The Basics of My Fitness Journey

Many, many people would love a "quick" fix for weight loss.  You may want to just stop reading now.  That is not what I am about.  I am about getting the weight off and KEEPING the weight off so that I may live a long life.

15 months time - not a quick fix

If you are just starting out and you are overwhelmed with how to get started, I offer these simple suggestions.

1)  Track your food.   What is going into your mouth?  I personally use the Fitbit app and it works fantastic for me.  But another really popular and free app is My Fitness Pal.  Both of these apps have a huge database of foods and they both have a feature where you can scan the UPS code of the item and it will log your food that way.

Tracking your food can be eye-opening.  Perhaps you think you are only taking in 1500 calories a day, but once you begin tracking you see that you are really taking in 2000 calories a day.  Remember to track things such as "creamer" for your coffee or that handful of Goldfish you grabbed from the pantry.

Tracking my food in my Fitbit app.

2)  I'd invest in a Fitbit.  Sometimes you can get a great deal on e-bay or on Black Friday.  I would suggest a Fitbit that tracks your heartrate too.  I absolutely love my Fitbit.  I actually bought the Apple Watch last Christmas (because it tracks swimming), but went back to my Fitbit.  The newest Fitbit will track swimming, so I will upgrade to that one.  By way of my Fitbit app, I know how many calories I am expending in a day.

That was definitely an over-achiever day!

FINALLY if I know how many calories are going in and I know how many calories I am expending, I can see if I am on track to lose weight, maintain weight, or gain weight.  At the end of 7 days, if you have a deficit of 3500 calories, you are on track to lose one pound for that week.  The Fitbit allows you to put that in your "settings."  How much would you like your daily deficit to be?  Mine is set for a 500 calorie deficit a day so that in one week I am down 1 pound.  (See I told you I'm not about the quick fix.)

My goal at top; my actual for the week.
This is a weekly e-mail I send my trainer.
It's accountability.

These are the basics for starting out.  Exercise is always great.  When I first started, I went outside and walked the neighborhood.  My Fitbit counted my steps and I set step goals for myself.  This helped with the "calories expended."

Did you know you can undereat putting your body into starvation mode?  I had no idea but I was a 1000-1200 calorie a day girl for many years thinking that was what I needed to do to lose weight.  It was quite the opposite.

If you need an assist and you can afford Gold's Gym, they have a great program called NLP (Next Level Performance).  This program has a cost in addition to your membership, but in my opinion is well worth it.  There is a Facebook page for the NLP program in Clifton and there are numerous success stories posted there.  These are real people.  People who are my friends.  These are not stock photos.  The trainers there are great at helping with the nutrition coaching and the NLP classes are great for building strength and increasing your calories expended number.  It's a win/win.  Go see Paul Manzella if you are interested in checking it out.  You can usually try a week for free.

Next week, I'll post daily or almost daily and give you the "skinny" on what I do each day.  But these basics can help anyone get started.  I got super blessed to find a trainer that helps me figure out how many calories I should take in based on how many calories I am expending to reach a specific weight goal.  He has helped me from Day One (January 18, 2016) and still helps me today.  Thank you Ryan.