W(ordful)W: My Fitness Pal

Hi blog friends!

I figured today would be a good day to talk about my weight loss and exercise routine. This is week #3 of this new routine. I must say, I'm still loving it! I feel so good. I have energy. I'm losing weight! I'm really excited that I'm still motivated this far into it.

I do have to give Dada credit. As I mentioned in the last post, Dada and I now get to go to the gym about 4 days a week together. It definitely keeps us both going. We enjoy the time together and it holds us both accountable. Plus there's a small element of competition. If we have to go the gym separately, then I know for me, I'm gonna go just so he can't say, I went and you didn't.

At the gym, we are doing combinations of cardio and strength training. We both love the elliptical, so that's usually our cardio. We do strength training on various body zones each day. So one day cardio + arms/chest/back and another day cardio + legs. I always try to throw in abs every workout as well. Dada ordered the Ab Circle Pro and that is usually his ab workout. He loves it. I don't love it for myself. I'm not sure if I'm doing it wrong or what, but I just don't feel like I'm getting a good ab workout. We also try to swim once a week. That's a great full body workout! And it burns a ton of calories! On our fourth day we try to do something different. We don't always, but we are trying different things. We've talked about walking up Kennesaw Mountain or playing racquetball. Just to shake things up!

At home, we are watching what we eat and counting calories. Normally, I fail at this method after a few days. I hate counting calories. This time though, I've found a solution. Myfitnesspal! It is a diet tracker and calorie counter. It's available on the website, as a phone app, as well as on Facebook as an app. I LOVE IT! I cannot say enough good things about it! It makes the whole process kinda fun!

To register on the app, you enter your age and weight (maybe height too, I can't remember). You also decide how much weight you want to lose each week or if you want to maintain your current weight. It uses this to calculate the number of calories you need to eat each day to accomplish that goal and be healthy. So it'll post your daily calorie goal and then you just have to try to stay within that goal. You enter your exercises and your food intake and it will calculate it for you!

To describe in more detail...Basically, you can enter your workout and it will calculate the number of calories you burned based on the info you put in when you register and the amount of time you spent on the workout. You can also enter the food that you've eaten and it will keep track of your calories for you. It makes it super easy. And the best part about it, you can scan the bar code on your food with your smartphone and it will enter all the nutrition info so you don't have to! It also has a large database of foods to search if you can't find your exact product.

Here's an example:
My daily calorie goal is 1200
I ate 344 calories so far today
I burned 213 calories doing cardio today
So, I have 1069 calories remaining that I can eat today
(1200-344=856+213=1069)

No math skills necessary! It does it all for you!

I also like that it has an option to blog on the website as well as invite your friends and it will share your success with them! To share mine with you, so far I've lost 6 pounds!

So if you haven't figure it out, I would totally recommend this app for anyone wanting to keep track of their calories, diet and exercise routine! And did I mention, all this is FREE!

I hope this was helpful and/or motivating! If you use myfitnesspal, send me an invite to be your friend! I'd love to share in your success! My username is psychick1

Happy Wednesday!!

Nicole