Body for Life Food Journal

Welcome to my food journal!

As a means of keeping myself accountable for what I eat and monitoring my progress with the Body for Life regime as I go:

Day #11: Thursday, August 11

Workout: I had to be to work at 7:30, so I decided to try working out later in the day. I had hoped intervals would be easier later in the day – they weren’t. Haha. I also did an intense 15 minute ab workout.

• Meal #1, 6:45am: Typical oatmeal + coffee
• Meal #2, 9:30am: brocolli and 3 tbsp hummus
• Meal #3, 12pm: Salad (greens, yellow peppers, tomato, mushrooms, avocado, 2 boiled eggs)
• Meal #4, 3pm: latte and apple
• Meal #5, 6pm: 1/2 cottage cheese, banana
• Meal #6, 9pm: Quinoa pancake: 1/2 cup quinoa, 1 egg, 1/2 greek yogurt, blueberries

Water intake: good!

Day #10: Wednesday, August 10

Workout: Upper body workout: I stuck to a lot of the same exercises as last time, but switched up a few – it was challenging and I didn’t get through all my reps before failure.

• Meal #1, 7:30am:  cup of greek yogurt, 1/2 oats, banana and blueberries
• Meal #2, 9am: americano and cliff bar
• Meal #3, 12pm: sauteed veggies, black beans and baked salmon
• Meal #4, 3pm: coffee, apple, 12 almonds
• Meal #5, 6pm: chicken fajitas on lettuce wraps (few spoonfulls of cottage cheese and salsa)
• Meal #6, 9pm: 1/2 cup greek yogurt, oats and blue berries

Day #9: Tuesday, August 9

6am workout: Cardio intervals. Tough but I made it through the last interval set at max effort.

• Meal #1, 7:30am: Typical oatmeal
• Meal #2, 9:30am: coffee and cliff bar
• Meal #3, 1pm: black rice sushi rolls (2 avacado + 1 scallop)
• Meal #4, 5pm: ryvita crackers + salsa + hummus + banana
• Meal #5, 9pm: chocolate milk

Day #8: Monday, August 8

6am: Lower body workout – 10 minute warm up on the tredmill and a great workout all round!

• Meal #1, 7:30am: 1 cup greek yogurt, 1/2 cup raw oats, blueberries
• Meal#2, 10am: 12 baby carrots, hummus
• Meal #3, 1pm: stir-fry veggies, black beans, quinoa
• Meal #4, 3pm: apple
• Meal #5, 6pm: Salad and baked salmon
• Meal #6, 8:30pm: americano misto

Day #7: Sunday, August 7

Day off/Cheat day

Since today I’m supposed to take a day off working out and am allowed to eat whatever I want.

• Meal #1, 8:30am:  Coffee and a flax all natural muffin
• Meal #2, 10am: 1/2 greek yougurt, raw oats, few blueberries
• Meal #3, 1pm: Green smoothie
• Meal #4, 3pm: Ryvita crackers, carrots, salsa, hummus (homemade)
• Meal #5, 5pm: Non-fat latte, raw energy bar
• Meal #6, 8pm: Sauteed veggies + black beans + quinoa and cornbread

Not too bad of a cheat day – tried to keep it relatively healthy!

Day #6: Saturday, August 6

9am: Aerobic interval workout – the workout was intense again. I don’t know if it’s because I’ve been doing less cardio then any of my other workout regimes, but it was definitely hard again… I’m planning on keeping it at this level until I feel like I’m able to step up the intenisty.

• Meal #1, 10:30am: Typical bowl of oats
• Meal #2, 12:30pm: Cliff bar
• Meal #3, 3pm: Chicken burger (plain grilled breast) and toss salad with blasamic vinegrette.
• Meal #4, 5pm: banana and iced coffee
• Meal #5, 8:30pm: raw veggies and almonds/peanuts/raisin mix
• Meal #6, 10pm: Ryvita crackers and salsa

Water intake: Good!

Day #5: Friday, August 5

6am: Upper body workout – different exercises than the last

• Meal #1, 7:30am: 1 cup greek yogurt, 1/2 cup raw oats, blueberries
• Meal#2, 10am: 12 baby carrots, hummus
• Meal #3, 1pm: 2 black rice avocado rolls, 1 chopped scallop
• Meal #4, 6pm: non-fat latte, chicken/taboulh pita
• Meal #5, 9pm: 1/2 cup yogurt, berries

Day #4: Thursday, August 4

6am: Aerobic interval workout – I did the same workout as Tuesday, but it was a lot harder to get through. Maybe lack of sleep, maybe my body was sore from the night before – either way I made it through.

• Meal #1, 7am: Oatmeal = 1/2 oats, banana, 1/2 almond milk, handful of berries
• Meal #2, 10:30am: baby carrots, 1/2 hummus
• Meal #3, 12pm: quinoa, tuna, sauteed veggies, iced coffee
• Meal #4, 5pm: apple
• Meal #5, 7pm: 2 avocado rolls, 1 salmon roll

Water intake: Good! Goal is to drink 5 full bottles a day.

Day #3: Wednesday, August 3

6am: Lower body workout – 10 minute warm up on the tredmill (I have to get my heart-rate going before I do any kind of exercise). I only had water before the workout.

• Meal #1, 7am: Quinoa pancake (1/2 cup of quinoa, 1 egg, 1/4 cup egg whites, 1/2 cup greek yogurt and a banana.
• Meal #2, 9am: Cliff bar and black coffee
• Meal #3, 11:30am: Spinach salad (spinach, almonds, 1/4 avocado, tomato, chopped green and red pepper, mushrooms with a lean turkey burger patty on top) and a handfull of baby carrots.
• Meal #4, 3pm: apple and americano
• Meal #5, 6pm: hummus and broccoli, quinoa, veggie and tuna stir fry
• Meal #6, 9pm: banana, 10 almonds

Water intake: not great. I need to drink more at night when I’m home.

Day #2: Tuesday, August 2

6am: Aerobic workout – treadmill intervals (only drank water before going to the gym)

• Meal #1, 7:30: quinoa pancake (1/2 quinoa, 1 egg), banana, blueberries and a dollop of Greek yogurt
• Meal #2, 10am: black coffee, 1/2 cup yogurt, 1/2 cup raw oats, 4 strawberries
• Meal #3, 12pm: left over dinner from night before
• Meal #4, 2pm: cliff bar and an apple
• Meal #5, 6pm: turkey lettuce wraps (low-fat lean turkey, green pepper, tomato, avocado topped with a spoon of cottage cheese and salsa)
• Meal #6, 9pm: 1/2 cup cottage cheese and 4 strawberries

Water intake? Good.

Notes: I feel great today and am confidently keeping on track!

Day #1: Monday, August 1

• Meal #1, 8am: protein pancake (1/2 oats, 2 eggs 1/4 quinoa), blueberries, few spoons of yogurt.
• Meal #2, 11am: banana and skim latte
• Meal #3, 1pm: spinach, berries, goat cheese, pecan salad.
• Meal #4, 5pm: 4 ryvita crackers with hummus and salsa

Workout: Upper body workout

• Meal #5, 8pm: sautéed veggies, black beans, tuna with salsa
• Meal #6, 10:30pm: 1/2 cup Greek yogurt

Water intake? Good

Notes: It was a holiday and I didn’t get up in time to do my workout in the morning.

Morning workouts = love

I know I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I love working out in the morning!

What are the benefits might you ask? I feel a thousand times better throughout the day and I don’t have the workout pressure on the brain (I think about my workout all day long until I accomplish it which is kind of an anxiety thing). You don’t have to pack all your workout gear + work clothes + shower stuff + food to lug around all day because you have already done all of that!

Sounds fool-proof and amazing right? True…. but (there is a but to alllll of this) the early morning wake up is brutal! It’s really hard to pull yourself out of bed at 5:30 am to go to the gym. Really. Hard. The way I look at it is once I get to the gym – I’m good to go. I don’t like to half-ass my workouts so when I’m in the zone – I give it my all.

In case you missed the last post – I’ve started the Body for Life program! Today was day #2, aerobic intervals and was a success. I completed my workout, ate clean and had 6 mini meals today. I’m feeling more confident that I can stick to this plan… as long as I continue to plan – both workouts and food.

The workout went really well. I love interval training (HIIT) and I like how quick the workout goes by. This is definitely an excellent program for me so far! Since it was my first time doing this workout I wasn’t sure of the levels I thought I could run at for the different intervals so I winged it and came pretty close to what I figured I could do.

For this workout I had the treadmill at an incline of 1.5 and ran at the speeds indicated during that minute of the workout. I didn’t stop once and powered thorough until the 20 minutes was up. You can apparently do this interval training with any cardio machine (bike, elliptical, running outside, etc.) but I like running so I am going to choose to stick to that for my aerobic training part of the program. I might take it outside and see what I can accomplish or try a different piece of cardio equipment if I get bored with the treadmill.

I printed off a hard copy of the full schedule and some daily progress reports so I won’t have to draw out my report like this again. If it’s already working, why re-create the wheel, right? I love crossing things off – so I’ve got to have everything on paper!

In stead of posting my food journal every day on here.. I figured I would have a separate post about it called Body for Life Food Journal and keep updating that every day so you can go check out what I’ve been eating.

I will probably include some foods and give a description of what they are. For example this meal I cooked last night and had for lunch at work today:

Bok choy, tomatoes, onion, mushrooms, broccoli, red peppers, cucumber, garlic, seasoning + can of rinsed cooked black beans + can of tuna. I topped it odd with a few spoons of salsa and a dollop of greek non-fat yogurt! High in protein, low in fat and carbs = delicious!

Ok that’s it for today folks – time to sleep so I can get up at 5:30am and hit the gym for day #3!

Night!