It's always nice to fit in a small amount of sweets in during the day. yes low calorie pudding cups are a good idea. it's preportioned so that's good. I've heard from some that toggling your amount of calories per day keeps your metabolism in check, and guessing what will happen next. I always stay within 1600-2100 calories, alternating everywhere, but eating more on heavy exercise days.
I hadn't even thought about relating my calories to the intensity of my workouts--definitely something to consider. Of course, I'm going to try to threaten/cajole the people at work to join a biggest loser contest there. I may have to boost my calories for days I engage in heavy trash-talking too
Last edited by Phoenix32203; 12-29-2008 at 11:10 PM.
Your plan looks almost identical to the plan I followed, and I do cardio and strength training on the same day...and I do HIIT cardio 6 days a week for 30 minutes and SS Cardio for another 15 mintues (45 minutes total for my cardio). I have not had any trouble doing it this way for the last six months, but I do most of my cardio on my exercise bike so it is pretty low impact, and my strength training is not incredibly strenuous (3 days a week for around 40 minutes a session.). I work all of my major muscle groups each time (using resistance bands) and do 2 sets of 15 reps. In addition to the resistance bands, I also do crunches, bicycle crunches, a couple of leg lift exercises, some lunges and some squats.
As for your sweets question, I prefer to eat the real thing in small quantities rather than try to satisfy the craving with a poor substitute. I keep small squares of dark chocolate, and if I need a chocolate fix, I eat some chocolate and work it into my calories. The squares I eat have 40 calories...not that difficult to fit into a day's worth of calories.
On the calorie cycling front, I cycled my calories as I lost the weight -- hitting a daily average of about 1500 calories, but having days that ranged from 1300 to 1800. Personally, I liked having the mix of high and low days...plus I could work "special occasion" meals onto "high" days so that I had the extra calories to spend those days. I cannot say for sure that cycling my calories really kept my metabolism up and allowed me to lose more steadily...but I did lose remarkably steadily and fairly quickly...averaging 2 pounds a week almost the whole way down...with only a couple of weeks that I did not have a loss.
Your plan looks great, BTW. I wish I had started that scientifically. I SORT of knew what to do, but it took me several weeks to really find my groove. I lost WAY to fast for the first few weeks as I tried to find my balance.
I'm a big believer in having a plan. On those terrible days when you get hit by a food craving, having a plan that you can at least refer to--"Wait. What am I supposed to be doing today?"--can really help get you through it.
That said, my own plan is somewhat flexible. I don't plan every day's meals ahead of time with rigorous precision--rather, I have a range of meal and snack choices that I can mix and match when the time comes. The advantage to this is that I feel like I have more freedom and that I'm not locked into a particular meal at a particular time. Mostly that's a psychological strategy, because I tend to eat the same things anyway!
It looks like you've got the right idea. Now all you need to do is start with day 1 and see how it goes from there. I agree with kaplods and PhotoChick--one slip-up is no reason to go off the rails totally. Use damage control and keep going!
Thank you, Schumeany. Hearing that it mimics what you've done is really encouraging given your results. I totally agree with you with regard to the sweets as well. When it comes to other foods, if I'm eating it, it's going to be the best quality. If I want a sandwich, I'm not going to use some paper-thin slice of fat-free ww bread. I'm going to have beautiful, whole grain brownberry bread and work it into my calories. I think it's a great idea to do the same for my treat. Choose the best, limit the quantity, and work it in.
I was thinking about special occasions with the calorie cycling as well. It seems like a great, built-in plan for dealing with family dinners, parties etc.
Btw, HIIT is high intensity, right? What is ss?
Jay, thanks for your help also. As I've been thinking all of this through, the idea that planning and monitoring my food so closely may actually keep food in the forefront at all times worries me. Food already rules my life--maybe increasing the focus will make me obsess even more! I guess I'm hoping that Sunday will be the day to think about food. I can plan it, count the calories, prepare it, then spend the rest of the week just grabbing it and focusing on other things. The decisions will have been made. I hope that I can get to the point where I won't need to plan so rigorously. The menus will become second nature and I will have what you have--a mental list of meals and snacks to choose from.
Last edited by Phoenix32203; 12-30-2008 at 12:49 PM.
Yeah, HIIT = hight intensity interval training. SS = steady state cardio. I do SS cardio after my weight lifting 3x per week. I do HIIT on alternate days.
I definitely agree about the Sunday planning thing - it works really well for me. And the upside is that it helps with my grocery budget as well!
HIIT stands for "High Intensity Interval Training" -- basically cardio that has "peeks" of high intensity during the work out. In my case the "peeks" last about a minute followed by less intense valleys that last around three minutes.
SS stands for "Steady State" -- basically cardio that stays the same intensity or level the whole time -- no peeks and valleys.
Oh, and after I got into the the "groove" of losing weight, I did do what Jay did with having meals and snacks that I knew the calorie count for that I could mix and match throughout the day, but when I first started, I planned my days more scientifically so I knew in advance what I would be eating. I found having a planned menu helped make eating "just something I did" at very set times, and so I was not thinking about food all the time or trying to "game" my calories for the day.
Julie 