Some BIG things I forgot...

Yesterday in my haste to recall the last year or so as quickly and concisely as possible (insert laugh), I forgot to mention a few big things I'll be doing the next 12 weeks.

Before I tell you the first one, let me talk briefly about the HCG diet. Some of you may be curious, though this blog will be about my journey with BFL and not HCG so I won't go into too much detail. One thing I did learn and take away from that diet is knowledge about a little hormone in our body called Leptin, and I mean little in the most sarcastic sense. I read a book titled Weight-Loss Apocalypse by Robin Woodall, and it opened my eyes to so many things.

You really should read the book, though it is focused around the HCG diet. But, there is something I will be using, or trying to, for the rest of my life. It's called the hunger scale. Basically you rate your physical urgency to eat on a scale from 1-5, with 5 being content. You also rate your fullness after you eat from 6-10 with 6 being satisfied and 10 in pain from over eating. Your goal should be to stay around a 5-6. I try to eat when I feel like a 3-4, and stop when I reach 4.5-5 as to not push myself beyond a 6. This all works because of the leptin. When you're physically hungery your body releases leptin that stimulates the physical desire to eat. When you eat, leptin levels decrease causing the need to eat to diminish. If you eat too much, your body will release MORE leptin (too much) thus causing fat storage. It's a simple yet complicated process, but the book does a good job explaining it. All I will go into here is that I will be listing to my physical cues to eat, and stopping as soon as I reach a 4.5 - 5 on the hunger scale. BFL says to eat every 2-3 hours, but if I'm not hungry in 2 hours, I won't eat. If I'm still hungry 30 minutes after eating one meal, I'll eat again and so on. If I'm in the middle of eating a meal and reach a 4.5 on the hunger scale I will not finish what I'm eating just because I think I'm supposed to. You get the idea.

I hope to live my life around the hunger scale. It makes sense. But I'm not naive enough to think that I will ALWAYS be a strong follower, but I want to be the majority of the time. Anyway, if I've completely confused you, read the book. I think I bought if off Amazon for around $10. Totally worth it. And if you're an emotional eater like me, then it will address that as well. But that's a topic for a whole nother post. A long one at that.

The other thing I forgot to mention is that I will be doing Jillian Michael's 30 Day Shred video.

This will be in addition to my required BFL workout. So if I get my shred in one day but not my BFL workout, then basically to me I did not workout that day, get it? I will be taking Fridays off from all workouts, even from Jillian. So I guess technically it will be more like a 34 day shred. But I hope to really lose some inches in the next month or so.

Two of my scheduled cardio days will be the Couch to 5k running program. One weight day I'll add the third C25k day, plus will be doing the shred which will make for a very tiring day. The other scheduled cardio day will be a cycling class.

Ok, I think that covers what I left out. Eating according the hunger scale and doing the 30 Day Shred.

Today I got my shred in and my 20mins of cardio. My cycling class was cancelled for the day of love.

I love me some pizza and chocolate, so today I'll have my cheat meal. But normally it will be on Saturdays, so not this Saturday but the next one I'll have a cheat meal again.

I have a huge list of all the great foods I can eat as my carbs, protein and fats on this program and after being so restricted on the HCG protocol I feel like I have tons of choices. I'll share some of my go to foods on another day's post.

Hope everyone has a nice Valentine's Day.