Just a quickie

Apologies for not updating my progress yet, time has not been on my side! I will however update it this weekend along with my eating and exercise plan I am currently following.

Motivate Thursday . . . . motivation before the weekend

 



So here is my motivation Thursday, most people do motivation Monday, but I think everyone need extra motivation before the weekend to stay on track! Eat clean and train mean...

 

 

 

Don't be a victim to the weekend! I am making my protein banana bread as in yesterdays post (yumyum), my fiance and I are doing jujitsu on Saturday morning and I will be taking my dog for a very active beach session - #lovelifefit

Some Yummy Recipes!

Protein
Banana Bread

Ingredients:

·         2 medium bananas (200g)

·         1/8 cup (22g) of coconut flour

·         3 whole eggs

·         2 egg whites

·         1/2 cup (46g) of oats

·         1/2 cup (54g) of banana whey protein powder ( or vanilla)

·         1/2 cup (105ml) of milk (I used cow's but any will do)

·         8 brazil nuts (I added this for kicks; you can throw in any nut you want too
- they add a nice flavour and crunch)

·         1 tsp of baking powder

 

Instructions:

Blended together and baked at 160 (320) for about 40 minutes (or until your utensil comes out clean after stabbing the bread) in a silicone bread loaf pan.

Macros

Macros per one slice (out of the ten you get from the mix above):

·         105 kcals

·         7.85g protein

·         8.79g carbs (3.7g sugars)

·         3.98g fat (1.2g sat)

·         1.93g fiber

Protein Flan

 

Ingredients:

·         1 pint of milk (473 ml)

·         1 cup of whey

·         1 pack of gelatin

Directions:

·         Get out a pot and heat up your milk.

·         When the milk gets hot enough to drink but not hot enough to burn your mouth, remove it from the heat and add it to a big glass bowl containing your whey and gelatin.

·         Then, whisk for the life of you and let the mixture sit for a while before adding it to your jelly molds, bowls, mugs, etc.

·         Leave it in the fridge overnight and.... Barabooom! Enjoy :-D

Macros:

Per one out of four:

·         145 kcals

·         22.3g protein

·         4g carbs

·         4g fat

·         0.6g fiber

The Bulk of the Debate

 

“I don’t want to lift heavy weights, I don’t want to bulk up or look like a man”, if I have to hear, read or answer this statement one more time, I will seriously hit said person with a heavy weight.

Let’s start with a few visuals

You don’t want to lift heavy weights because you are afraid to look like this:

                                                   

You don’t want to lift heavy weights because you want to be lean and “toned” and look like this:

                                                

Now here comes the Boom = Picture one, to attain that kind of physique took years and years and years of training, steroids, male hormones injected etc. Picture two, the lovely Yarishna Nicole Ayala Otero who is a professional bikini competitor lifts Heavy weights and trains dam hard – so does every one of the amazing bikini competitors out there and they all sport lean toned unbulky physics.

So here, very neatly numbered are the reasons you will not become a bulking he-she if you lift heavy weights:

1, Women do not have nearly as much testosterone as men.

Women have about 15 to 20 times less testosterone than men. Testosterone is the reason men are men and women are women. After men hit puberty, they grow facial hair, their voice deepens, and they develop muscle mass. Because men have more testosterone, they are much more equipped to gain muscle. Because women do not have very much testosterone in their bodies, they will never be able to get as big as men.

2. The perception that women will bulk up when they begin a strength training program comes from the chemically-altered women on the covers of bodybuilding magazines.

These “grocery stand models” are most likely pumped full of some extra juice. This is why they look like men. If you take the missing link that separates men from women and add it back in, what do you have? A man!

3. For women, toning is what happens when the muscle is developed through training.

This is essentially bodybuilding without testosterone. Since the testosterone is not present in sufficient amounts, the muscle will develop, but it won’t gain a large amount of mass. The “toned” appearance comes from removing the fat that is covering a well-developed muscle.

4. Muscle bulk comes from a high volume of work.

The repetition range that most women would prefer to do (8–20 reps) promotes hypertrophy (muscle growth). For example, a bodybuilding program will have three exercises per body part. For the chest, they will do flat bench for three sets of 12, incline for three sets of 12, and decline bench for three sets of 12. This adds up to 108 total repetitions. A program geared towards strength will have one exercise for the chest—flat bench for six sets of three with progressively heavier weight. This equals 18 total repetitions. High volume (108 reps) causes considerable muscle damage, which in turn; results in hypertrophy (muscle growth).The considerably lower volume (18 reps) will build more strength and cause minimal bulking.

5. Heavy weights will promote strength not size.

This has been proven time and time again. When lifting weights over 85 percent, the primary stress imposed upon the body is placed on the nervous system, not on the muscles. Therefore, strength will improve by a neurological effect while not increasing the size of the muscles.

Women need to train with heavy weights not only to strengthen the muscles but also to cause positive adaptations in the bones and connective tissues.

6. Bulking up is not an overnight process.

Many women think they will start lifting weights, wake up one morning, and say “Holy sh__! I’m huge!” This doesn’t happen. The men that you see who have more muscle than the average person has worked hard for a long time (years) to get that way.

7. What the personal trainer is prescribing is not working.

Many female athletes come into a new program and say they want to do body weight step-ups, body weight lunges, and leg extensions because it’s what their personal trainer back home had them do. However, many of these girls need to look in a mirror and have a reality check because their trainer’s so-called magical toning exercises are not working. Trainers will hand out easy workouts and tell people they work because they know that if they make the program too hard the client will complain. And, if the client is complaining, there’s a good chance the trainer might lose that client (a client to a trainer equals money).

8. Bulking up is calorie dependant.

This means if you eat more than you are burning, you will gain weight. If you eat less than you are burning, you will lose weight. Unfortunately, most female athletes perceive any weight gain as “bulking up” and do not give attention to the fact that they are simply getting fatter. “Squats don’t bulk you up. It’s the ten beers a night that bulk you up.” This cannot be emphasized enough.

Here are reasons why you should lift heavier weights:

1. You'll Torch Body Fat

You may have been told that cardio is the ultimate fat burner, but that effect stops the minute you hop off the treadmill. Build more muscle and you'll keep your body burning fat all day long. According to one study, adding just two sessions per week of heavy lifting can reduce your body fat by three percent without cutting calories.

Another study from the University of Alabama in Birmingham showed that dieters who lifted heavy weights lost the same amount of weight as dieters who did just card, but all the weight lost by the weight lifters was primarily fat while the cardio queens lost a lot of muscle along with some fat. And more muscle, less fat translated to smaller clothing sizes than their less muscular counterparts.

2. You'll Fight Osteoporosis

The key to this one is consistency, as research has shown lifting heavy weights over time not only maintains bone mass but can even build new bone, especially in the high-risk group of post-menopausal women

4. You'll Burn More Calories

You may burn more calories during your 1-hour cardio class than you would lifting weights for an hour, but a study published in The Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research found that women who did weight training burned an average of 100 more calories during the 24 hours after their training session ended.

And the effect is magnified when you increase the weight, as explained in a study in the journal Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise. Women who lifted more weight for fewer reps (85 percent of their max load for 8 reps) burned nearly twice as many calories during the two hours after their workout than when they did more reps with a lighter weight (45 percent of their max load for 15 reps).

5. You'll Build Strength Faster

Lifting lighter weights for more reps is great for building muscle endurance, but if you want to increase your strength, increasing your weight load is key. Add compound exercises such as squats, deadlifts, and rows to your heavy weights and you'll be amazed at how fast you'll build strength

 6. You'll Lose Belly Fat

While it is true that you can't spot reduce—your body is born with pre-conceived places it wants to store fat—a study found that the women who lifted weights lost more intra-abdominal fat (deep belly fat) than those who just did cardio. This not only helps you lose your belly pooch and look better in a bikini, but it also lessens your risk of diabetes, metabolic syndrome, and some cancers.

 7. You'll Feel Empowered

Throwing around some serious iron doesn't just empower women in the movies. Lifting heavier weights—and building strength as a result—comes with a big self-esteem boost. Your strength will not only show in your lean, toned body, but also in your attitude

 8. You'll Prevent Injury

Achy hips and sore knees don't have to be a staple of your morning run. Strengthening the muscles surrounding and supporting your joints can help prevent injuries by helping you maintain good form, as well as strengthening joint integrity.

If you seriously still don’t believe me and the countless upon countless articles out there on this subject, then just go be a cardio queen and we will see who looks hooter in 11 months time…..

Slow and steady wins the race

The billion dollar diet industry makes its money by promising fast weight loss with minimal effort. Pills, books, people, websites – they all make wild claims like “Loos 6kg in 2 weeks”, the desperate (which is most dieters) get drawn in like a moth to the flame. The initial first two weeks will show great losses, but that’s mainly water weight and not fat. Eventually the weight loss will come down to what is normal 1 – 2 pounds a weeks or alternatively 500g to 1 kg a week. In comparison to their previous large losses, this will seem to them like they are hitting a wall, many of them will become deterred and they will gain all the weight, plus more, back.

This is the very sad circle of events that happen everywhere. People don’t want to accept that there simply is no magic pill or magic diet that will make them skinny in a matter of weeks. The false hope these products give people is not helping either. Even intelligent, logic people who know better get sucked into these traps. At the end of the day, losing weight comes down to a few simple principles

-          Eat healthy and regularly

-          No Junk food or processed food or sugar laden food

-          Load up on veggies, salad and fruit in moderation

-          Eat lean proteins

-          Eat good fats

-          Drink lots of water

-          Stay away or limit alcohol intake

-          Exercise regularly

-          Get enough rest and sleep

 

These are the principle we all know so well, but yet refuse to apply because the results are not fast enough, but the results are real and undamaging to your body. Yes the above basics can be tweaked to make your diet and workout regime at an optimum level; the right macro nutrient ratios, the right kind of exercise, meal timing – and they all build together to get you running like a well oiled machine. Even with those tweaks, you are looking at a long steady journey. At the end of the day, it’s a lifestyle and permanent result. IT might take you a year or two to shed all the weight and get your body sculpted, but it will be done in and safe healthy way which will result in permanently altered eating and exercising behaviour and a stable weight.

 

 

 

This is the approach I am taking, I have also gotten sucked in by fads and have felt and seen the negative side of them. Today I celebrate my 1 kg loss I had for the week and I look forward to the journey of losing the rest. I look forward to the new life I am building and knowledge I am gaining every day.

That dress....

So Murphy is a motherf#@ker.... what would happen, the dress I want goes on sale 11 months before my wedding and like millions of kg away from my goal weight.

What to do, what to do....what are my options?

By the dress in the size I plan to be, and then comes the time and the day, it just doesn't fit as I envisioned?
Don't by the dress and be a little sad for a long time?
Don't by the dress in hope that it will still be available after the sale later in the year...

and so my mind rails on!

Besides the obsessive dress thoughts are the; why didn't I just stick to my diet and exercise last year then I wouldn't have a dilemma right now - those are the worst. I am pretty peeved right now, even at the dress shop, who has a sale this time of the year...pfft!

Excuse my rant and rave, but this is why I created this blog, to share my trials and tribulations and f'ing dress dilemmas...sigh (sad face)

OK, I have to move on and over this....my body is going to be so hot in 11 months I am not even going to want to wear a dress! Hell yes! Maybe this dress just wasn't suppose to be, I am sure something much more amazing is out there for me. I will stay positive and not let this affect me, I will Be Positive Bride :)

On a different note, follow me on twitter to see what I am eating when and what I am working out when. I will upload more info about my diet and exercise to the site this weekend, so please stay tuned....

Sleep your weight off!

Sleeping helps to loose weight?!

Doesn't this sound amazing - you sleep and you loose weight? Forget the gym, let's sleep the weight away.....well not exactly. It's more a case of; the right amount and quality of sleep will aid in your weight-loss attempts.

This article from WebMD is super informative:

ByDenise Mann
WebMD Feature

Reviewed byLouise Chang, MD

Could lack of sleep be causing you to gain weight?

Think about it: If you’re feeling sleepy at work, you may be tempted to reach for a cup of coffee (or several cups) and a doughnut for a quick shot of energy. Later you may skip the gym and pick up takeout on your way home to your family -- no time to cook. When you finally find yourself back in your bed, you are too wound up to sleep.

 

It’s a vicious cycle, and eventually this sleep deprivation can sabotage your waistline and your health.
It starts out innocently enough. “When you have sleep deprivation and are running on low energy, you automatically go for a bag of potato chips or other comfort foods,” says Susan Zafarlotfi, PhD, clinical director of the Institute for Sleep and Wake Disorders at Hackensack University Medical Centre in New Jersey.
The immediate result? You may be able to fight off sleepiness. The ultimate result? Unwanted pounds as poor food choices coupled with lack of exercise set the stage for obesity and further sleep loss.
“Sleep debt is like credit card debt,” Zafarlotfi says. “If you keep accumulating credit card debt, you will pay high interest rates or your account will be shut down until you pay it all off. If you accumulate too much sleep debt, your body will crash.”
Not getting enough sleep is common -- even talked about with pride -- in the U.S. “We brag about an all-nighter, but we do pay a price for staying up late and getting up early,” says Mark Mahowald, MD, director of the Minnesota Regional Sleep Disorders Centre in Hennepin County.

Understanding the Sleep-Diet Connection

The sleep-diet connection is regular fodder for diet books and magazine articles. Maybe you have even heard about the sleep diet, which suggests you can lose weight while you catch your ZZZs.
And it’s true, sort of.
“It’s not so much that if you sleep, you will lose weight, but if you are sleep-deprived, meaning that you are not getting enough minutes of sleep or good quality sleep, your metabolism will not function properly,” explains Michael Breus, PhD, author of Beauty Sleepand the clinical director of the sleep division for Arrowhead Health in Glendale, Ariz.
On average, we need about 7.5 hours of quality sleep per night, he says. “If you are getting this already, another half hour will not help you lose 10 pounds, but if you are a five-hour sleeper and start to sleep for seven hours a night, you will start dropping weight.”
Exactly how lack of sleep affects our ability to lose weight has a lot to do with our nightly hormones, explains Breus.
The two hormones that are key in this process are ghrelin and leptin.“Ghrelin is the ‘go’ hormone that tells you when to eat, and when you are sleep-deprived, you have more ghrelin,” Breus says. “Leptin is the hormone that tells you to stop eating, and when you are sleep deprived, you have less leptin.”
More ghrelin plus less leptin equals weight gain.
“You are eating more, plus your metabolism is slower when you are sleep-deprived,” Breus says.

The Sleep-Weight Loss Solution

So what can you do about sleep deprivation?

A lot, says Breus. First, look at how much you sleep vs. how well you sleep.“Some people such as new moms may only get to sleep for a four-hour stretch. And there are some people who get 7.5 hours of sleep that is poor quality because of pain or an underlying sleep disorder, and this has the same effect as if they got less sleep,” he says.

Trouble-shoot both with improved sleep hygiene, he says.
For starters, avoid any caffeine in the afternoon because it will keep you in the lighter stages of sleep -- which are associated with poor sleep -- at night. Breus recommends only decaf from 2 p.m. on. Exercise also helps improve sleep quality. How soon before bed should you exercise? It depends --everyone is different. It’s more important that you exercise than it iswhen you exercise. Breus says to be safe, don’t exercise right before going to bed. “But some people exercise better before bed and it doesn’t affect their sleep,” he says.
Watch what you eat before bedtime. “Pizza and beer before bedtime is not a good idea,” says Breus. “Neither is eating a big meal close to bedtime.” He suggests eating a few healthy snacks and then having a light meal -- like a bowl of cereal -- if you’re running close to bedtime. Heavy, rich meals before bed can also increase risk of heartburn, which will certainly keep you up all night.
What if you are getting enough hours of sleep but wake up and feel sleepy the next day? “Talk to your doctor about seeing a sleep specialist,” Breus says. After conducting a thorough evaluation and sleep study, in which you are monitored while sleeping, the sleep specialist can help identify any underlying problem. Together you can develop a treatment plan so that you get more high-quality sleep -- and maybe even slim down.

Find the source of the article here: http://www.webmd.com/sleep-disorders/excessive-sleepiness-10/lack-of-sleep-weight-gain?page=2

When people talk about weight-loss they always just think diet and exercise, but really there are so many factors that come into play. So if you find yourself eating healthy and exercising regularly (and I mean really eating healthy and exercising regularly) and still not loosing the pounds, discover other avenues that might be ceasing your weight-loss; Lack of sleep, hormones, stress, insulin, allergies and many more.

Sleep tight :)

The Chocoholic Diet Dilemma

My amazing little friend, I'll call her Bonina, had a big dilemma today with regards to dieting and chocolate - she just doesn't seem to think she will be able to stay away! 

We all have this problem, especially us ladies, you know what I mean ;) How do we possible leave the chocolate and stay on route? This is just as hard for me, I have a major sweet tooth especially after dinner. The secret is: have your chocolate! You must be thinking is this chick crazy?! I am not, but I do have the answer on how you can have your chocolate and not break your carb, calorie or Fat bank.

So let's think about this logically, what do we crave? We crave the taste of chocolate and there are ways to get around that....

So let me share with you a few of my secrets, what I do to stay sane and satisfy my inner chocoholic.

1. Sugar free, fat free Hot Chocolate

Those of you who love dark chocolate, this is sure to curb the cravings.

1 Heaped teaspoon of unsweetened cocoa (I use Trumps brand)
125 ml Skim milk
125 Boiling water
Sweetener to taste (Try and use a brand that is aspartame free)

Mix the Boiling water and Cocoa till dissolved
Add the milk and heat in microwave
Add your sweetener to taste

Enjoy

It's simple and tasty

Add a teaspoon of coffee for a Cafe Mocha vibe :)

2. Chocolate Protein Smoothie

The same vanilla Whey Protein can get pretty boring, so here is how I spruce mine up and make it into a delicious treat.

1 Scoop Pure Whey Protein (go for a proper brand that has little carbs and other crap added, the wrong kind of Whey can be a fat trap with loads of sugar and fillers)
1 Heaped teaspoon of unsweetened cocoa (I use Trumps brand)
1 Tablespoon sugar free peanut butter (If desired, gives a nice taste and excellent for a per-workout energy boost)
5 Tablespoons fat free yogurt (Vanilla, Strawberry - Whatever flavor you want to throw at it)
1 Cup Ice
100 ml Water - You can add more or less depending on how you want the consistency
1 Sachet Sweetener to taste (Try and use a brand that is aspartame free)

Throw all this into your blender and blend!

Voila a nommy treat

Add a few Goji berries to pack the antioxidant punch, add some berries in the summer for a delicious chocolate strawberry shake - Just watch the fruits though, they still have sugar in them, it might not be refined, but it's sugar.

3. Weighless Chocolate Mouse

I mean, You just add water and beat! Sooooooo easy, chocolaty and fantastic!

4. Sugar free chocolate instant pudding!

Just add skim milk and beat - Hellloooooo. Why do you need to have a chocolate with all that fat and sugar, you can get your fix right here. For those who think this sugar free stuff will taste crap - just first try it please and then make your judgment. IT's obviously not the "real" thing, but you have to compromise and if you are not willing to make such a little compromise, you're not in it to win it!

5. Surf the net!

Finally Ladies, you all know how to surf the net and there are hundreds of awesome recipes out there - use them, use the tools out there, make it work!

But because I am awesome, here are just a few links - just a few, cause you also have to do some of the effort ;)

http://www.angelfire.com/ok3/vbowendessert/index.html

http://gitaskitchen.blogspot.com/2010/01/fat-free-and-sugar-free-chocolate.html

http://www.food.com/recipe/fat-free-sugar-free-brownies-144147

Happy healthy cooking lovelies!