What I ate

What I ate today as someone new to the Vegetarian eating plan.

Breakfast: Almond dairy-free peach yogurt, 1 banana, oatmeal – 700 calories

Lunch: Couscous curried with almonds and cranberries, broccoli and cheese Steamers, Simply Nature Mango Fruit bar – 320 calories

Dinner: Seasonal mixed fruit, Amy’s Mattar Paneer, fudgecicle – 510 calories

Snacks: Veggie Snack Tray (tomatoes, snap peas, carrots), roasted garlic hummus, Roasted Garlic and Herb Baked Pita Chips, dried fruit – 925 calories

Notes: that yogurt alternative was not very good, it didn’t taste anything like greek yogurt which is what I am accustomed to eating, I have 3 more cups of that stuff, I hope the other flavors are better.

Day 1- Vegetarian Groceries

I ordered my main vegetables and fruit and groceries online at Wal-Mart today, cost $97.00. I can’t pick it up till tomorrow.

Today I did venture out to some of the other places people on the Vegan and Vegetarian Facebook groups suggested.

At Aldi’s I got 3 boxes of non dairy real fruit bars , fruit and nut trail mix, fig bars, sweet and salty nut granola bars. Total : $18

At Target I got these Artichoke and Parmesan Swirls, which I had for lunch today, they cost $4.49 and were very good but also very high calorie (600 for the box): 

At Target I also bought – Smoked Gouda Mac N Cheese, Butternut squash and Sage ravioli,  a couple of meatless burritos (they have seitan in them), thai green curry, total $21

At Dollar Tree I picked up 2 packs of almond cookies, a frozen lemonade cup and a cinnamon roll with icing in the fridge section – total $4

Total $43 for a lot of snacks and some food. Plus the $97 I spent at walmart comes out to $140, that’s double my allotted weekly grocery budget so hopefully this stuff lasts almost 2 weeks.

Overate

I started off the day eating healthy low calorie foods and ended it going over my allotted calories for the day.

Today was the start of bootcamp again. I’ve given up trying to get on the ground. I just go to a bench and do my own version of the modified exercises.

After bootcamp me and mom went to Sam’s Club to get me some greek yogurt. Then we went to Ninfa’s Mexican Restaurant and ordered food to go. I ate too much enchiladas. Actually these enchilada’s were so fattening and good that I don’t think there is any amount of them I could have eaten that would be healthy. so much gooey cheese and sauce and crawfish. Yum!

I got my new water bottle and I drank 32 ounces of water today. Much More than normal.

What I ate today:

Breakfast: 2 slices of Sara Lee diet bread toast, 2 T strawberry preserves, TraderJoes Greek Mango yogurt (300 calories)

Lunch: 2 slices of Sara Lee diet bread, 1T Miracle Whip, 2 slices Thin cut slices natural cheese, 2 oz. Hillshire Farm Rotisserie Seasoned Chicken Breast (267 calories)

Dinner: smothered crawfish enchiladas (1,064 calories)

Gonna eat alot of peaches

I love peaches.

My mom said when she was pregnant with me she ate alot of peaches and avocados. (My first word was “Cado” short for avocado)

I use to buy canned peaches all the time but now I eat fresh peaches instead.

So it comes to reason that I would not be able to resist the Chobani peach greek yogurt. As I mentioned previously they sent me 16 oz cups of it. My plan was to eat 1/2 of it which is considered 1 serving. That was the plan. So I ate half of it and put it back in the fridge. Then I kept getting up and going to the fridge and eating another spoon of it. The chunks of peach in it was irresistable. Eventually I gave up my will power and just ate the rest of it. 16 ounces of peach greek yogurt in one day. It was definitley overkill. I like it better than ice cream now though so its my dessert.

This morning I walked 4.3 miles with my 10k training group from the Runners Den. Burned like 350 calories. Afterwards we went to Luci’s for our after workout breakfast. I had a omelet that had chicken chorizo in it. It wasn’t as good as I was hoping it would be, I think I wanted it to taste more “chorizo-ey”. I ate half of it. Then I went to Bodyworks. Burned 250 calories.

I don’t want to harp on this too much but I gained 3 lbs this week. I noticed it the day after I went out with my boyfriend last Wednesday night and had a shrimp quesadilla. My calories for that day was like 3000. Since then I’ve kept my calories at around 1800, with 2000 being the goal, and I’ve been working out over a hour each day. Worked out for 2-1/2 hours yesterday and today. The 3 lbs have NOT budged. My official weigh in day is tomorrow and I hope that I trend back downwards. It’s very frustrating to be trying to FIX a mistake instead of progressing. That’s what bothers me the most about this. I seriously thought I was going to cry. I definitely learned my lesson. I wont go out after I’ve taken my Geodon meds because it makes me really sleepy and crave fattening foods.

This week in general I ate out alot. I had chicken wings on two nights I think, I had a low calorie turkey sandwhich from Subway, I had sushi. I only ate above my caloric range on Wednesday night though. I haven’t started carrying my food with me yet, but I really need to. I just don’t understand…. am I supposed to eat my food cold when I bring it with me? cause I’m not near a microwave sometimes. So I would be eating cold broccoli, spinach and chicken. That’s the reason I haven’t started packing my cooler. I’m not sure what to bring with me.

Chobani Goodness

I’m currently eating my dessert which happens to be 8 oz. of Chobani Champions Vanilla Chocolate Chunk Greek Yogurt. It is sinfully delicious. It feels healthier than eating vanilla chocolate ice cream and more protein which is the benefit of greek yogurt. Chobani sent me a huge box of 16 oz. cups of yogurt today to review and I will love them forever for it. Greek yogurt is currently the only dairy I eat because I’m lactose intolerant. I actually have tried other brands of greek yogurt, but I keep coming back to Chobani. It’s not as tart as the others and its thick and creamy. This 8 ounces of vanilla chocolate chunk greek yogurt has 270 calories, 7 g fat, 32 carbs (32 grams of sugar) and a whopping 18 grams of protein. I love the loads of little bits of real chocolate chunks in it, this was so good I licked the cup. Yum! So happy I have some left. I do recommend you buy this.

 

BTW I made a video update today:

AZ Pro Physiques

Last night I was having serious buyers remorse about that LA Fitness personal training. I emailed a woman who is training for a Figure competition who also goes to LA Fitness and she said

“Lesson 1: Never work w/ a trainer from a chain gym. Lol. Most of them are clueless idiots and LA Fitness trainers are the worst I’ve seen. I workout at an LA. Fitness and a lot of what I see is AWFUL.”

Then I also searched LA Fitness personal training on google and its filled with horror stories and complaints from people. Also I was unsettled about having had to work out on my own the first time yesterday. But primarily I have doubts that the trainers at LA Fitness know the proper way to train someone whose goal is to be a figure competitor.

The woman who is training for Figure also said

“If you want to work w/ an in person trainer, look for people who are either former bodybuilders or athletes. Also look into people who are independent trainers or who own their own studio.”

So that made me remember Felicia Romero and Whitney Jones fitness studio called AZ Pro Physiques. The two of them are both IFBB fitness and figure Pros and sponsored athletes. I had looked at the website previously but thought it might be too expensive for me and too far away. But I went to check out their website again last night: http://www.azprophysiques.com and it currently quotes a price as low as $30 per session. That’s only $5 more than what I’m paying LA Fitness. I immediately sent them a email.

This morning I didn’t even wait for a response, instead I drove one hour up to AZ Pro Physiques in Gilbert, AZ and talked to Whitney Jones about their studio and training. I really loved what I heard and saw there. I’m confident that they have the knowledge and experience to help me get to the figure stage. Their studio is pretty far away for me, 37 miles each way, but she said there are people that come up from California to train with them. I feel like if they can do it, I can do it. I’m very determined.

I didn’t sign up immediately because I want to make sure I can cancel my LA Fitness personal training agreement first. I mailed a certified letter to LA Fitness and I went in person to deliver a letter but Coach Rick said he had appointments and couldn’t talk to me until 4pm. So I will be going back at 4pm to make sure its cancelled.

I’m anxious to get started with my training.

It was awesome to see a bunch of women in that studio with amazing physiques. So inspiring. I would be motivated every day I was there.

I’ll be going there twice a week for about a year. It actually works out that I’ll be paying $60 per month less than I was paying LA Fitness because I’m going only two days instead of three. I’ll do one upper body day and one lower body day with them. They will give me a cardio plan to do after my personal training session and they will give me a plan to do on the days that I’m not personal training with them. They also provide nutrition planning and supplement recommendations. It’s included along with personal training.

I’m really excited to have an official plan and not just be winging it on my own.

Check out this badass video of Whitney Jones:

Groupon Craziness

OMG Groupon is friggin ADDICTING!
I wish someone had warned me. I have heard about groupon for a year or two but I never used it cause for some reason I thought it was complicated.
Well I recently downloaded the app.
Holy moly! The deals. It’s not good to have these kinda deals at your finger tips when you are kinda broke.
A couple days ago I bought a frozen yogurt deal for $12. It’s good for 4 coupons of $6 each. so that’s 50% off.
I also bought a microdermabrasion deal for $79 and that’s good for FOUR treatment sessions. That is an awesome deal cause microdermabrasion is usually about $100 each session. I have awful acne that makes me self conscious.

Anyway so today I went and redeemed my first microdermabrasion appointment at Radiant Skin.  It’s off 75th Avenue near Arrowhead Mall. It was a little confusing to locate, it’s in a office complex that says “Beauty” on the outside. Inside there’s loads of small offices, each doing different beauty treatments like hair, nails, etc.. Radiant Skin is located in the back offices inside the Day Spa offices. I was confused cause it didn’t say Radiant skin, it said Day Spa, but once you go in those doors, you see there’s even more offices and then you see the Radiant Skin office. It was nice to be in a facialist’s care again, I think her name was Effie. She was very nice. It’s a very small office with a comfy facial bed spa table. I filled out a form explaining my skin care history. There was soothing music playing. She steamed my face then put some kind of lotion on it. She then used some sort of machine for microdermabrasion. It felt like a tiny suction machine. She used it over every inch of my face. I thought microdermabrasion was more of a scratchy scrubbing kinda machine so this felt different than what I was expecting. Afterwards she used a hot towel on my face then some other kind of lotion that smelled good. Afterwards, my skin looked refreshed. She said it should help with my acne and hyperpigmentation. It basically felt like a really good facial. She said I can do it every 3 weeks so we scheduled my next appointment. I enjoyed it.

Afterward I went to redeem my frozen yogurt groupon at Yumberi. It was a bright clean location. They had atleast 10 different flavors all either low fat or fat free and a huge selection of toppings including lots of fresh fruit. So I picked up a 16 oz cup and started filling it with pumpkin frozen yogurt. Then I spied the cake batter flavor and had to add that to my cup. Then I needed to try the strawberry yogurt so that went into my cup as well. I topped it with cherries, pineapples, blueberries, strawberries and raspberries. The Groupon was worth $6 and my total was $6.39. Thank goodness I had some coins with me. I sat there inside and ate my fro yo. OH My Goodness the pumpkin flavor is TO DIE FOR. I want some more right now. I’ll be going back there again this weekend I’m sure since i have 3 more coupons.

Well while eating my fro yo I was checking out the groupon app on my phone. I was ready for lunch and there was a sushi place 1 mile away offering a Groupon. $10 for a $20 Groupon. To be honest that wasn’t in my budget, but I felt like I HAD TO HAVE IT. This is why I call this an addiction. So I got the groupon and drove to M Sushi Bar which was literally on the same street just a mile away. It was a trendy place in sort of a strip mall. I loved the pop music playing, my current favorite song by Taylor Swift “we will never ever get back together” came on and it was on MTV at the same time. Yipee! Put me in such a good mood. It only took like 3 minutes for the sushi chef to make my sushi at the sushi bar. I had 4 pieces of Nigiri; smoked salmon and I don’t remember the other kind and 2 handrolls; lobster and spicy tuna. The lobster handroll was AMAAZING. chunks of yummy lobster, soooo goood. I don’t eat the rice, I also didn’t eat all that seaweed. I drank ice tea and they gave me a full sliced orange with like some kinda marshmellow fluff on it for a complimentary dessert. I love healthy desserts. I was in and out in 30 minutes.

So while there, I bought ANOTHER groupon. It was $22 for TWO oil changes at Just Brakes. That is a STEAL! I was able to get an appointment for a hour later. They were nice. It took them about a hour and half for the oil change even though I had an appointment. The tech guy came out and told me to come look at my car so he could explain some things. I walked out to my car and it had no tires and the hood was lifted. I was like “Oh NO! my baby! it’s bare”. He proceeded to give me a long list of expensive things that needed to be done to my car and he was scaring me saying my battery is basically dead and I shouldn’t be driving on these brakes. The total was over $800 including new brakes, new battery, an alignment, coolant change, power steering change, windshield wipers and some other stuff. I panicked and called my boyfriend immediately. He said “I’ll take care of it, tell him you don’t want any of it.”. My boyfriend is a auto mechanic by hobby. He’s also worked as a engineer at some big auto companies in detroit. I asked them to make a copy of the list of things the car needs. My bf and I are going to go over it, he can probably fix some things like the brakes himself. Whatevers left over I’ll get taken care of.

It was a big Groupon day for me today. I’m still looking for a groupon for a pedicure and eye brow wax. I think I need to go to Groupon rehab or something.

If you’ve never used Groupon, feel free to use my referral link: http://www.groupon.com/l/uu46158375

Macros: How much should I eat?

I read alot of Figure competitor training blogs (http://siouxcountry.com/ has many) and they always mention fitting in their “macros”.

Also a couple people have commented on my meal plan saying I should focus more on my Macros than on calories.

Well when you have over 100 lbs. to lose, you HAVE to focus on your caloric intake, for many different reasons. One being that you probably have a overeating problem and you probably don’t know what a proper portion size is. So weighing and measuring and checking your calories is a MUST.

However, I was still very curious about “fitting in my Macros”. I’ve taken several nutrition classes to get my Bachelors degree so I do know that the primary Macronutrients are: Protein, Fat, Carbohydrates. Your Micronutrients are vitamins and minerals.

But what do they mean when they say “fitting in my macros”?

One of the figure competitor blogs I follow from siouxcountry, Roxie Beckles, has a good explanation and a great blog to help you figure out your macros.

Calories: According to Roxie, to figure out caloric levels for fat loss use this basic formula.

Multiply your Body Weight by 14 or 15 (14 if you are more sedentary during your day, 15 if you are more active) and that will give you a rough amount of maintenance cals for your current stature.  Then subtract 250-500 cals from that (depending on your lifestyle, if you’re more active, subtract less, if you’re not as active, subtract more), and this will give you a good starting deficit in which you can begin to build a plan.

So for me, I decided to use the sedentary calculation of 260 lbs x 14 = 3640 calories per day would be my maintenance calories if I want to stay 260 lbs without exercising.

Subtract 500 calories from 3640 and I get 3140 calories/day would give me a deficit and I should lose 1 lb. per week at that calculation.

Protein – if you’re  a little more on the overweight side, then multiply .8xBW. For me that is .8 x 260 = 208 . According to this I should be eating 208 grams of protein per day.

Fats – For our purposes let’s try a low/moderate fat amount for our plan and have you between 45-50 grams/day to start.  Keep in mind fat keeps you satiated, so if you lower this too much, then you can stand to be starving almost all of the time.

Carbs – the remainder of your calories will come from carbs.

260×14 = 3640 cals to maintain my weight

3640 – 500 = 3140 to lose 1 lb. per week.

I’m trying to lose 2.5 lbs. per week so I need a 1250 calorie deficit. So 3640 – 1250 = 2390 . Eating 2390 calories a day should result in me losing 2.5 lbs per week while sedentary.

So I have 2390 cals to play with for my macros.

Protein: 260*.8 = 208 grams per day.  There are 4 calories per gram of protein, so that is a total of 832 cals per day

Fat: I’m going to keep this at 50 grams per day.  There are 9 calories per gram of fat, so that’s a total of 450 cals per day.

Carbs: There are 4 calories per gram of carbs.  The calorie totals of my protein and fats combined is 1282 calories.  To figure out my carbs, I’ll subtract this from my daily deficit total.  So, 2390-1282= 1108 cals.  I’ll now take this and divide by 4 (1108/4) = 277 grams per day.

Keep in mind again, the equation above doesn’t lend to specific metabolism, training protocol, lifestyle, and a host of other factors that will effect fat loss and required calories.

So in summary I’ve learned:

1. According to Roxie’s formula I am undereating.
2. I should be eating  2390 calories to lose 2.5 lbs. per week. Of that 2390 calories, 208 grams should be protein, 50 grams should be Fat and 277 grams should be Carbs. I’m going to add these goals to my Spark People page to track them.

I’ve been eating a average of about 1500 calories per day and losing an average of 2.5 lbs. per week. If I raise my calories to 2390 will I still lose 2.5 lbs. per week?

Body Issues

My left knee is giving me problems. I’ve had this issue for a few years actually and I did see a Dr. about it in the past. He gave me a knee brace, but I don’t have it anymore. This knee problem is annoying though because my first 6 weeks of exercising I had no pain, and now it wants to act up. I think maybe I pushed too hard yesterday with that nearly 3 hour workout, plus in Bodyworks yesterday we did jump squats and that might have aggravated it.

My lower back is also hurting and it didn’t hurt like this when I first started exercising.

I’m mad at my body.

Why start acting up now?

Why didn’t it give me problems when I first started?

I thought maybe some stretching would help, so today I went to a Yoga class at my gym. That’s the closest they have to a stretching class. Geesh it was soo difficult though. Getting in and out of positions when you are 262 lbs. is not easy. Downward facing dog and warrior pose and all of the different bends and inversions and positions were so hard. I was sweating from every place on my body. my arms, my legs, everything was dripping sweat. Gross! Have I ever mentioned that I do NOT like to sweat? We also did some good stretches for the back.

After Yoga I wanted to do the Couch to 5k, so I got on the treadmill, and when it got to my first 3 minute interval, I couldn’t even do a full 2 minutes. Yesterday I ran for 5 minutes for the first time ever and today I couldn’t even do 2 minutes. Maybe the yoga fatigued my body? Well I turned off my Couch to 5k app and decided to just walk at a incline for 30 minutes. That was the max I could do.

Well as I mentioned on facebook. I was a tiny bit constipated for the past 3 days. (I’ve been bloated and gaseous too.) So I decided to pick up some Smooth Move tea and Fiber supplements. CVS had these fiber gummies. They are pretty good. 5 grams of fiber. I’ve read that 25 grams of fiber is the recommended intake per day. I don’t know how much I get naturally in my diet but hopefully taking these Fiber Gummies daily will help keep me regular.

This tea tastes really good.

I had a bit of a freakout at Subway.

I ordered a footlong tuna sub. I was CRAVING this sandwhich from Subway. I wasn’t craving, cake, cookies or ice cream but I was CRAVING a Subway tuna sandwhich. I’ve told myself that if I have a craving I will just eat whatever it is. That way I don’t obsess over it or overeat on other stuff to try to make up for the craving. I rarely eat bread, but I love the Italian Herbs and Cheese bread from Subway.

Anyway, the problem is I should have just got a 6″. I don’t know WHY I got the foot long. For some reason my train of thought was that I was saving money because the 6″ was $4.50 and the foot long was $7.00. It was a big mistake. After I ate the first 6″, i tried to stop eating and save the other half, but I just kept taking bites till I ate almost half of it. I was getting more and more pissed off at myself that I couldn’t stop. These sandwhiches are not low fat nor low calorie. A 6″ Subway tuna sandwhich has about 600 calories in it. Finally I TORE myself away from the sandwhich and wrapped it up to go. Why couldn’t I stop? It made me angry and gave me glimpses of my former bingeing self. It is progress that I eventually stopped myself before I ate the whole thing.

I decided that instead of buying that Chobani Greek Yogurt with fruit already in it, I would try some plain greek yogurt with fresh fruit. So I bought blackberries, blueberries and strawberries and a large tub of plain Greek yogurt. We’ll see how this tastes. If it’s good I’ll stick with it.

Oh at the Fry’s grocery store I found this Crystal Light mojito flavored drink that Cherie had mentioned in her blog in the past. I just had to get it. It has no sugar and just 5 calories per cup. Now I can have the taste of a alcohol drink without actually drinking one with all those calories.

What’s my BMR?

The basal metabolic rate (BMR) is the rate  at which your body burns calories with no exercise at all. It is your “resting” rate.

BMR formula: 655 + (4.3 x B) + (4.7 x D) – (4.7 x F)

B=weight, D= height in inches, F = age

As of today I am 5’6″, 262 lbs, and 39 years old

655 + (4.3 x 262) + (4.7 x 66) – (4.7 x 39)

655 + (1126.6) + (310.2) – (183.3)
My BMR is = 1908.5

1 lb. of fat = 3500 calories. In order to lose 1lb each week, a person has to maintain a 500 calorie deficit each day, whereas after seven days the requisite 3,500 calories would’ve been burned.

I prefer to burn that calorie deficit thru exercise rather than restrict it thru diet so I try to burn 500 calories or more a day. (UPDATE: I’ve changed my mind on this philosophy after reading advice from Erik Ledin who says that “nutrition should be responsible for as much of one’s fat loss progress as possible“.) Regardless I still seem to eat less than 1800 calories a day. My daily caloric intake changes every day from what I can see via recording it everyday at Spark People. The few times it gets over 1800 is when I drink alcohol.

Excerpted from Q&A Wednesday: If 2,000 Isn’t Right, How Many Calories Should I Consume? | A Black Girl’s Guide To Weight Loss