Beautiful Blues 2/8/10

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Great job everyone!!

I'd love to be down another 1lb by next week. I think it's something that I can do. Right now, I'm feeling really motivated & "in the zone" hopefully I'll get there!! I do however, have some soreness in my right calf that seems to be running all the way up the back of my leg & into my glute! I'm thinking I have a tight hamstring or something. I did workout today, but I kept it low impact & I've also been icing & stretching throughout the day - any other ideas????

Peter - how exciting for you!! Congrats & good luck - you can do it!!

Smadag - good for you! A good breakfast will get you off on the right foot! Enjoy that P90X - thats some serious stuff!

Debnu - you've got some really great, balanced, attainable goals there!! Great job!

Have a great day people!! Biggest Loser tonight!! :drinker:

:flowerforyou: Sandy

Hello Blues!

Yay for another great week!

My goals are:
-aim for the 40,30,30 percentages as best as I can
-keep track of sodium and fiber
-exercise daily
-one day without an evening gym class (Wednesday)

I do however, have some soreness in my right calf that seems to be running all the way up the back of my leg & into my glute! I'm thinking I have a tight hamstring or something. I did workout today, but I kept it low impact & I've also been icing & stretching throughout the day - any other ideas????

How are you stretching your calves now? I've stretched them various ways, and can let you know possible alternatives.

#1 - Step both feet on a stair, let your toes stand on the stair while your heels hangover. This is easier if your holding onto something, and then lower your heels, up, and lower, feeling the pull.

#2 - Stand up near a wall (maybe 2-3 feet away), put your hand and elbows flat on the wall, move your weight to the front of your toes as you lean against the wall - Basically all your weight on your toes - Drive those heels back down. If your heels touch easily or are already on the ground, move farther away from the wall.

#3 - Tony's Stretch #1 from P90(x) - Standing position - Bend one leg slightly and keep the other leg straight - The leg that's straight bend over and grab your toes and pull up - For added resistance flex your thigh muscles.

#4 - Tony's stretch #2 -
Two ways to get into this position
- stand with your legs slightly apart but straight, no bending knees, then bend down (touch the floor if you can), then turn your body around to the side as well as turning your feet - Basically you are in a lunge position except yoru hands are at your forward foot. (Imagine your position at the gate, if you were in a running race.)
- I think this way is harder. - Start off in a lunge position knee's bent, then straigten both legs as you bend over forward to touch your front foot.
Put both hands on either side of your foot that's in front for balance - Try to straigten BOTH legs - For starters it's ok if you don't touch the floor Tony says try to get the legs straight. NOW, lift up that front foot as you try to lower your back leg - do this a few times, and then switch sides.

The last wto are also good stretching for your hamstring.

Of course, don't bounce as you stretch, and sometimes hold that stretch for 20-30 secs or more.

Hope this helps.

I don't know what is I keep gaining weight. It could be muscle. I'm keeping to my calorie count, drinking all my water, exercising. Im loosing inches but when I go see my doctor what am I going to say to her. grrr

I do however, have some soreness in my right calf that seems to be running all the way up the back of my leg & into my glute! I'm thinking I have a tight hamstring or something. I did workout today, but I kept it low impact & I've also been icing & stretching throughout the day - any other ideas????

How are you stretching your calves now? I've stretched them various ways, and can let you know possible alternatives.

#1 - Step both feet on a stair, let your toes stand on the stair while your heels hangover. This is easier if your holding onto something, and then lower your heels, up, and lower, feeling the pull.

#2 - Stand up near a wall (maybe 2-3 feet away), put your hand and elbows flat on the wall, move your weight to the front of your toes as you lean against the wall - Basically all your weight on your toes - Drive those heels back down. If your heels touch easily or are already on the ground, move farther away from the wall.

#3 - Tony's Stretch #1 from P90(x) - Standing position - Bend one leg slightly and keep the other leg straight - The leg that's straight bend over and grab your toes and pull up - For added resistance flex your thigh muscles.

#4 - Tony's stretch #2 -
Two ways to get into this position
- stand with your legs slightly apart but straight, no bending knees, then bend down (touch the floor if you can), then turn your body around to the side as well as turning your feet - Basically you are in a lunge position except yoru hands are at your forward foot. (Imagine your position at the gate, if you were in a running race.)
- I think this way is harder. - Start off in a lunge position knee's bent, then straigten both legs as you bend over forward to touch your front foot.
Put both hands on either side of your foot that's in front for balance - Try to straigten BOTH legs - For starters it's ok if you don't touch the floor Tony says try to get the legs straight. NOW, lift up that front foot as you try to lower your back leg - do this a few times, and then switch sides.

The last wto are also good stretching for your hamstring.

Of course, don't bounce as you stretch, and sometimes hold that stretch for 20-30 secs or more.

Hope this helps.

Thank you so much! I'm going to try these!

Anything I can do to help, feel free to ask no matter how crazy. MFP makes things alot easier to do this.

For your day total %'s
Take your totals at the end of the day. I preplan my day so I'll know how much carb, protein, fat I am going to eat. If I am off by some, I'll add. Meat/cottage cheese/protein powder for protein - Almonds for Fat, and Veggies/Fruit for some more carbs.

So what I did today for example.
I ended up with C,F,P - 182gms, 55gms, 146gms - To get calories from grams multiply - Carb x 4, Fat x 9 Protein x 4 = 728C, 495F, 584P - Daily Total is 1807 - MFP calculated 1802 - No big deal there, fractions, lost decimal places I assume.

So out of the total 1807 calories you find out what % of your macronutrient makes up that total.
782 Cal is Carb - 782/1807 x 100 = 40%
495 Cal is Fat - 495/1807 x 100 = 27%
584 Cal is Pro - 584/1807 x 100 = 32%

Just make sure you convert the grams to calories before doing the %.


Now - For stuff I am learning more about 40-30-30 at each meal.

So, you will see on the internet, the zone diet, formula zone, they use zone blocks.
You could convert the grams to calories and then divide, for each meal, but most "zone dieters" they use zone blocks

1 zone block of carb is 9 grams
1 zone block of protein is 7 grams
1 zone block of fat is 3 grams.

You will see some reference to 1 mini zone block of fat = 1.5grams.
I had to read a few sites to understand this. If you are having red meats - and you use a protein zone block well then you would use a mini zone block of fat because that red meat alread has fat in it.
If you are having zero fat protein - Protein powder, 0%fat cottage cheese, etc, you can use zone block of fat for 3 grams.
So for arguments sake and because MFP already calculates the fat within the meat, use 3 gram blocks for fat.

So each meal. you should match up your zone blocks... 1:1:1 or 5:5:5 whether it's a snack or dinner etc.

So for my dinner today chicken and noodles - I didn't cook the chicken, but I did weigh it so I just picked something close in the database.
41gms C - 20gms F - 47gms P
By using the "block method"
Carbs - I had 41/9 (9 grams per block) = 4.5 blocks
Fat - I had 20/3 (3 grams per block) = 7 blocks (MFP already had calculated the fat in my meat, so didn't use the 1.5block)
Protein - I had 47/7 (7grams per block) = 6.7 blocks.

So by using this method, I was 4.5 - 7 - 6.7 . I need another 2.5 blocks worth of carbs to make that meal balanced.
Which for me was to add 12 baby carrots, piece of celery and 1 clementine orange.

My lunch was 35grams C - 13grams F and 26grams
zone block approx 4 - 4 - 4 - Actual 3.89 - 4.33 - 3.7

So what I will do going forwad, is type in your food that you will have for a snack/meal - Then see how many "zone blocks" are in that meal - If you are short in a certain macro, then just add some in that macro until it adds up.

Hope that makes sense.

smadag1- It's a good idea to do yoga or stretch during the week to replace exercises. They are great to stretch out the muscles and to restore the body.

debnu- Thanks debnu, I'll definitely get the greek yogurt to try it out.

Wow, snow finally came in to NYC and it's just white out. I've been working out at home instead of the gym to avoid the cold weather, but I haven't missed the gym. Since I've changed my carb/protein/fat to what Jillian's book recommended for me: 20/50/30, my weight is just melting off. I've lost 2 pounds since Sunday (that is like 3 days). I feel great, I'm not hungry and I'm eating atleast 1200 calories.

The plan for today is to do Insanity Pure Cardio and P90x Legs and Back.

Have a great day all!

So I just figured out my percentages for the day. Boy am I off! 51/26/22 AHHHH! It is going to take some work to figure this one out. I am either way over on carbs or protein not in between. I am really going to have to play around with this to see if I can get it right. I have upped my protein significantly in the last few weeks and even then I was only at 22% today. I guess it is kinda balanced but not close enough yet. The funny thing is that the dietician at the weighin last night was thinking I should add in more whole grains. I am getting around 2 a day. Most of my carbs tend to be from other sources. We'll see what works!

Hey Deb,
I looked at your diary for the last 2 days. Hope you don't mind. Very easy changes imo.

1st., glad to see your drinking Dymatize Elite, I've been drinking it for a while, really enjoy the taste and not much sugar.

Do what your doing, but I would change/add only a few things.
#1, get more protein.
- Have another protein shake as an evening snack. I found that my protein shake at night took away any
chocolate/sweet cravings I might get.
- add another piece of protein like chicken/tuna to your lunches and dinner.
- buy cottage cheese and mix in with yogurt. (how I started to eat cottage cheese, now I don't use yogurt ).

#2, get more fat.
- Add Almonds. There are other nuts you can use for good fats, my preference are almonds, easy, taste good etc.
- you can add 5 or so almonds to a snack or a meal to balance it out. I eat approx 15-20 almonds daily.

#3 reduce carbs.
- Have 1/2 cup of raisin bran. You will get used to smaller amounts.
- Watch out for your breaded chicken - When you want protein, should be just that protein, not more grams of carbs than protein .
- yogurt has alot of carbs, I was eating those, but if you pull up your sugar. 99% fat free yogurts are loaded with sugar to taste good - Sorry.

My evening snack.
I started out eating yogurt, then went to yogurt and cottage cheese, then added an apple.

Now it's an apple, cottage cheese, and crushed almonds, tastes great..

Good luck.

Peter, you have an abundance of information. Thanks for all your posts.

almomay - your success with reducing your carbs is very motivating to me. I am still working on it but I will keep at it. I think its important to find ways to incorporate a diet into a lifestyle - I need to find ways to make it work for me and not feel deprived.

tttthumper - thanks for all the information. I recently added almonds to my food list as well. Yum!

Yesterday was my evening workout day off. I love the reward of a night free. I made a great low carb stuffed chicken recipe - very tasty. And I baked some South Beach Diet PB&J cookies - YUM! Here is the recipe if your interested --> http://www.southbeachdiet.com/sbd/publicsite/recipes/Peanut-Butter-and-Jelly-Cookies.aspx

Anyway, did level 3 of 30 day shred this morning, and I have a spinning class this evening.

Hey this weekend is Valentine's Day !! Anyone have special plans! :flowerforyou:

Hi Team,

We're still snowed-in in NYC but I have not been outside so I have no idea how bad it is. I think for Valentines day I'll just have a dinner at home. I'm busy with school work this weekend, so will be studying.

The plan for today is to do Insanity Plyometric Cardio circuit which is 40 minutes. My butt and legs ache from working them out yesterday but in a good way!

Enjoy your day everyone and stay positive!