The beginning of the best decision I have made in my life!

Well, after I made the decision to lose weight, I knew the first thing I needed to do was to cut my caloric intake!! I had to cut all the burgers, french fries, and junk food! It sucked to think that I would not be able to eat all that amazing stuff anymore. As the weeks went on, it got a lot easier to not think about all that food. The exercise component was very important (and difficult!). The beginning of my exercise regimen was the following:

 5 X/week
35 minutes of Cardio (treadmill, elliptical, swimming)
30 minutes of free weights
and 10 minutes of abs, planks, and leg raises

Day 1

35 minutes of a mixture of a light jog at 4.5 to 5 and walk at 3.5 when I would get tired (and that was often at the beginning!)

Chest (I did 3 or 4 sets of 15 reps): Abs, planks and leg raises would be 5 sets of 30

Bench press
Chest Press (on the yoga ball)
Dumbbell fly
Push ups

Planks
Abs
Leg raises

Day 2:

35 Minutes Elliptical (On the sports training setting)

Shoulders (3 or 4 sets of 15 reps):

Bent over lateral raise
Extension rotation (On yoga ball)
Front raise (dumbbell)
Lateral Raise (standing)
Lateral raise (on yoga ball)
Shoulder press (dumbbell)
Shoulder press machine

Abs
Planks
Leg raises

Day 3:

70 Laps swimming

Back:

Back Extension (on yoga ball)
Bent over row (dumbbell)
Dumbbell shrug
Lat pulldown
One arm Dumbbell row
Seated cable row

Abs
Leg raises
planks

Day 4:

Same as Day 1 for Cardio

Legs:

Calf raise (on yoga ball)
Inner thigh lift
Kneeling kickback
Leg curl
Leg extension
Lunge
Squat (on yoga ball)

Abs
leg lifts

Day 5:

Same Cardio as day 2

Arms:

Dip (On yoga ball)
Dip (on bench)
Bicep curl (dumbbell)
Concentration curl
Lying triceps extension
Overhead tripes extension
seated bicep curl (on yoga ball)
tricep kickback
Wrist curl

Abs
Leg raises
Plank

Since I work shift work, It would depend on when I did my workouts. I would sometimes do 2 days on and 1 day off or 3 days on and 2 off. It would just depend how I felt and the kind of time I had. I would almost always do 5 days a week!

Nutrition:

Well, this is the hardest thing for me. It is hard for me to resist bad food because I have been addicted for too long! For the most part, my eating has been clean. I have done 5-6 small meals a day. My caloric intake began with 1680 calories a day. Here is an example of my day when I started this.

Breakfast:

Cereal 1 1/4 cup (corn flakes) and 2/3 cup of skim milk- 186 calories

Snack #1:

Apple (large size) 106 calories

Snack #2

Banana (large size) - 115 calories

Lunch:

Smart ones (Frozen dinner- Weight Watchers). Spaghetti and Shrimp- 190 calories

8 Melba Toast crackers: 160 calories

Snack #3

2 cups of Salad - 35 calories(mixed greens) and Balsamic vinaigrette (60/ tablespoon)- 155

Snack #4:

Fruit salad cup- 60 calories

Dinner:

1 chicken breast- 200 calories
Tex mex cheese-90 calories
1/2 cup of rice- 160 calories
5 tablespoons of tomato sauce- 30 calories=====480 calories

Total Calories: 1452 Calories

This is just an example of what I would eat. I eat a lot of cottage cheese, vegetables, fruits, and oatmeal. I also eat salmon, turkey breast, bread and so on.

 As I went on and lost weight, I downsized on my caloric intake. I downloaded a program called "lose it" on my iphone and that gave me a guideline of how much calories I should eat as I lost weight. I recommend this program to anyone who is looking for some help!

I always kept a food diary! This helped me keep a track of all the calories I was consuming a day!

Cheat Days:

I would cheat once a week. Eat whatever I wanted (I drank A lot of water though!)

Water:

I drink about 5 litres of water a day! This flushes out all the toxins! Water is VITAL to any weight loss program!