MY FITNESS JOURNEY

I wanted to share a little bit about myself and my fitness journey today. I'm going to share things about myself that I don't particularly love but I feel are necessary to share in order to help myself make changes and to encourage others to make changes too.

I'm not one of those people who has been fit for their entire lives. I played a few team sports but I was never a spectacular athlete. It wasn't until I went to college that I decided to lose a little bit of weight and tone up.

Me during high school (looking super happy)

I still don't work out nearly as much as I should. Since I started college I have had an off and on again relationship with exercise. I do really well for a few weeks and then I stop exercising altogether. I'm sure I'm not the only one that has this problem. Things always spring up in life that make me feel like I don't have the time or the energy to work out. It's especially difficult with a little baby. I have work around her schedule which isn't always very predictable. I generally work out when she is napping but there are some days when she will only nap while I'm holding her.

Since I have a degree in Exercise Science I feel like I really need to step up my game. I feel like I need to be the fittest of the fit. The importance of exercise has been drilled into my brain for four years, so I really have no excuse to be such a slacker.

I was 119 lb on my wedding day in December 2010. When I became pregnant with Eve I was up to 130 lb. The last time I weighed myself before I gave birth I was 172 lb. I am now down to 125lb.

Me and my husband on our wedding day

Me and Eve when she was 2 days old

I have passed below my pre-pregnancy weight but I would still like to lose a little more. I would also like to become more toned and fitter. My goal is to exercise regularly and be the fittest I've ever been before I become pregnant again. That's not going to be anytime soon so I should be able to accomplish this. I wasn't able to exercise as much as I would have liked to while I was pregnant with Eve because I hadn't been working out very often before I became pregnant. I want things to be different the next time around.

I'm going to be sharing my fitness journey here on the blog. Each week I'll let you know how often I work out, what I did for my work out, and my weight. I'll also occasionally share some other stats, such as my body fat percentage and other measurements.

Date: 7/29/2013

Weight: 125 lb.

Body fat percentage (according to skinfolds): 17.1%

Body fat percentage (according to BIA): 17.3%

Hip measurement: 36.5"

Waist measurement: 26.5"

Right leg measurement: 21.5"

Left leg measurement: 21.25"

Right arm measurement: 11"

Left leg measurement: 11.25"

My plan right now is to work out 6 times a week. I'm going to do strength workouts three days a week and jogging for the other three days. My jogs are more like walks right now because I'm just starting out (and I'm terribly unfit).

Here's my schedule for this week. I successfully kept to this schedule last week. Let's see how well I can stick with it this week

Monday: Jogging

Tuesday: Legs + back workout

Wednesday: Jogging

Thursday: Chest + back workout

Friday: Jogging

Saturday: Shoulders + arms workout

Calorie-wise, I'm aiming for 1800-2000 calories a day. That's about 500 more calories than I would usually eat when trying to lose weight because I am nursing . I'm going to be keeping track of my calories using the app, MyFitnessPal.

Lastly, I'm going to share some rather unflattering pictures of me from after my jog today. I'll plan on posting progress pics about once a month.

Thanks for reading! If you are also working on losing weight or improving your fitness, I'd love to hear about it! Feel free to comment or send me an email at thefitnessfoxblog@gmail.com

A NEW START

Welcome to the Fitness Fox! If you are visiting from Life as a Waterleaf then you are probably familiar with the content that will be featured on this blog. I am on a journey to become as healthy as I can be. I want to lose weight, gain muscle, and develop healthy habits that I can maintain throughout my life. 

If you're interested in joining me on this journey, please subscribe using the buttons on the right of the page

I have recently added jogging to my workout regimen and I'll be sharing a few tips that I've learned about jogging/running this week. Stay tuned!

3 KEYS TO SUCCESSFUL DIETING

I've never been a fan of fad diets. Cutting out an essential part of the diet, such as carbs or fat, never seemed like a good idea to me. If you try a diet in which you have to drastically alter what you eat, you're probably not going to stick to it. You can't keep not eating carbs forever. 

So what happens when you start eating carbs again? You gain back the weight.

Why? Because you have not made a maintainable, long-term change to your eating behavior. 

Fad diets make things complicated. The best approach to dieting is a simple one: keep a food journal and count your calories.

Your main focus should be setting a calorie goal and sticking to it. For more information about working out how many calories you should be eating, see here.

Let's get a little scientific for a minute. I promise it won't  be too horrible :)

Last year a study was conducted on the impact of a wide range of diet-related behaviors and meal patterns and their effect on weight change. These were the main conclusions of the study:

In the study, women who kept food journals lost about 6 lb more than those who did not.

It's pretty dang hard to change your eating behavior if you don't pay attention to what you're eating.

I know that there have been days in the past where I have assumed that I wasn't eating a lot of calories when I was actually eating a ridiculous amount.

Example: 

I love Chili's. When we go there John and I usually share a half order of Texas Cheese Fries and then I get a Classic Bacon Burger with a side order of fries. Yep, that's a lot of fries for one night.

I never really thought about how many calories I was eating. I guessed it was a lot but I wasn't sure exactly how much.

I decided to look it up one day. Guess how many calories that meal was.

2350

I could not believe this. I had been eating way more calories than I thought I was

Using a diet journal is easy. It doesn't take a lot of time. You don't have to use it every day for the rest of your life if you don't want to. It's good to track your calories for a few weeks every day. Then you will gain a sense for how many calories different foods contain. Then you can just use a diet journal every now and then to stay on track or you can continue to use it every day. 

Tips for using a diet journal:

Measure your servings. When you're counting calories it is important to pay attention to serving size. Don't just assume that you are just having one serving. Read labels and measure it out. For example, one serving of milk isn't a large glass of milk. It is one cup of milk.

Be honest. Record everything that you eat. Those fries that you stole off your boyfriend/husband's plate do count. Make sure you include toppings and condiments in your calorie count.

Be conscientious. Take your diet journal with you everywhere so you don't have to try to remember what you ate later. Use it every day for at least a couple of weeks.

Here a few printable food journal pages that I made that you are welcome to download.

 Blue Food Journal

 Green Food Journal

Pink Food Journal

There are also some good apps for counting calories. My favorite is MyFitnessPal.

In the study, women who skipped meals lost almost 8 fewer pounds than women who didn't. 

Skipping meals is a bad idea. We all know it's not very fun to be really hungry. Often when you skip a meal you end up binging later on in the day and making up the calories from the skipped meal. 

There's also the issue with your metabolism. You burn calories most efficiently when you eat at regular intervals throughout the day. The best thing to do is to eat five or six small meals a day. 

Skipping meals is also thought to cause you to respond more favorably to high-calorie foods. This means that  you will probably end up eating more calories than you would have if you hadn't skipped the meal.

In the study, women who ate out for lunch at least weekly lost an average of 5 fewer pounds than women who ate out less frequently.

I don't mean never eat out. It's fun to eat out every once and a while. Just make sure to limit how often you eat out. Also, when you do eat out, pay attention to the number of calories you are eating. Maybe only eat half of your meal that day. 

Kong A., Beresford S.A.A., Alfano C.M., Foster-Schubert K.E., Neuhouser M.L., Johnson D.B., Duggan C., (...), McTiernan A. Self-Monitoring and Eating-Related Behaviors Are Associated with 12-Month Weight Loss in Postmenopausal Overweight-to-Obese Women (2012)  Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics,  112  (9) , pp. 1428-1435.

TIPS FOR PREVENTING EXCESS EATING

1. When you're craving an unhealthy food, tell yourself that you have to eat a healthy snack before you can have the unhealthy food. Eating the healthy food first will hopefully mean that you will eat less of the unhealthy food in the end because the healthy food will help to fill your stomach.

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2. Try to eat some protein in each meal that you eat. Protein helps you to fill full and will help to keep you feeling full for longer. Often if I'm hungry at the end of the day I will have a glass of milk because it's not a lot of calories and it contains protein.

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3. If you're trying to stave off a craving, try chewing some sugar-free gum.

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4. Prevent giving into food cravings by brushing your teeth or using mouthwash. Nothing tastes good right after you brush your teeth. 

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5. You can also try drinking water when you feel hungry. Apparently some people confuse being thirsty with being hungry. 

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6. Try distracting yourself when you're craving food. One way in which you can do this is forehead tracking. Tap your pointer finger across your forehead from temple to temple. Tap once per second, moving across one centimeter at a time. Follow your finger with your eyes and focus your eyes on the first joint of your pointer finger.

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7. Another idea for resisting food cravings is to start a stopwatch when your craving starts and then stop it when the craving subsides. Next time you feel the craving you will know how much time you'll have to wait before the craving will go away. It makes it a lot easier to resist a craving when you can see the light at the end of the tunnel!

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10 MINUTE WORKOUT: ABS

My abs are something that I tend to neglect during my workouts. They're definitely a part of my body that need strengthening after having a baby. They got very little use during those long nine months so they are pretty weak.

This workout is quick and targets all of your abs! It's not a bad idea to use this workout on the same day that you do a strength workout for another area of your body. Make sure not to do this workout every day, though. Your abs need time to recover!

If you have any questions, feel free to email me at thefitnessfoxblog@gmail.com!

CHOCOLATE & WEIGHT LOSS

I think that most of us have always assumed that eating chocolate would lead to gaining weight. I know that I certainly did. Since I'm not a huge fan of chocolate to begin with (I know, I'm crazy) I've generally avoided it in the past. Lately I've started to add a little more chocolate to my diet. Why? Because of an article I read recently about a study on the effects that chocolate consumption has on body weight.

This study found that those who ate chocolate more frequently had significantly lower body masses than those who ate chocolate less frequently! I was pretty surprised by this. 

It's hypothesized that the metabolic benefits of modest amounts of chocolate might result in less fat being deposited per calorie. This means that chocolate might be calorie neutral! Pretty cool, huh?

This is not the only benefit of chocolate either. It has also been found that chocolate has positive effects on blood pressure, insulin sensitivity, and cholesterol level!

So go ahead and eat a few pieces of chocolate, just don't binge and eat a whole giant bar!

You can read the article for yourself here

EXERCISE DURING PREGNANCY

In one of the last classes I took for my major in exercise science, we were put into groups and then had to chose a condition and research the effect that exercise would have on it. My group was all girls so we decided to research the effects of exercise during pregnancy. None of us really knew what the exercise recommendations were for pregnant women and since we all wanted to be mothers at some point, we thought that this project would be pretty useful. This assignment was particularly helpful for me as I was pregnant with Eve about a week after we gave our presentation.

Me when I was 8 weeks pregnant

Even though I had this new knowledge about exercise, I wasn't the best at implementing it. For the first half of my pregnancy I didn't exercise as much as I should have. It was summer, I was taking summer classes, and the school gym was closed. This was particularly bad because I needed to take two gym glasses in my next semester, when I would be 6-9 months pregnant. John and I started going on walks to prepare myself for these classes. I ended up taking water aerobics and yoga. I'm lucky that I had the option of less intense exercise classes.

Me when I was 36 weeks pregnant

I wish that I had exercised regularly throughout my entire pregnancy. I definitely saw benefits from the exercise I did in the last few months of my pregnancy but it's not a good idea to begin exercising this late in a pregnancy.

If any of you are in the same boat as I was in before I did my research project (wanting to become pregnant someday in the not too distant future and not knowing about how you should exercise when pregnant), this post will help you become informed.

Before I start, I should say that this information was gathered from a series of studies that we read about. When you become pregnant, your doctor may give you different recommendations about exercise. Some doctors still recommend not letting your heart rate get about 140 bpm (this is pretty outdated). This is because there aren't any hard guidelines on exercise during pregnancy. I believe that the recommendations that I am going to provide are pretty consistent with what most doctors would approve of. My own doctor gave me similar recommendations. If you don't feel comfortable using the information I'm providing, talk to your doctor and follow their recommendations. Okay, let's get started.

Is exercising during pregnancy safe?

Yes, the majority of research shows that exercising, even vigorously, during pregnancy is safe for both the mother and the fetus.

Why should I exercise?

Exercising while pregnant will prevent:

- excessive weight gain

- weight retention after you give birth

- gestational diabetes

- complications during labor

- pre-term births

- constipation

- having a very large or very small baby

- preeclampsia

- postpartum depression

It will also help you to recover faster from childbirth

What type of exercise should I perform?

- Low impact

- Non weight bearing

- Aerobic endurance

- Ones that focus on large muscle groups

Can I do strength training?

Yes, but you should use light weights and perform a higher number of reps. Make sure not to hold your breath (you don't want to deprive your baby of oxygen)

How intense should the exercise be?

It should be about as intense as the exercise you did before you got pregnant. If you were working out at a high intensity before you got pregnant, you can still continue to exercise at the same level while you are pregnant. If you didn't exercise before you were pregnant, you will need to start out at a very gentle intensity and gradually increase the intensity over time. The important thing is not to jump into exercise that was much more intense than you performed before you were pregnant.

On a scale of 6-20, you should feel like your level of exertion while exercising is 13-16

If I didn't exercise regularly before I got pregnant what should I do?

You should start out by exercising for just 15 minutes a few times each week. You should gradually increase your time by 2 minutes until you reach 30 minutes. Your goal should be to perform 30 minutes of exercise, 4 days a week.

EXERCISE HEART RATE

When I started working out in high school, I absolutely hated it. I thought that working out was so hard and miserable. It wasn't until I took one of my first exercise science classes in college that I learned that I had been going about things the wrong way. I realized that I had always been pushing myself too hard when I worked out. My heart rate would be about 190 bpm. I assumed that if I wasn't pushing myself as hard as I could then I wasn't getting a good enough workout. Of course, that is so untrue. Once I figured out how high my heart rate needed to be in order to get a sufficient cardio workout, I actually started to enjoy exercising. I stopped pushing myself to the point of feeling sick. 

So how do you know the heart rate you should be aiming for? It's not too difficult to calculate. Here are the steps:

Determine your maximum heart rate using the following equation:

So for me my maximum heart rate is estimated to be 220 - 22 = 198

Decide whether you want to focus on burning fat or getting a cardiovascular work out.

You will need to reach 60-70% of your maximum heart rate

For me: 198 x 0.6 = 119 bpm                      198 x 0.7 = 139 bpm

My fat burning range is 119-139 bpm

You will need to reach 70-80% of your maximum heart rate

For me: 198 x 0.8 = 158 bpm

My cardio range is 139-158 bpm

You will need to reach 80-90% of your maximum heart rate. If you are doing high intensity exercise you should only be doing it for 10-20 minutes. 

For me: 198 x 0.9 = 179 bpm

My high intensity range is 158-178 bpm

As you can see, when I was hitting heart rates in the 190s, my heart rate was way too high. In fact, I used to occasionally get migraines after I would work out like this. Not fun.

While it would be a lot easier to do fat burning workouts all the time, it is better for your overall health to also perform cardio work outs. You can still burn fat with a cardio workout but fats just won't be the primary fuel source for this type of exercise.

A FEW FACTS ABOUT WATER

Lately I've realized that I do not drink enough water. I've been reading some books about beauty and these books all emphasize the importance of water in obtaining clear skin and healthy hair. These aren't the only benefits of being well hydrated either. It also improves your overall health and can help you lose weight and maintain a healthy body weight.

The problem is that I've always heard different things about how much water a person should drink. I decided to check the Institute of Medicine's recommendations for water intake. Here is what I found out and a few other facts about water as well:

It is estimated that 75% of Americans are chronically dehydrated. I'm pretty sure that I'm one of them. 

How much should I drink each day?

Women should drink about 9 cups of fluids per day

Men should drink about 13 cups of fluids per day

Does all of this need to come from drinking water alone?

All fluids count toward the total, not just water

On average, food provides about 20 percent of your water intake

Do I need to drink more if I exercise?

Yes, to compensate for sweating. 

For short bouts of exercise you need to have an extra 1.5-2.5 cups of water 

For intense bouts of exercise you should have a sports drink containing sodium

Do I need to drink more if I am pregnant or breastfeeding?

Yes, in both cases. 

Pregnant women should drink about 10 cups per day

Women who are breastfeeding should drink about 13 cups per day

Can I drink too much water?

Yes but it's rare in healthy adults who eat an average diet. 

It is more common in endurance athletes

Tips for getting enough fluids

1. Drink a glass of water or other low-calorie beverage with each meal and between each meal

2. Drink water before, during, and after exercise

20 MINUTE WORKOUT: LEGS AND BUTT

 I developed another 20 minute circuit workout! This one is designed to strengthen and tone your legs and butt! Who doesn't want that?!

I put a little more explanation of the exercises than I did for the arms and chest workout. That's because there's a lot more room for error in these exercises. I referred to the guidelines provided by the American Council on Exercise when designing this workout. 

You may be used to having your arms in a different position than mine (such as on the hips) when performing some of these exercises. I like to use my arms for balance as this reduces the strain on the knee. This is also what is recommended by the American Council on Exercise. 

If you find that some of these exercises don't give you the burn that you need, try holding some dumbbells while performing the exercise. 

If you have any questions, shoot me an email at thefitnessfoxblog@gmail.com!

20 MINUTE WORKOUT- ARMS AND CHEST

This week I came up with a workout to tone and strengthen the arms and chest. It's a circuit workout which means that it provides both cardio and strength benefits. 

This workout can be as intense as you want it to be. I allocated 1 minute to do as many repetitions of each exercise as possible. If you want a less intense workout, do less repetitions and take more rests between the exercises. You can also perform the different push-ups on your knees if you're not ready for full-on push-ups.

If you would like to increase the difficulty of these exercises, simply slow your repetitions down.

If you have any questions about this workout, leave a comment below or email me at thefitnessfoxblog@gmail.com!

THE BASICS OF WEIGHT LOSS

There are a hundreds of different weight loss programs and diets out there. The issue is that many of these only work for a select few people and if they do work, they are usually only a temporary solution. Most people regain the weight they have lost because they haven't made lifestyle changes which they can maintain. 

Today, I want to share with you some basics of weight loss that will lead to a successful weight loss program for anyone.
The key is making maintainable, healthy changes to your lifestyle..

How often should I work out?

5 days per week!

This is the goal you should be shooting for. It will bring you the most health benefits and will increase your chances of becoming thin and staying that way.

If you have been inactive this is going to be too much for you at first. Start out at 3 days per week and progress to 5. 

How long should I work out?

60 minutes!

If you are working out 5 days a week, you should do 60 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise per workout session. 

If you have been inactive you should start at 15-20 minutes and gradually increase to 60 minutes.

Why do I need to work out that much?

Studies have shown that this much physical activity is required to maintain healthy body weight.

This means that even if you work out for 300 minutes each week (60 min, 5 days/wk), you probably won't lose weight.

You will receive significant health benefits from working out this much. 

How can I lose weight then?

Exercise + dieting. 

You probably already guessed this.

You need to watch what you eat as well as exercise. If you cut back on your calories and exercise, you will lose weight. 

What if I work out at a higher intensity? 

Do I still need to do 300 minutes of exercise per week?

No!

If you are doing vigorous-intensity exercise instead of moderate, you can significantly cut back the amount of time spent exercising to about 150 minutes/week.

What is considered moderate-intensity exercise?

Exercise that causes a noticeable increase in your heart rate and lasts for longer than 10 minutes.

On a scale from 1-10, you should feel like the difficulty is a 5-6.

What about vigorous-intensity?

Results in rapid breathing and a substantial increase in heart rate.

On a scale from 1-10, you should feel like the difficulty is a 7-8.

This is when we work out!

How many calories should I be consuming?

It varies.

It depends on your age, gender, weight, height, and activity. 

You can use an online calorie calculator to find out how many calories you should be eating per day. Here is a link to one that I like: http://www.freedieting.com/tools/calorie_calculator.htm.

The nice thing about these calculators is that they will tell you how many calories to cut down to lose weight. 

What is the minimum number of calories that I should eat?

1200 Cal/day for women and 1600 Cal/day for men

If a weight loss calculator tells you to eat less than this, don't follow it!

You need at least this many calories to get the vitamins and minerals you need to be healthy.

If I'm working can I eat more calories?

It depends.

If you are just trying to maintain your current weight, then yes, you can eat more calories. If you are trying to lose weight, then probably not. You can check this using a calorie calculator. 

However, if you are working out for more than 60 minutes, 5 times per week DO NOT follow the amount that the calorie counter tells you. It will overestimate how many calories you are able to eat.

What type of diet should I use?

Don't use any extreme diets.

The best diet to follow is one that is one in which you eat less calories than you need to maintain your weight. 

Fad diets in which you drastically alter what you eat generally DON'T WORK. They are too hard to maintain and you usually don't enjoy them.

Just eat a diet that includes fruits, vegetables, grains, meats, dairy. In other words, get all the necessary vitamins and minerals.

Eat your favorite treats, just in moderation

The key is to make sure that you know how many calories you should eat and try to stick to that.

I find that I am most succesful in dieting when I write down how many calories I eat during the day.

Do you exercise for 60 minutes, 5 days per week?

At the moment I do not because I just had a baby. I didn't work out very intensely while I was pregnant. I just did yoga and water aerobics. This means that I'm not jumping straight in to this much exercise. I do 60 minutes of exercise about 3 days per week.

STRENGTH TRAINING: WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

To the females reading this post: don't fall into the trap of thinking that strength training is only for guys. Strength training is a great way to burn calories and to tone your muscles. You can lift weights without turning into the "She-Hulk"

Benefits of Strength Training:

• Increased performance of everyday physical tasks
• Higher levels of sport performance
• Injury prevention
• Increased muscle mass and decreased fat
• Improved muscle and bone health with aging
• Prevention and management of cardiovascular disease and diabetes

Types of Muscle Contractions:

• Concentric contractions- the muscle shortens as it contracts
• Ex: Pushing a bench-press bar away from your body shortens your pec muscles

• Eccentric contractions- the muscle lengthens as it contracts
• Ex: Lowering bench-press bar toward your body lengthens your pec muscles

• Isometric contractions- the muscle contracts but there is no movement or change in muscle length
• Ex: Holding a bench-press bar away from your body without moving for a certain length of time

Which Type of Contraction Should You Focus On?

• The type of contraction that burns the most calories is concentric muscle contraction
• The type of contraction that results in the greatest increases in muscle size is eccentric muscle contraction
• Isometric contractions will only increase your strength within 10 degrees from the angle in which you performed the exercise

Weight Machines or Free Weights?

• Weight machines are easy to use, convenient, and safe. You don't need a spotter and many will have back support.

• Free weights strengthen your body in ways that will be more useful in real life, are inexpensive, and are convenient for home use. They require more balance and coordination.

How Often?

• The American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) recommends performing strength training on two nonconsecutive days per week
• Make sure that you give your muscles at least one day of rest between strength workouts. If you don't, your muscles won't have completely recovered and you won't be able to perform at the level you need to get any strength increases. You will be more likely to have increased soreness and increased risk of injury.

How Much Weight?

• Choose a weight that is heavy enough to tire your muscles, but light enough that you can complete your repetitions.
• For faster increases in strength, use weights that are as heavy as 80% of your maximum capacity.

• For increases in endurance, use weights that are around 40-60% of your maximum capacity.

• You can also choose a weight depending on the number of repetitions you can perform with a given weight.

How Many Repetitions?

• You need to perform enough repetitions to fatigue your muscles
• A heavy weight and a low number of repetitions, such as 1-5, will build high strength and high muscle mass.

• A light weight and a high number of repetitions, such as 15-20, will build endurance. This is the method I use, because I am more interested in toning than in getting large muscles.

How Many Sets?

• Performing 3 sets will give you the best increases in performance

• Make sure you give your muscles adequate rest between sets

Other Tips

• Whenever you do an exercise that moves a joint in one direction, make sure to also perform an exercise that moves the joint in the other direction.

• Perform exercise for large muscle groups before you do exercises for small muscle groups. This will allow you to maximally work out your large muscle groups.

• Warm-up before weight training by walking or jogging for several minutes

References

Fahey, T. D., Insel, P. M., & Roth, W. T. (2010). Fit & well alternate edition: Core concepts and labs in physical fitness and wellness. (9 ed., pp. 91-106). New York: McGraw-Hill.

Kenney, W. L., Wilmore, J., & Costill, D. (2011). 

Physiology of sport and exercise. (5 ed.). Champaign: Human Kinetics.