If you read pretty much any health magazine article, they will tell you that counting your calories is one of the most important ways to lose weight and keep your health in check. This may be true, but I don't exactly like writing down each calorie that I consume; I find it too tedious. Of course, there are websites that do all the work for you, all you have to do is enter the foods you ate during the day.
For me, it can be pretty hard to be consistent with my food and exercise log, and often times I don't know how accurate the calorie count is for the foods I'm entering, especially because most of my diet comes from the school cafeteria. If you're like me and find food logging boring and/or you just forget to keep up with it, here are some tips to help you keep your calories tracking in check.
1. Find a good calorie tracking website (I like Map My Run, but you can also use My Fitness Pal or another calorie tracking site)
2. Be honest: The most important part of tracking your calories is to be 100% honest about what you eat and the exercise you do during the day. Record everything you ate and how much. The same goes for exercise.
3. Set a reminder: Put a reminder or an alarm on your phone to go off at a certain time everyday to tell you when to record your daily intake. When your reminder goes off, drop whatever you're doing and hop onto your calorie tracking site of choice.
4. Write it down: To help you remember what you ate during the day, carry around a small notebook and write down everything you eat after each meal, then at the end of the day, take everything you wrote down, and put it into a tracking site.
Hopefully you'll find these tips helpful, now I just have to take my own advice! ;) Happy food tracking!
Tuesday, October 22, 2013
Monday, October 21, 2013
Peanut Butter Protein Smoothie!
Do you like peanut butter? Do you like chocolate? What's better than those two things separately? Putting them together!! The smoothie I'm about to tell you about is the perfect combination of peanut butter and chocolate blended together into one glass of nutritious deliciousness (even if it is pretty calorie dense)!
Ok, so first things first, I LOVE bananas, so I will pretty much find any excuse to use a banana. That being said, this recipe does involve bananas, but if you aren't as great a banana fan as me, then you really don't need to include them in this recipe.
Ingredients:
2 ripe bananas
1/2 scoop chocolate whey protein powder
2 tbsp. all natural peanut butter
1/2 c. ice cubes
1/4 c. skim milk
Directions:
1. Put in ice cubes, milk, and bananas.
2. Add in peanut butter and protein powder.
3. Blend together until smooth.
4. Pour in cup and enjoy! :)
*Makes about two tall smoothies
Of course, if you don't like chocolate or peanut butter, or whey, etc. then this smoothie probably isn't for you, however it's one of my absolute favorites! I make it whenever I get the chance. I love to make it as either a post workout recovery drink or have one in the morning for a nice, protein packed start to my day! Try it and let me know how you like it!
I'd love to hear about your favorite smoothie!
Ok, so first things first, I LOVE bananas, so I will pretty much find any excuse to use a banana. That being said, this recipe does involve bananas, but if you aren't as great a banana fan as me, then you really don't need to include them in this recipe.
Ingredients:
2 ripe bananas
1/2 scoop chocolate whey protein powder
2 tbsp. all natural peanut butter
1/2 c. ice cubes
1/4 c. skim milk
Directions:
1. Put in ice cubes, milk, and bananas.
2. Add in peanut butter and protein powder.
3. Blend together until smooth.
4. Pour in cup and enjoy! :)
*Makes about two tall smoothies
Of course, if you don't like chocolate or peanut butter, or whey, etc. then this smoothie probably isn't for you, however it's one of my absolute favorites! I make it whenever I get the chance. I love to make it as either a post workout recovery drink or have one in the morning for a nice, protein packed start to my day! Try it and let me know how you like it!
I'd love to hear about your favorite smoothie!
Tuesday, October 8, 2013
The Benefits of a Workout Buddy
Sometimes it can get pretty difficult to motivate yourself to work out, at least for me, anyways. I always know that I need to get my exercise in, and usually I'm pretty diligent about getting it done, but then there are the days when I just want to be lazy and sit on my bum. One day leads to another, which leads to another, and so on until an entire month has passed since I ran or did any form of activity that didn't involve a remote and a large screen television. I'm proud to say that this has not happened to me since I've arrived at school (knock on wood) and that's partially due to the fact that I have access to a fully equipped gym, complete with a pool and indoor track. But mostly, it's because I have a buddy.
At home, I have several friends that I can run with and I play soccer and ultimate frisbee over the summers, but I'm never very consistent with my workout regimen. At school, however, I have a workout partner that motivates me to get up and exercise even when I don't necessarily want to. Her name is Rachael and she's pretty neat! We run together, swim together, lift weights together, we practically live together. She's in my suite ALL the time! Needless to say, we're pretty close. Exercising is how we bond and boy, have we been doing a lot of bonding this year! :)
What's great about working out with Rachael, aside from just having company and motivation, is that she holds me accountable for exercising. She'll keep my pace in check when we run (so that I don't move like a turtle) and she makes sure I put a solid effort into our circuit/strength training sessions. But most of all, she tells me to get off my butt and stop being a lazy poop on days like today, when I will pretty much try to find any excuse to not go to the gym.
This afternoon, after sitting in the stands for about three hours and playing with Titan pep band at our school's football game, I would've given anything to sit on the couch and play Dots for hours. I was in the midst of a really intense round of Dots when in walks Rachael. She asked me if I wanted to go for a run and I groaned that I didn't really feel like it, but she begged and insisted that I come with her. She told me she was going to change into her running clothes and when she came back, I'd better be in mine. I knew she'd go whether I came along or not, but I knew I'd regret it if I didn't run with her, so I reluctantly changed and went along for the jog.
It turned out to not be so bad, which always happens. We had a good life talk during the course of our run and finished up our exercise for the day with a post-run strength workout. We did box jumps and BOSU ball squats and a couple of different ab exercises. The point is, I worked out today, and all because Rachael guilted me into a run.
Having a friend to workout with is great for many reasons. For starters, they can at least get you out the door and moving. They give you a reason to workout, someone to keep up with or compete with and best of all, they give you a wider range of exercises to do. There are plenty of workouts out there that you can do with a partner, and many times, they're harder than exercises that you would do by yourself. Having a partner also gives you a spotter for things like bench presses and hand stand push-ups, which I've never personally tried before. Personally, I love having someone to workout with. I mean, don't get me wrong, I love exercising no matter what, but it's so much better when you have someone you care about to do it with.
What about you? Do you like working out with a buddy?
At home, I have several friends that I can run with and I play soccer and ultimate frisbee over the summers, but I'm never very consistent with my workout regimen. At school, however, I have a workout partner that motivates me to get up and exercise even when I don't necessarily want to. Her name is Rachael and she's pretty neat! We run together, swim together, lift weights together, we practically live together. She's in my suite ALL the time! Needless to say, we're pretty close. Exercising is how we bond and boy, have we been doing a lot of bonding this year! :)
 |
| Me and Rachael Post-run |
What's great about working out with Rachael, aside from just having company and motivation, is that she holds me accountable for exercising. She'll keep my pace in check when we run (so that I don't move like a turtle) and she makes sure I put a solid effort into our circuit/strength training sessions. But most of all, she tells me to get off my butt and stop being a lazy poop on days like today, when I will pretty much try to find any excuse to not go to the gym.
This afternoon, after sitting in the stands for about three hours and playing with Titan pep band at our school's football game, I would've given anything to sit on the couch and play Dots for hours. I was in the midst of a really intense round of Dots when in walks Rachael. She asked me if I wanted to go for a run and I groaned that I didn't really feel like it, but she begged and insisted that I come with her. She told me she was going to change into her running clothes and when she came back, I'd better be in mine. I knew she'd go whether I came along or not, but I knew I'd regret it if I didn't run with her, so I reluctantly changed and went along for the jog.
It turned out to not be so bad, which always happens. We had a good life talk during the course of our run and finished up our exercise for the day with a post-run strength workout. We did box jumps and BOSU ball squats and a couple of different ab exercises. The point is, I worked out today, and all because Rachael guilted me into a run.
Having a friend to workout with is great for many reasons. For starters, they can at least get you out the door and moving. They give you a reason to workout, someone to keep up with or compete with and best of all, they give you a wider range of exercises to do. There are plenty of workouts out there that you can do with a partner, and many times, they're harder than exercises that you would do by yourself. Having a partner also gives you a spotter for things like bench presses and hand stand push-ups, which I've never personally tried before. Personally, I love having someone to workout with. I mean, don't get me wrong, I love exercising no matter what, but it's so much better when you have someone you care about to do it with.
What about you? Do you like working out with a buddy?
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