Yesterday we talked about the importance of portion control cause at the end of the day it really is about calories in and calories out.
I wanna show you some of my favorite done-for-you portion control snacks cause I’m sure you’ll agree that some things are harder to “control” than others (mmmmmm……peanut butter).
With these things you can snack and stay right on track with your portions or indulge in some treats without guilt.
Have you been working out with good intensity, regularity and under the guidance of a fitness professional for 30 days or more and you have not lost any weight or felt your clothes get looser?
If you say no to any one of those, first go address and remedy that. (I know a good fitness professional with a great program if you need a name ;D ).
If you said yes to all 3, then you my friend probably have a bit of an issue with food portions; sticking to them, knowing them and/or measuring them. You see in the end after all is said and done about manipulating time frames, rotating carbs and counting protein grams, it’s still about calories in and calories out.
If you’re like me, counting calories is kinda crazy-making and unless you eat 100% of your meals at home, it’s not always realistic or easy to count every calorie accurately which makes me crazier.
An easier way is to watch your portions. It’s pretty easy, you can do it with any meal, made by anyone and it works!
Look, you can work out until you drain every last drop of sweat out of your body but if you’re calories are too high, you won’t make progress. Take the time to look over these tips and start on them at your next snack or meal.
A couple of days ago I did a blog post about making most of your meals at home if you want optimal results fast.
But, I got several emails from some of you saying yeah, but it’s not realistic that I’m never going to eat out and I still want to lose weight so what should I do?
You are absolutely right.
And things actually have gotten easier for us calories watchers since restaurants are required to put the nutrition info next to every meal. I don’t know about you but I’ve been shocked at what I see more than a time or two. Most restaurants also feature a “light” menu now to make up for all their calorie secrets being outed but if you’re like me, that light menu can look a little drab when compared to the rest of the calorie loaded fare on the menu. So I’m going to give you 3 quick tips that you can use to transform a meal off of the regular menu into a flat abs supportive meal. Warning: not every meal is salvageable; you need to be ok with that :).
Here are 3 tips to keep in mind if you eat out this weekend:
I saw a commercial the other day for a product that made the Loud Bold claim that it could get you into your “skinny jeans” in about 5 seconds. I wasn’t actually looking at the TV screen when it first came on but of course that caught my attention and my eyes fixed on the screen, then I just about died laughing.
It was for a waistband extender (which is pretty much a glorified rubber band) that you loop around the button and hole of your jeans to give yourself some “breathing room”.
Now this is perfectly ok if you are in the early stages of a pregnancy, but if you’re not pregnant, is that really how you want to get into your skinny jeans? What if your shirt rides up and exposes your little secret? How embarrassing! Not to mention, it just plain ol’ doesn’t make you feel super hot to have your pants half un-zipped all day.
So if you want to get into your skinny jeans for real, sans the rubber band, then follow these 5 quick tips to get started:
This Sunday millions will be watching the “Big Game”. Even if you’re not an actual football fan the game day festivities are a lot of fun, but they can also wreak havoc on your diet.
One of the best things you can do to stay on track is take some healthy delicious eats with you to the party you’re going to or to lay out a few healthy options to munch on if you’re the host.
Here are some recipes to get you started, and trust me, no one will know it’s diet food.
So you’re resting enough and you don’t have a care in the world 🙂 but you’re still not losing weight. (see the last blog post to get up to speed if you missed it)
If I was a betting woman (I don’t gamble, that’s throwing away perfectly good shopping money) I’d say it’s because of one of two other things-your nutrition or your workouts.
Let’s talk about your nutrition today.
Nutrition is off in some way (eating too much, not enough, too much sugar, not a balanced ratio of macro nutrients)
I don’t believe in being a total calorie hard nose ‘cause frankly counting calories can be a drag. But you do need to be aware of how many- ish calories you need to take in and how many-ish you actually are taking in. For instance if you know that you need to be in the 1800-2,000 range and that on average you take in about 1,925. As long as you hit somewhere in that range daily there’s no need to know your number to an exact T…….except for if the scale is no longer budging. The it’s time to get down to the facts and figure out EXACTLY what you are doing.
Last week we talked a little about hitting that wall where nothing you do seems to make the scale budge in the direction you want it to. I listed some of the most common reasons why you may have hit this thing called a plateau, and how to identify if you actually have in fact hit a true plateau. If you need to come up to speed you can read that here: Are You Stuck At Your Weight?
Ok, so now that you know what and why, let’s get to the ‘what to do about it’ part:
First, you need to look at that list and determine which one(s) apply to you. Today let’s talk about external factors in a plateau. That means things that you can’t always seemingly control (notice the word seemingly).
One of the biggest frustrations I hear from you all through email or when you come in for your body diagnostic at my studio is that you feel like your weight loss progress has just come to a screeching halt. Just last week I had at least 3 women come in and tell me how all on their own they had lost 25lbs, 30lbs, one woman had even lost 50lbs. But each and every one of them could not seem to get one more pound to budge. Can you relate?
This is called a plateau and it’s the #1 reason that women fail at weight loss once they get past all the initial danger spots. Women who have gone for weeks, even months faithfully getting their workouts in, saying no to diet temptations and have thrilled at seeing it all pay off, suddenly stop doing it all and soon enough they find the weight creeping back on one sneaky pound at a time.
Can you relate?
Well I’m going to tell you exactly what a plateau is, why you’ve hit it, and what you can do about it.
This is gonna help you avoid a LOT of frustration. I’m also going to tell you how to avoid a plateau if you haven’t hit one yet.
Here it is the 3rd Monday of the new year already. Let’s take a minute to talk about your fitness goals for the new year, have you taken one step forward and two steps back, or two steps forward and one step back? (I’ll give you a sec to read that again…..)
Hopefully you said the latter cause that would mean that despite hitting a few roadblocks you are on your way to fulfilling your new fitness goals and can actually feel that you’re beginning to make a difference.
Even if you’ve only managed to stick to your new eating plan for 2 weeks then you had a “bad week”, or if you’ve already missed a week of workouts, get right back on track and take some steps forward. As you string success after success together you’ll find that you take more like 3 steps forward, one back. Then 5 steps forward, one back. You’re not going to get to the point where you never have a slip up because we are imperfect humans and it happens to the best of us. But continue to strive to do your best and before you know it, success will become a habit that you are eager to stick to again and again.
Here are some of my favorite quotes on the subject of perseverance:
Have you seen it yet?
As of January 1st all restaurants are required to post the caloric content of all their menu items right on the main menu boards. No more hiding them in a pamphlet that you had to ask for and that they never seemed to have. No more telling you to go online to see nutrition data. Now it’s right there, right in your face. And this includes everyone guilty pleasure –Starbucks.
I was in line there the other day and there was a long line as usual. The girl in front of me was dutifully studying the new data while we waited, when it was her turn do you know what she ordered after waiting in line for well over 5 minutes? WATER! She said after seeing all those calories “I can’t bring myself to order anything. I’ll just take this bottled water”. I guarantee you, that’s a girl who is going to stay in her skinny jeans.
And while I believe in the 90/10 rule of eating clean and “cheating” most of us enjoy having coffee everyday (or almost everyday), so today I have a recipe for you that is a healthy recipe alternative for a normally sinful vice many of us have these days… gourmet coffee drinks!