Work and eat right

I know, it is hard when you go to school full time and work full time to eat a healthy meal. Lately I have been focusing on what to eat outside of the house. As we all know Stockton isn't the healthiest place to eat, but have you ever left campus to check out what type of food is available. I left campus in-between my big breaks last semester and ventured to the mall not even five minutes away. They have a pretty decent salad joint in the food court. If you don't have time to go check out your surroundings in-between your classes than just make something and bring it from home. Make some chicken on the good old George Formann and toss it in a salad and bring some salad dressing, and voila! Your not only saving money, but your eating good too. I normally like to chop up some fruit and bring it to class because it can last a few hours. Now for those who work in the food and restaurant business, I know it's so hard to eat right. I always bring out food to customers, you know that juicy hamburger or that hot dripping cheese quesadilla, but I learned a small trick to help these cravings from attacking. One way my friends and I have learned to deal with this problem is too never let your self get to that point of starvation. Always fill up on healthy food, and drink lots of fluids so your full. Once your full you won't even want to think about food. I normally eat a hug salad before work or at work this way I won't want to eat the bad foods that I deliver to people. If you work in a place where you have to order your food, make sure to order something healthy from that pizza place next door. Hey, a chicken caesar salad isn't bad compared to 3 greasy slices of pizza. Either that, or make something and bring it to work, such as a whole wheat tuna sandwich. Don't make excuses, it IS possible to eat healthy during your hectic school/work week.

Change up your workouts

It is important to switch up your workouts. If you continue to do the same thing over and over again it gets repetitive and your body starts to get use to that specific workout. For instance I ran for two months straight every day at the same speed. I started to plateau with my workouts, therefore I switched to starting my workouts off with the elliptical and doing more time on the elliptical. I cut back on weights for a little so I can focus on fat burn. Yesterday at the gym I did 50 minutes between the elliptical and some other weird stepping machine, both low resistance machines.. good for fat burning and muscle growth. Lately I have been trying to incorporate healthy yet normal meals back into my diet. I feel that my leg muscles have been most improved, I feel they are stronger than they used to be. I wish I could spend more time at the gym but due to my schedule it is impossible. Tomorrow I will focus more on weights and strengthening machines. I have been stuck at my weight for two weeks now, which is why I needed to start using different machines. I need to focus on better foods now because everyday I have been slacking and cheating a little more and more. I still have my daily morning yogurt and fruit cup, and living off grilled chicken still, but I don't think a chicken burrito really counts as a diet meal, woops. Tomorrow will be a better day for my meal choices.

Chocolate overload

I figured since my diet and work out sessions were going very well, I figured a little chocolate couldn't hurt for good old Valentines Day. Well, I was clearly wrong. After a long day of non stop chocolate eating I'm paying the price for it this week. I haven't lost a pound, in fact I gained 3 even though I have been going to the gym. It just goes to show you that if you stuff your face one whole day of sugar and fat it could ruin your week. My plan is to continue to eat healthy and have a few good consecutive workouts and start back up on my diet plans. It's ok if you screw up a little for a holiday or something of that sort, just keep your eyes on the prize. My prize is feeling confident and showing off my bikini bod in Las Vegas when I go in June. 

So besides my chocolate binge on Sunday, this week has been nothing but the gym and healthy foods. I started to break away from cardio and keep my heart rate at the fat burn level. By doing this, I am working out longer and burning calories slowly, but also building muscle so my metabolism can speed up. After about 45 minutes to an hour of doing machines, I will move to weights. I want to tone my muscles and start slowly building muscle. I normally do everything in one day because i' doing light weight. I will start off with doing my biceps, and triceps, 3 sets of 15 reps. Than after arms, I do legs. I start off with thighs, quads, than calves. After that I move to the floor where I do abs. I lay down on my back, and someone will stand with my head in-between there feet. Keeping my feet together and legs straight, I lift them up. Than the person helping me, will push my feet back towards the ground. Without letting your feet hit the floor you use your abdominal muscle to control your legs. This leaves you nice and sore, but it targets the lower abs, right where all that chocolate is sitting.

Gym in a snowstorm

No school yesterday thank god, but I still made it to the gym. It wasn't that bad yesterday until around 4pm. I made it to the gym to get my hour and a half workout. I started off with a yogurt as usual and then head to the gym with the family. Working out is so much easier when you have a friend or family member go with you. In my case my boyfriend is on this healthy eating and work out diet with me. It motivates me alot more to continue to eat healthy and work out on a daily basis. It has been a month and a half since I've been on my diet and I have lost a total of 22 pounds, I even ate a bowl of ice cream last night. It's hard to not eat bad when your locked in your house all day forced to watch movies. For lunch I had a chicken salad sandwich, which wasn't too healthy but its protein so thats good. The night before I ate sushi and edamame which is a great vegetable and tastes good too. Today I had work. It only took my two hours to get to work, but I made it there alive. I drank the normal 10 cups of green iced tea (unsweetened) and had a tuna steak roll, which is grilled tuna steak (very healthy and a source of omega) and the roll which is clear rice paper worth 40 calories, and mixed greens. Tonight I will eat steak with mixed vegetables. I had a good work out yesterday and today at the gym. Yesterday I spent 40 minutes between the treadmill and the elliptical, than did weights and worked on my abs of steal. Today I strictly did cardio, which is good for your heart and lungs, while burning calories. Unfortunately tomorrow will be a day off from the gym because I have class then doctors appointment, than going bowling, which hey maybe that will burn some calories.

Campus food

Since January I have been trying my best to eat healthy food and stay away from fatty foods. Well, I have come to realize Stockton College has the worst food available. Honestly, my community college had better food than Stockton. It is pretty sad that students are forced to eat this junk especially the students who live on campus. I go to school Monday, Wednesday, and Fridays. I am a commuter student thank god, there for I am able to eat food other than the nasty food Stockton has to offer. My day will start off with a healthy breakfast such as low fat yogurt, fruit or low calorie cereal. My day starts at 9:55 am, and I go to class straight through until 3:25. Therefore, I can barely eat a normal meal for 5 and a half hours. I normally bring a fiber bar to eat in class. Sometimes I stop to get a fruit cup to eat the 10 minutes in between my classes, only located in B wing, and sometimes they don't always have them. The problem is, when a teacher lets us out early or a class is canceled I will spend my time visiting the cafeteria. Normally I will walk in, browse around and then leave, because the food they offer is disgusting. From greasy fried foods, to sodium filled chinese food. There happens to be a salad bar that I tried the other day and I spend 8 dollars on a little salad which I was furious about because it was the most disgusting salad I ate in my life. They don't have fresh vegetables, they kind of look brown and dyed out. The salad dressings are extremely fattening, and only offer one low fat dressing, the chopped chicken is so nasty and fatty and not taken care of. Everything is sloppy and always dirty looking. So the next time I went to the cafeteria, I went to the sub shop hoping to have some better luck, well I found out they don't offer whole wheat. Of course not, why would they want to serve healthy food at a college where everyone is known to gain the freshman 15, 20 or even 30 pounds. I am completely grossed out by this campus food. 

Little bit of effort goes a long way

So as you read in my last blog, there are certain ways to burn fat in work outs. I do not read off the internet on ways to burn fat, or use diet pills to burn fat. I simply use personal experience and a little training help from employees at my gym. I work out everyday, normally 6 to 7 days a week. I used to run, run, and run, but I realized i've hit my peak of loosing weight so I had to switch it up a little. While I was running a trainer came up to me and asked why I was running so fast, and I replied because I want to burn calories and loose weight. Then he let me in on a little secret, if I was at a brisk pace I will burn the same amount of calories and my heart rate needs to slow down. There machines can tell you your heart rate, and you should keep your heart rate in a fat burn level, not cardio. Cardio is good if your trying to improve your lungs and heart, fat burn is for building muscle and loosing weight. The more muscle you have, the faster your metabolism becomes. Running will make you loose the muscle and then you will find yourself "hitting your peak." So your daily work out could be a brisk walk at a low impact. Keep your heart rate between a 120 and 140. The longer you keep your heart rate at that level you will burn more fat and loose more calories. Other low impact machines you can do is the Elliptical. I normally switch it up, a quick 10 minute run to get my heart rate up and do a little bit of cardio, take it down to a walk for 20 minutes, and then possibly a 15 minute run on the elliptical. Green tea will speed up your metabolism also, so I like to have a few cups of green iced tea before I work out. Working out in the morning is best for you because you will burn calories for the rest of the day, but if you cant get to the gym in the morning, it is ok just get there for a quick walk, or when the weather gets nice, take the dogs for a walk around the block. Get that heart rate up and start burning those calories.