Fitness is hard in a 3rd-World country! I have questions.

hdME

A little background info: I work for a Christian humanitarian organization that runs an orphanage of over 100 children and a school of over 300 in The Carribean. We are also finishing a 17,000 sq. ft. hospital right now - so needless to say our small staff is always busy! However, that doesn't leave a lot of time for things like sleeping, working out or eating healthy. In the US I like to jog and eat a lot of veggies, but here there are not a lot of options. After about 8 months of living here full-time and my immune system not agreeing with me anymore I realized that I needed to make some changes. Nothing helped until I began taking on some Ayurvedic breathing exercises and recipes. It has really helped to bring my digestion, etc... back into alignment. After about a month of this, I found MFP to help track nutrition and exercise and after only a couple of days - I love it! I would love to meet some of you for encouragement, etc...

Here are questions that I have so far for those of you who are Pros:

1. What are some ways that I can meet my calorie levels without adding a ton of sugar or fat? I always go over in order to reach my calorie goals.

2. My targeted caloric intake is 1,200. Anyone with around this much - how do you time your eating? I feel like I am trying to cram in calories at the end of the day - which can't be good so late in the evening.

3. For everyone - what are some of the best exercises that you have found to burn good calories when you don't have much space/ equipment?

Thanks! Looking forward to this journey!

davadoto

Hello

I can certainly relate to some of your issues since I live and I'm from a "developing" country and work in the humanitarian sector.

You raised a lot of questions so I’ll just address the one I' m most comfortable with and let wiser MFP users give further input. Being a vegetarian it’s hard to meet my calorie goal without going over on carbs and/or fat. So I try to have my 3 meals a day at the time that most suit me and squeeze easy to pack snacks that I can take along with me. Those that don’t require refrigerator are your best option if you work outside all day (crackers, protein bar, carrot sticks, fresh fruits etc). I use MFP as a meal planner: it allows me to change my meals and jugle around in other to stay within range for each category.

You can also ask for local recipes and do them yourself at home in a fashion that fit your fitness goals (and stomach) Hope that hels some. Good luck!.