Hey guys, Nick Landon from the Lake Minnetonka Home Team here! Whether you took a vacation south of the border or stayed right at home, I hope everyone in the Lake Minnetonka area had a wonderful Spring Break! If you kept up with your gym membership and workout routine throughout the winter then kudos to you! On the other end, if you found out that your favorite swimsuit was a little tighter on vacation then I have a few tips on how to get back to feeling good and into Lake Minnetonka swimsuit form!
–Start in the kitchen!
In my opinion the hardest but best way to slim down is to start in the kitchen. Before changing your diet, write down what you eat for a week and at what time. At the end of every day add those calories up and if you don’t know the amount calories in the food you eat there are plenty of websites that will help you out. You may find you aren’t eating as healthy as you thought and see its time for a change!
After a full week (or two) of counting your daily intake of calories, the next step is to change the diet. Start with little changes like swapping a hamburger for a chicken sandwich, fries for veggies, pop for water, or ranch dressing for vinaigrette. Once you have conquered the realization of how you eat and what you eat its time to watch this video to really get counting and shape up!
This video teaches us how to break down our calories even further into three groups: carbs, proteins, and fats and applying that to the foods we eat. Steve used a 40% carb/40% protein/20% fat split in his video which for most of us is a little too much. I would recommend using a 25% protein 50% carbs, and 25% fats for your daily calorie split and adjust from there as needed. Using this calculator will help us find out how many calories we should be eating a day and how much we should be eating to lose or gain 1 lb a week. Once we have our daily caloric intake number we will be looking to cut (or add) 3500 calories or 1 lb per week, which breaks down to 500 calories a day. For example if the calculator says you need 2300 calories in one day to maintain your current weight, drop that number to 1800 calories. From there we will do our split of 25% proteins/50% proteins/25% proteins on the 1800 calories.
Math example: 2300 (calories to maintain current weight)- 500 (calories a day to lose 1 lb. in a week) = 1800 calories per day.
For Calorie Splits: 1800 x .25 = 450 calories of protein, 1800 x .50 = 900 calories of carbs, and 1800 x .25 = 450 calories from fats.
This should get everyone off to a good start and get the motivation flowing for a workout! I have personally used this method for my own eating regiment and I can attest first hand it works if you stick to the plan and keep counting! I am not a certified personal trainer or nutritionist and this article is based on my opinions but I love being healthy and going to my local fitness center. This is not going to be easy but its a change for a healthier lifestyle and once you get it to be routine you will love the way you feel and live. Feel free to send me emails with questions and be on the lookout for more of my own personal fitness blogs! See you at the gym!