First things first. If you’re working out and trying to lose weight, you have to keep track of what you’re eating. Seriously. Why bother to do a P90X video or spend 30 minutes on the Elliptical if you’re going to negate all your hard work by stopping at the drive-thru on your way home from the gym?
Keep track of what you eat. Use a legal pad. Use a spreadsheet. Use the Beachbody® website. Whatever you use, note down everything you eat and drink. I promise that after a few weeks of inputting your favorite foods in a calorie calculator that you will think twice about that jelly doughnut. (307 calories.)
Even though I’m a Beachbody® coach, I use a different means of calorie-tracking, an app on my iPhone called Lose It. (And no, I haven’t been compensated to advertise this app. I just happen to like it.) Out of all the nutrition and diet trackers I’ve ever used, Lose It is the simplest. I set my goal (to lose about 20 pounds.) It lets you choose how much you want to lose each week, with 1.5 lb being the maximum. Then you enter in your weight, height and age, and the goal calculator lets you know what your calorie budget is each day.
My daily calorie budget hovers just under 1200 calories. Above, you’ll see a picture of my first week’s log summary. The sad thing? I thought I was doing really well. Tuesday’s red bump came courtesy of a calorie-laden salad and queso dip at a popular casual dining restaurant. Thursday’s overage was thanks to a slice of my Dad’s birthday cake. Saturday and Sunday I didn’t drink Shakeology® as a meal replacement. Ugh. Shame on me.
I’m not going to bore you with days on end of “what I ate today.” However, over the course of the next few weeks I’ll be happy to share some of my meal successes — and some of the failures. I’ve found that so far today, I’m very focused on not getting any of those red bars on this week’s calorie log. I’m also not planning on starving myself.
So far, after one week of Shakeology, exercising and watching what I’m eating, I’ve lost 0 pounds. Wow. That’s… disappointing. But, I feel better. I can get up at 6 a.m. and have energy throughout the day. I can make it through the midmorning drowsiness and the 3 p.m. energy slump. And I can do 20 minutes on the Elliptical at level 3. It’s not a lot, but it’s progress.
