By no way am I a dietitian, a nutritionist, a personal trainer, nor do I consider myself knowledgeable about all things concerning health. But what I do know comes from advice of those who knew before me
and application of those advices and seeing what worked and didn't work for me. By
no means am I anywhere near my ideal body (if you want to know its runners lean!) but I have no doubt that I can get there =] If you don't want to read the entire thing, its fine, just at least burn off 1 or 2 calories by scrolling all the way to the bottom of this post, the bottom line should help you. I'm also putting this right after telling you to scroll down cuz it has a greater chance of being read, know this as well:
the way you look will not fix your insecurities. That statement will be left at that, just take it for what it is. You can add "not a shrink" to not a nutritionist or a personal trainer =]
I recently saw a bunch of family and friends in a party, I haven't seen them in at least 3 months. People have been asking what the hell I do. They all said one or more of these things
- "You lost a lot of weight!"
- "How much did you loose?"
- "What do you do?"
- "What do you eat?"
- "You're disappearing!"
- "I want to do what you're doing!"
There were also a few other random things I chose to leave out, they were weird comments 8-)
I'm going to be one of those people who say this, there is no magic pill, its pure
diet & exercise!
Lets break it down yo! Grab popcorn (no butter) and get comfy!
Exercise
I, obviously, do a lot of running. But what you need to know is that running
won't drop your weight for you. Haha. A lot of people think running is a cure all for weight loss, but from MY experience, it isn't! When I started running, I lost 5lbs and then didn't drop anymore for a month. It was like thats it?! And half of those was probably water weight from sweating so much!
So why the hell do you run?! I run because I love, I mean LOVE, the feeling of endorphins after my runs. Its crazy addicting. I also love seeing progress! Its one of those mental benefits of running. Running, is after all, just you and the road. You push yourself, you lift those damn legs, and move.
Its for you, by you! That is why I run.
Why won't running help you loose weight? Running alone won't help you because its an
aerobic exercise. Its good for your heart, its good for your lungs but really aside from your legs, you're not building muscles (remember: muscles burn more calories than fat). A lot of people say I'll go running to justify what they eat. There lies the problem. Remember its
diet (which means what you eat, not cutting back on what you eat. It just means what you eat)
AND exercise! So really, the approach most people take to running/exercising is a means to justify what they eat. Which is okay if you're trying to maintain weight, which I'm not, I'm trying to cut weight and gain muscle. And most of us is trying to cut weight. So do I attribute some of my weight loss to running. Most definitely! I do, but its not just running alone. I also attribute a lot of mental benefits to running, but thats another blog entry =]
Like I said above, aside from your legs, running doesn't really help you build muscle. And unless you change up your running surface (trail or road) you're probably just working the same muscle groups all the time and still not building a lot of muscle since its constant strain on one set of muscle groups. So aside from running, I also do some strength training in the form of
P90x!!! I love love love P90x! Its one of those things we all cringe at in the beginning but you get into it and you feel the burn and you feel bad ass! Especially since I'm a girl, I get all proud and feel all bad ass when I finish and finish well! P90x is an
anaerobic exercise. I'm not going to go to deep into the difference between
aerobic &
anaerobic exercises, I'll let this
website do the talking. For the link phobic, its like a hybrid vehicle, first they rely on the electricity part then when they hit the faster speeds, they rely on gas. For the most part, we rely on oxygen (aerobic) to fuel our cells, but when intensity is bumped the oxygen is not enough and the body relies on other chemical reactions to fuel itself- which creates lactic acid which is why we experience muscle fatigue. Obviously, P90x is a high intensity type of training. Any weight training regimen is intense and requires a lot of energy making it anaerobic. I don't think you really had to know the difference. I just got carried away! Haha.
Why is P90x necessary? Really, any strength training is necessary. First of all, it helps build muscles and when talking body, more muscle is always better!
muscle > fat is always a good thing! Plus muscles help pull everything in. Weight may not change for a while, but you will drop inches and its better to go by inches rather than weight. A pound of muscle takes up less space than a pound of fat =]
So over all, the exercise part is running (cardio) & P90x (strength trianing). A good balance, 30 minutes of each is good, but really, people are lazy (including me sometimes!) so if you can only do one, strength train! Build those muscles and let them burn fat for you!
Diet
I'm going to start by saying this: diet doesn't mean you change your food intake, diet is simply what you intake. Diet has such a negative connotation, like I'm going on a "diet." In reality, you're already on one, it just depends if its a good or bad one.
Now that that is out of the way, I'm going to say one more thing:
I'm on a very low calorie diet and I'm running and strength training at the same time. Albeit, I did cheat over this weekend when I was in SoCal, but thats why I'm so strict when I'm at home. With that said, here are the basic specs of what I do:
"Cat's Not Recommending this Diet" Diet
- 1200 - 1800 calories a day; 6 meals 200-300 calories a day
- The ratio I try to stick to: 50% protein, 30% carbs (cuz I run, I would generally do 20% & add the other 10% to protein) 20% fat.
- Food List: eggs (mostly white), Ezekiel toast, cheese, 2 Balance Bars (2 meals right there), turkey breast, chicken breas, lettuce, brocolli (really any non starchy vegetables; but brocolli is my go to! High fiber, low GI!). Thats it. I have a boring food in take at home =]
- Water or Green Tea
- One day of cheating!
Macro-Nutrient Ratios
A lot of people rely on counting calories to control their diet. Thats cool and all but think of
food as fuel. You can consume 1200 calories of cake for an entire day but your body won't be fueled.
Why? Your body is fueled by chemical reactions that uses carbs, proteins, & fats! A slice of cake will have fats (unhealthy ones) and carbs, but very little protein. So its also important to look at the macro-nutrients. Depending on what you want to try to do (like for me its cut weight & build muscle- low carb, high protein- while still providing enough energy to fuel my runs, which is hard cuz carb is fuel for runs but I really try to cut back on carbs for weight loss- which some say is unnecessary but I love bread the only way for me to do it is DO OR DIE!), ratios is something that you should look at. Generally speaking I believe 40% carbs, 30% protein, & 30% fat is what is the norm. It took me a long time to get ratios down, and to some extent, I still don't have it down, but once you have a basic understanding of ratios, you can start to manipulate your ratios, i.e. carb cycling! Carb cycling is something I tried to do but had a hard time doing since I'm so anti carbs, but I started doing it sub consciously, I won't talk about it too much till I get my head wrapped around it solidly, but it works! For those who are trying to loose weight and is putting in work in exercising (both kinds) I would just go with the 40/30/30 ratio. Once you figure out what your goals are, you can start to manipulate your ratios.
Thats it. I can break it down specifically to what I eat but generally speaking, thats how my diet consists like. I know a lot of people are asking for specific foods, but seriously if you ask my sisters or my parents who are at home, thats really the majority of what I eat. Preparations may be different, but I stick to those meats, veggies, bread, etc.
DISCLAIMER I don't recommend this diet because at my weight and height, my basal metabolism is almost 2000. That means to do nothing but lie in bed all day and keep my body functioning, I burn 2000 calories. I'm consuming 1200 calories a day and so by that calculation I'm already down 800 calories, take into consideration that I strength train and/or run everyday, means I'm really down on calories. This may seem bad ass, (& to be honest I sometimes think I have an eating disorder. Haha, I don't! I'm just really careful cuz I know I eat not so cleanly when I'm out of town, & I'm out of town a lot) but its dangerous. Do you see that flashing
*DANGER* sign? Its there!
If its dangerous, why do you do it? Here is the beauty of exercising and "getting in touch" with your body. You learn to read your body. You learn to listen to your body and its demands. You learn to know what works for you and what doesn't. I'm still learning this eating thing as well because I'm a very lazy eater. I don't want to complicate things and I'm sure theres variety of foods I can eat aside from turkey and chicken and turkey, but I like to keep it simple. I don't want to think too much since if I get information overload, I'll give up. It may also seem that I'm super duper strict food police, but I'm really not. I can be flexible when the occasion calls for it. If theres an occasion, I'll eat what I'm served. Like right now, I just got back form SoCal, land of good food a plenty, so you know I"m really strict on what I'm eating right now. I'm probably going to cut back on carbs some more unless its the day before a long run. And I'm going to bump up the intensity/duration of my strength training/runs. Generally speaking tho, what I listed above is what you'll see me eat. And it seems like its really little food, but I'll eat a ton of broccoli, like two crowns of broccoli. Or a big plate of salad. Its just learning what your body needs. For example, I learned through trial and error and learning how to read my body that if I have a long run the next day, I'll eat a bit more carbs the previous day (ratio manipulation!) and if I know I'm going to be in a rest day I'll ease up on the carbs and just load up on veggies. Its things like that.
So, if you don't recommend your diet what do you recommend?
Learning to read your body and your tummy and what it needs is probably the most important thing
anyone can learn as opposed to being told what to eat. In a way, I believe we all know what to eat and what to avoid, we don't need to be told that. I will put up resources on this, but theres so many conflicting information in the internet that really, I would advice to read up, find something that you think is do-able for you. Do it. If it works, keep on doing it. If it doesn't find another thing. If it STOPS working, by that time, you'll probably be able to read your body. Like I said, I'm still learning, and by no means do I consider myself a nutritionist.
PS. I'll update another post with resources. I'm sifting through a ton of them right now. LOLOLS! I will however say this, don't go by the food "plate" pyramid thing that the gov't released. Its bs!
EveryBODY is different. This is what worked for me, since a lot of you asked. I can go into so much details (like this isn't detailed right? I haven't even talked about my supplements! lol) but I think this is already wordy enough. I'm still on this journey, its really life long, and would be more than happy to help anyone out. But I'm letting you all right now, what works for me, might not work for you at all. A lot of people just asked what I do, and heres my answer.
If you don't want to read the whole thing, just read the bottom line
:
eat clean, train dirty & keep at it.
