Plan Your Work and Work Your Plan

So here we are Divas, the beginning of another week. Don't be hard on yourself. Making positive changes takes time. I certainly don't quite know what I'm doing yet, but I'm feeling great about it all and am ready for another week.

As we head into week 2, I'm sure some of you are thinking......"So...what's the plan anyways?" "What exactly IS she going to do to lose HALF of herself???? Well, I'll tell you my plan, but you gotta remember that before you start any diet or exercise plan to check with your doctor. I did..... and he thinks it's a solid plan, but you and I may be different and you always want to make sure it's safe for YOU.

Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) is a mathematical calculation that tells you exactly how many calories your particular body mass burns in a 24 hour period just living, breathing and being.... with little to no physical activity.

If we go back to basic life science and chemistry, you know that 3500 calories = 1 pound of fat. Sooooo.... if you wanna lose 2 pounds a week (on average), you gotta lose 7000 calories a week (or 1000 calories a day). So how do we do that???? I'd say, let's start off by figuring out what our BMR is. Mine is 2100. If I wanna lose 1000 calories (or a deficit as they call it) then I would split the 1000 calories in half and try to BURN 500 CALORIES and then consume 500 CALORIES LESS than my BMR (which is 1600 calories). So my goal is:

Eat a balanced diet of 1600 calories or less each day AND
Burn 500 extra calories each day through exercise and movement.

Sure there are various calculators you can use to track your calories eaten. I personally really like www.calorieking.com or www.sparkpeople.com. Then for exercise there are various calculators on the web for that too.....HOWEVER if you have the money, I recommend purchasing the BODYBUGG.

The bodybugg runs anywhere from $175-$250 depending on if you get online support (which you really don't need if you get the display). The bodybugg is a multi-directional, super duper, highly accurate pedometer that calculates all your movements (except when swimming) and gives you a total calories burned for the day. Knowing this very accurate number is extremely helpful..because realizing it or not.... there are movements we don't even think of that will cause us to burn, burn, burn more calories than we realized. Take yard work, for example..... I did not know this until just this weekend, but yard work for one hour burns twice as many calories as walking for one hour. SWEET!!!!!

So there's my plan to lose 2 pounds a week through food and exercise journaling. I know it will take me a while, but I will be doing it at a nice slow pace that should allow my body to heal and get healthy. As I continue to blog, we will discuss in a bit more detail how we get to our calories consumed goal. There are guidelines I am going to follow, such as choosing only 3 carb servings a day and making sure to get 3-5 fruits a day etc. (Only because as you all know, eating balanced is much better for our bodies.) Oh sure....there will be those days when all you want to do is just sit down and eat 1600 calories in chocolate chip cookie dough and then go for a walk and then call it a day. And yeeeeessssssss, I might be within my calorie deficit goal of 1000 for the day if I do that, but is it good for me? Absolutely not.

So that's the plan and I'm sticking to it. If you keep an eye on the left side of my blog, I will be posting more regularly my stats and journals. You can also find on that side the BMR calculators and such. So here's to week 2 and to having a pland and workin' it!!!!! Have a beautiful Monday.