic number that sparks weight loss.

• Try cardio first thing in the morning. Try doing 30 minutes of cardio on an empty stomach (no longer). This technique may make your body into kick-starting your metabolism.

• Pump some iron. Muscle is metabolically active tissue. Muscle mass determines the number of calories we burn daily while we rest. The more muscle we have, the more fat we can burn, even while resting.

• Make sure you are eating the right amounts at the right time. Don't skip meals, especially breakfast. Don't go too long without eating (Wharton clinic recommends eating every 2-3 hours). Eating the right foods frequently reassures your body that food is plentiful.

• Keep a food diary. ( I love using www.myfitnesspal.com, as you know)

• Drink lots of water. This is key! As fat cells begin to shrink, they release toxins that need to be removed from our system by our liver, kidneys and digestive tract. If we don't drink enough water to support these processes, the toxins may interact with our hormones and cause increased fat storage or inability to burn fat. Water can also make us feel full and regulate our appetite. We often think we are hungry but we may actually be thirsty. So this is what she recommends: (might not me the right formula for me though as I would have to drink 17 glasses)- multiply your body weight by 0.55, divide the result by 8 to determine the number of cups you need drink each day.

Ok, so I am going to start walking for 30 minutes in the morning on an empty stomach (4 days a week), double my water intake (well try!), and incorporate strength training by doing resistance bands 3 times a week. I will continue to do Zumba at least once a week and go for luxurious power walks on the weekend. Of course, continue to eat well and log my food on myfitnesspal.com. Sounds like an awesome plan, right! And who would have thought I would ever call power walks 'luxurious'?????