Hi readers. I am moving my blog, tracynicolefitness.blogspot.com to tracynicolefitness.com Please bear with me through the transition. We should be up and running here by early next week!
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
"Failures Don't Plan to Fail, They Fail to Plan"
I think Harvey MacKay said it best. Going about the business of obtaining a goal without a plan for how you are going to accomplish said goal is just plain silly. I have been mulling over my plan for the last week. I am now down a total of 16 pounds as of my last weigh in. This is about the point where I would normally beat myself up. When I realized that it had taken me 6 months to remove 16 pounds of fat from my body, my first reaction was disappointment. Then I thought about it for a few days. Here's what it boils down to: I lost 16 pounds in 6 months without a clear plan. That's actually impressive. Actually, you can kind of think of it as weight loss by accident because it certainly was not by design! That's roughly 2.67 pounds per month without a strategy. Imagine what would happen if I put to use the wealth of information I have acquired over the past 5 years of yo-yoing. Over the next few posts I will be going over, in great detail, my strategy for the next few months leading up to the deadline for a contest I recently entered.
Today I want to talk about changing eating habits. I have done far to many diets to count. Some were more effective than others, but bottom line, none addressed the reasons I was overweight. As a result, I regained the weight every time. What I realize now is that lifestyle change is more important than how quickly the pounds can be shed. As a result, I have been more focused on learning how to schedule my exercise and eat for effective training. I have gone over a ton of material in recent weeks in a concentrated effort to learn how to fuel my body properly. The most helpful have been the Eat Clean Diet Recharged by Tosca Reno, and my new subscriptions - Clean Eating Magazine and Oxygen Magazine.
My taste buds are changing as time goes by. I am still not quite where I know I will need to be in that final push. I am still enjoying things like a daily serving of daily, a whole egg in my omelet and the occasional piece of dark chocolate. I recognize that those choices will hold me back, but I also know the pitfalls of too much too soon. I am treating this journey like the marathon it is. As eating clean becomes more natural for me, I will be able to fine tune my foods even more for optimal results. For right now, I am exactly where I need to be.
So what does this look like in practice? I am preparing healthy meals 2-3 times per week. Most of the recipes come from Tosca Reno's book or one of the magazines mentioned. We have a ton of tupperware in the fridge ready to grab and go. I realized that one of my major oversights was on how to be properly prepared in the shortest amount of time. I am a pretty busy person so if I'm running behind schedule and I'm starving, chances are I will hit the drive through if there is not a meal ready to go at home. Now I don't have to worry about that because I am better prepared. Next, I need to hunt around for clean protein bars and a to go shaker cup for those on the road emergencies.
Look out for my post on effective training regimens later this week!
Today I want to talk about changing eating habits. I have done far to many diets to count. Some were more effective than others, but bottom line, none addressed the reasons I was overweight. As a result, I regained the weight every time. What I realize now is that lifestyle change is more important than how quickly the pounds can be shed. As a result, I have been more focused on learning how to schedule my exercise and eat for effective training. I have gone over a ton of material in recent weeks in a concentrated effort to learn how to fuel my body properly. The most helpful have been the Eat Clean Diet Recharged by Tosca Reno, and my new subscriptions - Clean Eating Magazine and Oxygen Magazine.
My taste buds are changing as time goes by. I am still not quite where I know I will need to be in that final push. I am still enjoying things like a daily serving of daily, a whole egg in my omelet and the occasional piece of dark chocolate. I recognize that those choices will hold me back, but I also know the pitfalls of too much too soon. I am treating this journey like the marathon it is. As eating clean becomes more natural for me, I will be able to fine tune my foods even more for optimal results. For right now, I am exactly where I need to be.
So what does this look like in practice? I am preparing healthy meals 2-3 times per week. Most of the recipes come from Tosca Reno's book or one of the magazines mentioned. We have a ton of tupperware in the fridge ready to grab and go. I realized that one of my major oversights was on how to be properly prepared in the shortest amount of time. I am a pretty busy person so if I'm running behind schedule and I'm starving, chances are I will hit the drive through if there is not a meal ready to go at home. Now I don't have to worry about that because I am better prepared. Next, I need to hunt around for clean protein bars and a to go shaker cup for those on the road emergencies.
Look out for my post on effective training regimens later this week!
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Favorite Fitness Tools: The Body Bugg
Yesterday I completed another workout from Chalene Johnson's new series Turbo Fire. It was a great workout. The series is filled with even more dance moves than Turbo Jam and my uncoordinated body has a little trouble following. I don't mind that I look absolutely ridiculous. I am too busy being pleased with the calorie burn. Yesterday I managed 540 calories in the 45 minute video. I was impressed because I usually have trouble burning more than 300 calories using workout DVDs. It was just so fun that I couldn't help but get totally into it.
I talked about making a few changes to my strategy. One of those things is careful monitoring of calories in/out. I just purchased a handy little device called the bodybugg to help me with my efforts. You may have seen this gadget on The Biggest Loser or Losing It With Jillian. It looks like a black armband and you wear it for as many hours a day as possible to give you a picture of how you burn calories throughout the day.
I think the device is most useful if you purchase the accompanying software. The software allows to you to track your meals for a better representation of your daily calorie deficit. One thing I love about the software is that you can look at specific time windows so you know how much you burn during a workout and what the afterburn is like. I'm still learning to use this tool but I can already tell you this. I was grossly overestimating my daily caloric burn. Over the next few weeks I will be working on how to correctly portion and log my food to get the most accurate data from this tool as possible. I also really like that you can use your iphone to input your food. Now I have an excuse to go out and get an iphone!
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