Create Your Habits

So, we have been analyzing what we eat for just over two weeks now. We are paying better attention to what servings sizes are in the portions we are giving ourselves with each meal and snack we consume.

Up to this point we have made absolutely no changes. We have just looked at our diet as it currently is consumed. Hopefully we were able to hold back judgement from this look into our current eating habits. However I recognize that some of you may have already cringed at some things, stopped journaling altogether, or have already started making changes.

It is all okay. Wherever you are at, whatever you are doing, is all okay.

No, seriously it truly is all okay.

It took me 12 years to get to a point where I was able to maintain a consistent weight for over a year.

During this time span I stopped and started making changes several times. I tried this fad diet and that fad exercise program. I got to points where I hated women without curves as much as I hated the fact I had so many of them, too many of them. I tried finding memes and articles that would instill in me a confidence that how I looked didn't matter as much as what is inside.

That statement is true, how you look really does not equate to how beautiful a total person you are. However, even knowing this truth, screaming it from the top of my lungs, sharing it with all my close friends and fat loss buddies, writing articles and leading rituals with this theme, the mirror never seemed to care about this truth.

Knowing the truth did not turn off my desire for fat loss, tone, strength, and some semblance of looking in that mirror with a bit of confidence in the outward beauties reflection of me.

In fact, having the truth did not suddenly change the logic my brain and body worked within either. Sometimes that truth just made it worse. Leading to imperfections on the inside, the core of who I am, that would shine through regardless of my body size and physical perception of beauty.

Not being able to take control of the situation and have some success with it was as big of a black mark on the beauty inside of me as it was an obvious mark on that physical beauty standard I desired.

Fat loss and gaining health in your life is not something that you can just flip a switch and suddenly be magically successful at doing. There are rare cases of people with this kind of discipline and will power, yet most success stories you will be exposed to are riddled with imperfect attempts.

So DO NOT beat yourself up. Just keep trying. That really is enough. Eventually the changes you are making to your "norm" will allow you to be successful in creating health habits that lead to fat loss and an overall physical and mental beauty you can come to appreciate in yourself - regardless of any external stimuli or judgement.

Let's Make Some Habit Changes!

So now comes the real challenging part - making changes.

First off I want you to remind yourself repeatedly and often that is takes 21 days to make a habit and, as you might expect, that means it takes 21 days to break a habit.

Slip up on day 6? What do you do now? Simple!
Move on to day 7 and make or break your habit!

So, whatever changes you apply you HAVE to give yourself at least a month of continually doing them, before you can easily let them go or easily incorporate them into your life.

As I mentioned already, do not beat yourself up if you fail one day. That is never going to get you anywhere. So many people will say, "well I slipped up once, might as well keep on doing it."

Don't be that person.

Instead be the person who says, "shoot, I did not mean to do that. Well, this one slip up isn't throwing me off track!!" Then don't wait to reset and go back to building your new habit, (or letting go of that old one). Instead just jump right back in like nothing ever happened!

BEATING YOURSELF UP IS NEVER THE ANSWER.

It is okay to give in. It is okay to fail. Just don't let it stop you from pushing forward and making the changes you want, or maybe even need, to be healthier!

What Kind of Changes Should I Start With?

Well, here is the part that may be harder for everyone because you are going to have to decide this on your own. Which is why we have been journaling our food consumption, times we eat, and how we feel when eating this past couple weeks.

This journaling of your current diet is now your tool for change!

What you need to do now is review that food journal and find within it habits you want to change. Be they adding something new or getting rid of something old. Look over your journal and see what types of changes you should be making. Some of these will be more obvious than others, for example, if you are not very activate your first goal may be to add 30 minutes of activity to your daily routine. Or, if you do not want to add activity you may realize that because of the low amount of activity you do your carb intake really has to be lessened.

I do have some recommendations I can make on some general changes I believe everyone should make for a healthier self. Changes and new habits that have helped me so much!

Also, if you would like to share your food journal with me and have me offer some suggestions I would be willing to do that no problem. With the understanding that I am not a certified professional anything, I am just offering help based on my personal experiences.

My Healthy Habit Forming Recommendations

Let's start with:

I own this set of WW's
portion sized serving spoons.
They are so helpful!

1. Portion control - We discussed this in last weeks blog-post in which I provided information on how to best estimate the serving sizes within your meal and snack portions.
   
   For a lot of us how much we eat is much more of a significant impact on our overall health than what we eat. Take the time to get serious about being portion aware and not eating more than a serving of any one item you are going to put on your plate.
   
   This will mean creating a habit of weighing and measuring all your meal items. Invest in a cheap scale as well as some pre-measured serving utensils. Weight Watchers has quite a few of them - as do many other places I am sure. It is truly worth it to invest in these tools while you are learning what a real serving of your foods actually looks like.
   
   If you are eating anything from boxes or packages be sure to portion out an actual suggested serving of that item. You will be truly amazed how little food you actually get from these items when you portion yourself out a serving.
   
   Which leads to my next suggestion ...
    
2. Cut out all unnecessarily processed and all packaged foods - Not only will this eliminate tons of unnecessary carbs, sodium, and unnatural ingredients, it also allows you to fully know and understand exactly what is in the food that you are putting into your body.
   
   Sometimes you cannot avoid buying something packaged for example condiments. Yet almost everything else you can avoid being packaged. Personally there are a few items I buy processed and/or packaged still such as whole grain bread, saltine crackers, greek yogurt, cheese, lunch-meat, coffee creamer, 1% milk, fat-free sour cream, and whole grain low carb tortillas.
   
   When I really think about my cupboards these really are the only packaged items they hold anymore. Everything else is bought in bulk bins - flour, wild rice, beans, sugar, grains, dried fruits, etc. or fresh, meats, veggies, and fruits.
   
   As well, if there is an item you really need but it is out of season fresh, such as a particular fruit, always go for frozen first and then canned. Frozen fruits and veggies retain almost the same levels of vitamins and nutrients as fresh. This is because of the very adept flash freezing technology that really keeps the whole fruit in tact during processing.
   
   As well, stay away from any additives to these frozen or canned items. For example the Green Giant varieties of frozen veggies with flavorings added. Just get the frozen without added crap and make your own sauce! Most of the time the sauce you create will be ten times tastier and have 1/3 to 1/2 the fat, carbs, and sodium that you find in those packaged items.
3. Pre-plan Your Monthly Meals (at least dinners) - Doing this really helps you be successful with items 1 & 2 as you are able to know what portions you will be looking at for each meal and then shop for the ingredients you need for the month - meaning you can now evaluate how many packaged or processed items you will truly be exposed to all month!
   
   It is also really great on your budget as you can purchase meat and bulk items in quantities that will last you the entire month. Storing or freezing them until you need them. I separate my meats out into meal servings that equate to enough for the recipe or enough for two, put them in ziploc freezer bags, and pull them out to defrost that morning before work.
   
   This means that once a month I purchase bulk items (meat, bulk) and once a week I purchase the perishable items that cannot be purchased in bulk (veggies and fruit). As well, most items from the bulk section, (flour, rice, beans), last for months in storage and are cheap to purchase in large quantities. Meaning I also only shop for a larger amount of items about once every quarter.
   
   Planning a monthly menu is truly not that hard to do nor does it require an over-analyzed and well documented daily plan, I promise! For example, I know that twice a week I can take some chicken and some rice or tortillas and make some sort of meal. So twice a week I write down something like "chicken crap bowl" or "chicken wraps" and then that week I decide what veggie I would like to add to them. I also know I want to have fish once a week, so I pick a day of the week to have fish with rice or tortilla, mark down, "fish tacos" or "fish bake", and, like with the chicken, I pick a veggie to go with it to purchase that week.
   
   I also like to have items that can have leftovers for a day or two. So I pick crock-pot meals, or turkey breasts, or some other type of item to cook that I enjoy eating lots of leftovers from.
4. Cut Your Carbs - Mind you I am not saying eliminate them entirely. Just learn the good ones and choose to only eat those kinds of carbs instead. Taking on item 2 will do this part for your naturally as well.
   
   Carbs are not bad for you, however they are the nutrient that produces fat in our body and are the first to get cut in every diet plan you will find. Especially when your physician needs you to lose fat quickly for a procedure you may need to have done.
   
   The truth about carbs is this, most of us are NOT that active and carbs are like premium gasoline - they are made for a car that works really hard pushing it's limits and straining itself regularly. The carbs are turned into energy for hard working bodies and for those of us whom sometimes do not even do the bare minimum of 30 minutes a day, well, the carbs are turned into fat. Weee!!!
5. Quit Consuming Alcohol, Soda, Fancy Lattes, or any Suagary Beverage - This goes with that whole carb thing. With these items you are drinking huge portions of sugary carbs that, in one serving, typically go well over any daily recommended serving of a "good" carb you could get. It is like ordering a burrito from Baja Fresh and then realizing that burrito accounts for your total recommended daily calories ... just one freaking burrito!
   
   These liquid carbs can, and most often do, ruin any efforts you have made all week in just two servings. It is ridiculous how bad these are for you in more ways than just trying to lose some fat.
   
   Which leads to my last, and what I feel might be, most obvious suggestion ...
        
   
6. Stop Eating Fast Food - If it has a drive through or can be delivered to your couch stop eating it. I don't know that I really have to explain the reasons for this one, yet there are many. If you would like to see a blog post about the horrors of fast food I am sure Google Search can offer a bajillion!
   
   
   Just stop eating it ... it is so, so, so, ridiculously, horribly, bad for you. 

These are just a few things I have made a habit of that really work for me.

Don't Do Them All At Once!

I am not suggesting that you do every single one of these in one sitting. Nor am I suggesting you have to do any of them. It is up to you to evaluate your food journal, review your current diet, and decide for yourself what changes should be made.
 
Only you can truly tell what adjustments are going to benefit you.

I just provide this list for ideas of ways you can build new habits in your life that will create a healthier situation overall. Ways I have applied to my own life and have found much success with. Ways in which I still sometimes slip up or give in, (I do love me some Starbucks every now and then!), yet ways I know to be successful even if I slip up ever so often.

When Should I Start?

Whew! This post seems to contain LOTS of information.

What will your one habit change be?

I suggest we start on November 1st, just two days from now. Then we can check back in 21 days, right before thanksgiving. Giving us some time to prepare for glutinous feast day. So we can work out our plans to enjoy all the deliciousness we will be exposed too!!!

~TigressSky~

Diet vs Dieting. Is there a difference?

Diet vs Dieting. Is there a difference?

As simple as it is to explain, it seems to be one of the hardest concepts to "get" when starting down a path to fat loss. My own journey began more than 13 years ago and it wasn't until the past few years that I truly "got it". What I am talking about here is the difference between diet and dieting.

Is this something you eat regularly? Then this is part of your diet.

A Diet is what you eat on a regular basis.

Dieting is making a sudden and sometimes drastic change to what you eat regularly in order to aid in fat loss.

Okay simple right? 

Actually, it isn't that simple. Especially if you want to ensure that your fat loss efforts will be something permanent and easy to maintain.

Permanent and Easy to Maintain You Say?

We all pretty much understand the difference between Diet and Dieting what we do not seem to understand is that changing your diet does not mean nor equate to dieting.

Wait, what? Do the definitions not show that in order to affect my fat loss I need to change my diet which requires dieting?

Technically, it looks like that is in fact the case. Everything we read and are exposed to also makes these same pleas to us of using this pre-defined nomenclature in order to achieve any success. Dieting companies, authors, and reality television shows all push this same agenda of dieting upon us, each focusing on their particular fool-proof plan!

You can burn calories just reading all the rhetoric!!!

Plans such as: "Eat these pre-packaged meals," and/or, "eliminate these types of foods" and "take these supplements that come in boxes of rhetoric for you!" As well as the more simpler plans of: "eat this many calories," and/or, "eat this many meals a day within this caloric range." Plans that are really not maintainable in the long run, so much so that I would beg to call them Dieting Fads not plans.

Almost all of these dieting fads come with a type of work out program focused on getting you into the "best shape of your life!"

(There is a reason the dieting industry is one of the most profitable and it isn't because of their success rates.)

I guarantee you that if you spend the time, effort, and dollars needed on any of these dieting programs you will lose weight and you will see results. I also guarantee you that as soon as you stop following them you will gain some back, most likely all of it will come back; with the very typical added bonus of a few extra pounds joining you anew! 

Truth is, if we want "this" to work then we have to change our diet altogether 

and that change is not helped but instead hindered by dieting.

What is "This"?

This is successfully changing our diet to ensure healthy fat loss that is so easy to maintain we barely have to think about it!

This is something we can all do.

This takes time and will typically not produce nor cause immediate results.

The first step of this is to recognize that we are NOT dieting!!!

It is truly that simple. The first step is to STOP DIETING!

The next steps come in simply understanding our own diets; through such understanding we will discover how to make the individual changes to them we need without the dieting fads we don't.

~TigressSky~

Where is your focus?

This image has become major motivation for me recently. My entire life I have said, "if it is not something you would want your kids to do than don't do it."

Now, I don't have kids, but it doesn't make the statement any less true regardless.

Throughout my life I have witnessed a fair number of adults smoke, drink, curse, eat unhealthy, and participate in all number of things society deems children should be "protected" from.  All the while watching these same adults hide these very things from their kids; with the guise of protecting some level of innocence, (which is truly only ignorance), the child may have in regards to the "topic" at hand. These are the same parents whom always say, "my kids think I'm so dumb, like I wasn't going to know they were doing something they shouldn't..."

Well parents, kids think and know the exact same thing. They know the bad things you are doing and hiding from them. Difference is they don't understand them. Yet they do understand enough, by the way you are treating it, to know they certainly can't talk to you about "it".

Yet, that point runs us down a different slippery slope altogether. So let's get back on track here ...

Here we have miss Britany Spears doing one of the most strongly admirable things of her career - showing you how she really looks as compared to how we normally see her: photo-shopped.

In other words: STOP comparing yourself to the media driven images of beauty - they don't even exist!

The same thing goes for that number in your head. The number in your head you are obsessing over. The number that means you are finally fit and trim. The number you are using as the ultimate measure of your success. STOP IT! Stop using that number to determine your success or failure - that number will never equate to your expectations!

Now take these two concepts and FIND a value driven motivation that you would share with your kids; regardless of if you have kids or not.

Examples? Well how about:

- Hanging a dress you want to wear this summer in a prominent place and trying it on every now and then?
- Measuring your moods on days you successfully meet all your health goals compared to those days when you don't?
- Measuring your energy level on days you successfully meet all your health goals compared to those days when you don't?

- Complete your first or fiftieth 5k or other physical challenge!
- Try out a new healthy recipe every month and build a cookbook and monthly menu that make you feel proud.
- Do at least 30 minutes of exercise a day.
- Reward yourself with non-food motivated items - new clothes, toys, go see a show.
- Grow something yourself! Maybe it is just a couple herbs in the window, maybe you tackle a whole garden in your yard.
- Make time for relaxing activities like stretch focused yoga, meditation, reading, or writing.

Whatever you do stop making this about the unattainable and start focusing on what being health and fit "feel" like. That is what is important, not the scale and most certainly not unattainable falsified images of beauty.

Comparison analysis, like the two suggested above, are always very helpful in understanding this point. Even if you just do it for a week, tracking your mood and energy level throughout the day helps one discover, with a high level of certainty, what it truly feels like to be healthy. That feeling for each of us is of course truly personalized - so it is important to try and take the time to discover it for yourself - it is so worth it and it gives you so many more truly effective things to focus on.

Which brings me to this weeks "Do Life" motivational challenges:

1.) Now that you know your caloric range, have removed some bad habits, and added some good - well it is time to meet your caloric intake diligently all week long. Do not go over it and try to stay as close to it as you can. This may mean eating more or less than you are use to, but try and make that calorie count daily - let's see what that really does for our progression. Make sure you are getting your water intake met!

2.) Park the farthest away from the entry door ANY place you go! This one sounds simple but it could have huge impact. Studies show that just adding an additional 10 minutes of activity to your regular routines in everyday life could equate to a loss of 25-50 pounds of fat per year! So, if you park far away and opt to walk in - well, those extra ten minutes will get added to your everyday life quicker than you think! Try it!

Bonus Challenge: Remain exercising to the videos I shared or your own fitness levels and goals for at LEAST 30 minutes a day at LEAST 3 days a week. Spend at least 1 day in a 20 minute meditation AND here is the new and important and most challenging aspect - get AT LEAST 7 hours of sleep per night the entire week! Whew! That is going to be a challenge for me.

I was going to have you not use your scale at all this week, but I realize that it is one of the tools we are using during this entire challenge. So keep looking at it that way, just a tool you have in your arsenal of tools to help you measure and remain accountable for your goals. Yet do not let that number on the scale be the end-all-be-all in your health journey. See it, acknowledge it, and then move on!

This week we will rock!!!

~TigressSky~

New Year, New Me!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

It has been 4 months since I have posted anything. In those four months I have lost everything I gained - health and fitness wise that is. Although my personal and professional life have gained so much, I cannot complain. It was a focus trade off for awhile and now I am ready to get my health and fitness back into the mix!

How about everyone else?

I assume we are all starting this new year off with some health and fitness related resolutions. I know I am! Goal right now is to lose the 15lbs I have gained by my birthday, June 1st. I came up with this goal using SMART goal setting metrics and feel confident it can be achieved. That is, it can be achieved if I go for it!

GO FOR IT!!! 

So it is I came across Ben's start your year off right Do Life Challenge! Now, Ben's challenge had everyone weighing in this week and and starting a kick-off to health journey together on Monday. Each week Ben would provide some fitness/motivation challenges for that week to help keep everyone on track. Whoever lost the most by the end of the month wins. The only problem with Ben's challenge is that to participate you chip in $10 - which is going to be used to pay for the prizes at the end.

It was here that I decided to create my own challenge and present it to my facebook group, also called Tigress Fitness, as something we could do in our group. There would be no fee, we could share each week things we accomplished - be that fat loss or a new health or fitness goal achieved. We wouldn't really be competing with each other, we would just be doing it together and cheering each other on!

Today I posted our first fitness/motivation challenge and I am cross-posting it here in case anyone who reads
this is interested in joining us.

I came up with two, you can choose one or try both! Whichever you feel you would like to do.

1. This week I will focus on getting at least 48oz (6 cups) but preferably 64oz (8 cups) of water drank per day!

-and/or-

2. This week I will focus on getting at least 20 minutes of activity but preferably 30 minutes of activity in per day. This will be activity that must get my heart rate up. If I think about exercising in "Heart Rate Zones" I will ensure the activity keeps me in the range of 3-4: meaning I can carry on a conversation but I am still reaching a point were breathing requires more of my focus.

And as a bonus challenge - I will do my activity in interval form and spend 1 to 2 out of every five minutes pushing myself to a 7-8 or 9-10 heart rate zone during that 1 to 2 minutes. At a level 7-8 you cannot talk while you are working out, you are heavily focused on the activity at hand, your breathing is intense. At a level 9-10 you are at your max, you have trouble breathing because you are reaching an anaerobic state, a minute or two can feel like a lifetime here.

Remember, healthy fat loss comes at .5 to 2 pounds per week. Some of us may see great fat loss results. Some of us may see no fat loss results. This is a challenge we are taking with ourselves, having friends here to motivate us along the way! So, at the end of the week, when you report in, find at least ONE positive thing that came out of your week to share. You will get something out of it! I promise. :)

So, if you want to join us and report in on your successes in the next post, please do! I know come Sunday I will have at least one positive thing to report. I hope you will too!

One more thing though ....

Just wanted to share a chart of Heart Rate Zones to help clarify a bit what I mean by levels 1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 7-8, 9-10 so you have a picture of what I mean. Everyone's level of fitness will be different so the amount of effort we each put in to reach each of these levels will be very different as well.

1-2: Is something you could do for hours without really feeling stressed, the blue recovery level.
3-4: Is something you can do for 20-30 minutes (most likely an hour) with a small amount of sweat, able to hold a conversation, still getting breathy, the pink fat burning level.
5-6: Is the lower end of the purple target heart rate zone, this level allows you to have a conversation but not very well, you are more concentrated on breathing and the activity at hand.
7-8: Is the top end of the purple target heart rate zone, this level doesn't really allow for conversation but you can still get a few words out here and there, your breathing and activity are your biggest focus.
9-10: Is the top of your game. You really cannot sustain this level for more than 1 or 2 minutes, you cannot talk at all, and you feel like you cannot breath, this is because you are in the red anaerobic training zone.

Heart rate training is one of the best ways you can achieve your goals.

If you have a heart rate monitor you can keep yourself in your target zones by keeping track of your number of beats per minute and keeping yourself in that zone. If you find yourself above the zone, then slow down or stop using your arms - below the zone speed up or add in more exercise.

If you want to monitor your heart rate by hand you can as well - but it is never very accurate. Take a 10 second pause once you have reached the highest point in the intensity level you think you should be working at. During that 10 seconds find your heart beat and count the beats per second. Multiple that by 10 and you should see the jist of the heart rate zone you are in.

I find it easiest to just use the 1-10 scale and allow myself to judge it by how I am feeling. Although, admittedly I have invested in a heart rate monitor and I did find I was never really pushing myself enough when I worked out just judging by the scale method. 

Anyway you do it, it still works! So just do it! Please? :)

~TigressSky~

Life Is Full of Surprises!

So, the triathlon came and went and I was not in it.

I realized about 2 weeks out that I might be able to physically do it, yet mentally I was just not focused nor prepared at all. In fact, my brain has been taxed lately. So much is going on in my personal life I am barely able to focus on one thing for more than an hour before I have to move onto the next.

This past week I really let things go. Family was in town visiting and they spoiled us with dinners out every night! I enjoyed having no commitment to the gym for the whole week! I went on a gluttonous rampage of enjoying everything and anything and being as lazy as I wanted.

Monday, I was back on track. In the gym, puffing my way through spin class. It felt sooooo incredibly good!

Tuesday I went to my exotic dance class and that is when it hit me. Ugh! I am working my way backwards here! The cute miniskirt I wanted to wear to class, the one that use to be too big for me, was skin tight and uncomfortable!


"No! What the hell are you doing to yourself?!?!"

I literally yelled out loud at myself.

Yes folks, I yelled at myself, in my empty apartment alone I looked in the mirror and yelled at myself. Then I grabbed my dancing shoes and said, "fuck this, I'm taking back control of myself!" As I walked out the door to dance class.

So, here I am now, committing on this 1st day of August to create a plan and stick with it! By September I will be at a place of happiness, were that skirt is too big for me again, and I am only yelling at myself in the mirror praises (or making silly faces)!

As well, I am trying to make time to write a requested post about how to plan for and eat healthy on a tight budget. I am sorry to say I just have not had the time. Yet, now that my focus is turning  back around to my health, well, I think it is time I made blogging and logging my successes a priority!

~TigressSky~

P.S. A reminder to myself ; "It is NOT the mountain that we conquer, it is OURSELVES!" HoooRAH!

Running Clinic Weeks 8 & 9 - How You Can Do Everything Right and Still Gain Weight

The workout logs for weeks 8 & 9 are here! During both weeks our activity was the same so I made one log for both. The newest piece you will notice in the workout log is the tabata challenge being changed to a drafting challenge. The more people you run with the harder this challenge is, or maybe it is the less people you run with the harder it is! Either way drafting is a fun way to learn how to pace yourself and build up quick endurance to give yourself short passing bursts! Both are great ways to maintain a steady and competitive edge when running a race.

I Swear I Am Doing Everything Right But I Am Not Losing Any Weight! WHY?!?

First off review my blog on motivational goal setting and lets make sure we are focusing our attention on actual goals and not using the "Scale of Doom" to determine our success. That being said, the scale is a tool and I fully understand the frustration one feels when using a tool that seems to be saying, "hey, you are making absolutely no progress even with all the hard work you are putting in."

Truth is, you can do everything right and still not lose weight. So, what are some reasons for this phenomenon?

7 Reason Why You May Not Be Losing Weight

1. You are eating right but you are still eating too much. Underestimation of calories and portions is one of the biggest detriments people face as they try and lose fat. What you are eating may be healthy but the portions may be incorrect. Or, what you are eating may seem healthy but it really is not. If your diet consists of packaged and processed foods I can almost guarantee that you are underestimating the calories and portion sizes and doing yourself more harm than good.

Learn what portion sizes are. For example a serving of fruits and veggies is typically only a half cup to a cup. This means a full apple or banana accounts for two servings. A full avocado accounts for four servings! And, did you know that eight grapes is one serving? Do your homework and learn what your serving sizes are, especially when you are looking at packaged an processed foods.

In doing this a lot of you may actually find that your problem is not eating to much but it is in fact eating too little. Maintaining a food journal and maintaining your knowledge of your calorie and nutrient intake daily is one of the best ways to ensure you do in fact lose fat. I highly recommend using SparkPeople.com to help you with this goal. However, your food journal is only as good as your ability to be truthful with it. You must report accurately and that requires you to know serving/portion sizes and admit when you have ate too much or too little for the day. This is the only way you can learn how to correct your nutrition habits and affect change in your body.

2. You are overestimating your calorie burn. Those machines at the gym are notorious for overestimating your calorie burn. Not too mention our own ability to think we are pushing a level 9-10 when in fact it is only a 6-7 and thereby calculating our calorie burn to be higher than it actual is. A great way to ensure you are estimating your calorie burn is to invest in a heart rate monitor.

As your own personal fitness level increases so will the rate at which you burn calories. In other words, the better you do the more you will need to do in order to burn the same calories. This goes for everyone at all levels of fitness. Changing up your routine and providing new challenges will continual stimulate your body to work harder and burn more.

3. You do not have enough muscle. The skeletal muscle in your body accounts for 6% of your calorie burn daily at rest. Which, in a small way means that the more muscle you have the more calories you are burning at rest. However, this burn during rest is NOT why muscle is so important. Where muscle plays its most crucial role is after a workout. The more muscle you have the more calories your body burns right after a work out. The recovery period is the key here, it takes time and energy for the muscles to return to a resting levels. The muscles have to rebuild their energy stores and they typically do this by burning fat! This means the more muscle you have the more fat you will burn for longer periods AFTER your workout.

Women tend to think that they should not focus on weight lifting or muscle building, they do not want to bulk up. However, women are not built to bulk up. Our muscle definition will be in the form of long and lean not big and strong. We simply do not produce enough testosterone as males do making it impossible for women to gain huge amounts of muscle mass simply by touching weights. So take those images of bodybuilding women out of your head, the majority of those women (unfortunately) are taking anabolic steroids to reach such a state.

Last but not least if you do not add muscle and only focus on nutrition and cardio for fat loss you will soon find your body using your muscle for energy as well as the fat. This means you will deplete your muscle fibers and tissues leading to a greater potential to cause injury during your cardio sessions. Do not be scared of weight either. Light weights are not where you should focus, fatigue your muscles! Muscle responds to resistance and if there is no resistance well, you are just wasting your time.

4. Stress. Mental, emotional, physical, environmental, dietary, toxins and other forms of stress will converge to place all sorts of demands on your body. If gone unchecked these stressors can lead to all kinds of dysfunctions and chronic diseases - one of the biggest things they can cause is weight gain.

The body itself does not differentiate between your stressors, it just knows it as stress. Stress triggers your fight or flight response which makes your body produce cortisol. Cortisol destroys muscle, causes insulin imbalance and tells your body to store fat. Back in the cave days when stress was a matter of survival this was no big deal. Now however we can find stress from just a stack of papers on our desk or a looming phone call. So, take a moment to figure out what you can do to de-stress your life because stress could be one of the biggest players blocking you from fat loss, especially when you feel you are doing everything else right.

5. Lack of sleep. Guess what chronic levels of lack of sleep produce? Yep, cortisol. As stated above cortisol destroys muscle, causes insulin imbalance and tells your body to store fat. So get your beauty sleep, seriously, lack of could be exactly what is causing everything to run amiss in your fat loss program.

6. Insulin imbalance. Lack of exercise and/or eating high glycemic foods (non-whole grain carbs like rice, bread, potatoes, pasta and pretty much all packaged and processed foods) drives glucose up rapidly and with this goes an increase in insulin. Most of us are in this category currently and don't even know it. This insulin increase is a disrupts your bodies ability to remove sugars from the blood stream and places it in your cells instead. Insulin sends signals to the brain to increase fat storage.

Eliminate processed foods that are crammed full of added "bad" carbs and try ensure the carbs you get are natural, whole grain, whole fiber items (long grain wild brown rice, whole grain pasta and breads and NO MORE packaged/processed foods). Also, try and remember that fruits and veggies are full of carbs. 50-60% of your plate should come from carbs - and of this percentage of carbs 70-80% should be veggies and fruits where as 10-20% should be natural whole grains.

7. You are too medicated. Pills for hormone imbalance, diabetes, depression, chronic illness, birth control, etc., etc., etc. Your medicine cabinet can be holding you back. Find out what you are taking and what types of things it may be doing to your body. You can work around the pills but if you are unaware of what they are doing you may be even more unaware of the battle they are presenting you.

Whatever the cause for your lack of fat loss DON'T GIVE UP!!!


The benefits of making good nutritional choices and becoming physically fit far outweigh the scale not showing you a number you want to see. Remember, healthy and happy are not a number, they are a real feeling that comes from within and can be shared with all.

Set motivational goals that are SMART and you will find the success you seek! Promise!

~TigressSky~