Sorry for the late midnight post, I was working on my last bit of homework for my exercise science class, I had to write a report on a topic that interested me and I chose to write about CrossFit, since I had my first experience and have been interested in wanting to do CrossFit for awhile. Anyways, it had to be 4-5 pages long and I took forever and a day because I was slow walking the dog but I know it was a good paper because I took my time on it.  Anywho, I plugged in my results into my Livestrong App and here is what I got for today (because it is so late and I have to wake up early for class, I am going to try to keep this post straight to the point and short) and If I need to, I’ll add more tomorrow because I am tired and I still have to print out a sheet of workouts for a client I have tomorrow. Long week ahead of me. 

Tonight I didn’t eat as many calories as I “normally” would, I guess I have been caught up with homework all day I didn’t meet my calorie goal, but that is fine because this isn’t something I make a habit of.

Calories: 674/1658 recommended. 

I’ll add the amount tomorrow possibly, if I remember since tomorrow will be another busy day, just remind me and I will 🙂

• Lunch:

1. Nothing 

• Carbohydates: 45g/out of the 90 g goal (technically 137g goal, the app doesn’t allow me to go that high without adjusting the rest of them.. ugh)
• Protein: 31g/135g goal (technically 155g goal)
• Fat: 58g/33g goal (technically 54g goal, again the app doesn’t allow me to adjust it)
• Sodium: 809mg/1440mg goal
• cholesterol: 81mg/180mg goal
• Sugars: 35g/24g goal
• Dietary Fiber: 4g/15g goal

I have to admit today wasn’t a bad day, it was a good day with eating as far as I am concerned just need less sugars and eat more fiber and I need to work on drinking more water. 

• Exercise : I did a hour workout at the gym this morning and had some aminos during the workout. Strength training, upper body and abs.  

Feel free to share comments. 

Sincerely, 

Your Fitness Blogger Shay-lon xoxo

To begin, this post is not for those of you who do not already know what this is, this for people who are also doing this.  I have recently just looked into this and became very interested. I took my time in figuring out my macros using their macro calculator and wrote down important information that will help me.  If you don’t know what this is, read my post that I will be posting soon about it. Nonetheless, this is very new to me and I want every one of you to keep me accountable for my actions as well as myself.  With this being said, I got myself the Livestrong App, and keep track of my calories on there, I also have the Shealth app that came with the phone for other things. I customized my macros based on what the site told me and I am going to share with all of you what my macro goals are.

Let me first start by sharing with all of you my body composition and physical information, so that all of you are well aware and have an idea of where I stand as of now.

Height: 5’8

Weight: 150 pounds

BMI: 22.8.0 (this really isn’t much of importance to me, because of the fact it doesn’t include muscle gains)

BMR: 1503 calories/day

TDEE: 2072 calories/day

BMR: 1534

Suggested calories I should consume: 1658

Protein: 37% (155g)

Fat: 29% (54g)

Carbs: 33% (137g)

Fiber: 23-31g

Now with this all being said, I’ll let you know, I put myself down for light activity (burn 200-300 calories per day), even though I figured I was at moderate activity (burn between 400-500 calories daily) I wanted the least possible situation because I know there will be days I am not as active for whatever reasons. With my activity being higher though, these numbers could change a bit because I would need more calories but for right now I am not worried about it because like I said my days range from very high activity to fairly low depending on the mood and situation.  Working in the fitness industry after graduation, I am sure I will redo everything to fit my lifestyle change. I also want to lose around 10-15 pounds, so this also counted toward how many calories I need to eat.  All in all, I didn’t think this was going to be too difficult because I normally eat “clean food” but these past few days I have been under on protein and over on carbs and not enough fiber and fat is hit and miss. This is when I realized, this would be a trial and error circumstances and I need to experiment and do better meal planning so that I keep within my macros. For right now, I am still learning to write things down and at the end of the night before midnight, logging my meals in the app and then accounting for the exercise as well. It has been a hit and miss with keeping track, of course because of my busy schedule with graduation coming up.. but I want to do this and do this well! I know I can do it, but I need some extra accountability for myself, so I am going to post about my Macros each day (hopefully) along with my other blogging topics, so that I keep accountable of myself better and have you guys all lend comments and share your stories with me. Sound good? Alright!

So with this being said, you are one that is also using the Macros, please feel free to share anything with me! if you are someone who is having the same type of issues as myself, lets help one another 🙂

Sincerely,

Your Fitness Blogger Shay-lon

P.S I’ll make today my first day of my daily Macro and exercise log (food, exercise, macro numbers, and discussion) I will post by the end of the night tonight with my results for today 🙂

So after researching CrossFit and taking a look at some of the things it does to benefit people and what it meant, I became more and more interested in the idea of wanting to be apart of it.  It has become somewhat a big deal over these past couple of years, and I have been slow walking the dog in wanting to give it a go.  As most of you know, I am a personal trainer in the making and I value fitness, and one of the main things I wanted to do was venture into a different side of fitness so that I had more experience and challenge myself.  I did some research on some local CrossFit gyms we had in my town, which I believe there were 2 to choose from ( I live in a semi small town) and out the two, I mainly just looked at their websites and based on choice on their reviews, and what they had to offer and location and prices. I finally nailed it when I found one that was on the same side of town as me and seemed like it offered some pretty decent priced classes but the ONE  thing that stood out to me was the fact it offered free Saturday morning classes each week and this was great news for someone like myself who has participated in CrossFit and had no idea what all I was getting myself into.  I had to register and sign a medical waiver before attending and afterwards I received an email from the owner telling me of what to basically bring with me the day of the class. 

Saturday morning, I was very prompt, made sure I ate a decent breakfast, had my water packed up and wore appropriate gym clothing for we were going to be indoors. My drive there was fairly uneasy because I was very nervous and not going to lie was scared of what this class was going to do to me, lol. I knew I worked out and stayed fairly fit & in shape, but this was so different then what I was used to and I wanted to make a good impression considering the circumstances of me wanting to be apart of the fitness industry.

When I arrived, I arrived early, and decided to stay inside my car until 5 minutes before the class started.  When I walked in the owner and some of the others recognized me from last weekend (when I shown up late to the class and didn’t get to partake in the class at the time); there were a good number of people that had already arrived.  I had to sign in for the first time, basically saying I made it to the class (they have tons of technology, it was pretty interesting to say the least).  I did some dynamic stretching of my own to get warmed up for the next 3-4 minutes before we began our workouts.  Luckily for me, once everyone shown up, we all had to do dynamic stretches and lined up behind the leaders and took turns going back and forth doing skips, lunges, sprints, bounding, ect.. everything I already knew how to do. Let me reverse back (before this all happened), we had to all go around and introduce ourselves so that everyone had an idea of who everyone was.  I was fairly nervous still, so I pretty much only met like 4 people due to my anxiety.  Now back to the warm-up, as part of a warm-up, the leaders had us play the “PVC pipe” game and explained the rules to everyone.  Basically everyone grabs a PVC pipe and stands in a large circle with the PVC pipe standing straight in front of them with 2 fingers on the top of the pipe.  The leader has to say “left go” or “right go” and the point is to go in that direction and catch the PVC pipe before it lands on the ground (the person on either side depending on what direction he calls out has to catch your PVC pipe when you let go to grab the one next to yours, and so on and so forth.. ) if the PVC pipe falls we had to do 5 burpees, luckily I made it past that round and ended up toward the end but didn’t qualify as the last two people standing.  We declared a winner and next we were told the workout would be AMRAPs or something around that nature for 15 minutes without stopping.  We had to choose a partner for this workout and because I didn’t know anyone, I kinda just stood around until a woman decided to ask me to be her partner (possibly next time I’ll have more guts to ask someone)

AMRAPS workout: 

When this was all finished up, we had to start back over at 1 until the 15 minutes was up and do as many rounds as possible without stopping.  We could not drop the ball in any of the workouts other than the burpee/planks, and the ball could touch the ground when we did our sit-ups otherwise there would be a penalty (we never figured out the penalty because we were very careful about not dropping the ball).  By end the end of the 15 minutes, I believe we did almost 3 or 4 rounds.  We all had to walk in a circle for a cool down and then lastly take part in a cool down stretch.  Once class was over they had the new people talk with one of the leaders so he could go over the classes, information and hand out pamphlets.  The great thing is we can all show up for free on Saturday mornings as many Saturdays as we want to workout.  The class is like 65 dollars before taxes (everyone has to do a beginners course for 4 weeks first; which is the 65 dollars class before they can start the actual CrossFit classes). I have yet to decide if I am going to join just yet because of my busy schedule and the possibility of moving when I get my certification, but I will try to make it on Saturday mornings when I am not working and hopefully I’ll invite some friends or family with me for next time. The class really challenged me and I liked that, not to mention everyone is pretty close knit in the class (like a family) and that is a positive as well as the fact they allow us to drink beer after the classes with the only rule being replace it the next time you show up for a class. 

The owner has a story as to how he started his own business, and it began when he was working with friends and all of sudden had them bring 10 dollars so he could help them stay fit and somehow he ended up helping someone who played hockey and they spread the word and he opened up his own CrossFit gym.  A story like this gives me hope, because ‘word of mouth’ plays a huge part in the fitness industry and this just goes to show that if you are good at what you do then you will excel and people will want to pay you and will seek out your services.  I guess this is another reason I blog so that I can hopefully help those around me and people from a far, I enjoy sharing my stories, information and networking (which all of you can follow me if you like), I started from the bottom and I am trying to make a name for myself and create some life changing results in people and help give people hope and motivate them to motivate others.  As bloggers, we can all say we hope to eventually make money from blogging or publish a book; which both are goals for myself but at the end of the day it isn’t about how much money I am going to collect from followers, it is about how many smiles I am going to put on followers and how many minds I am going to change when they don’t believe in themselves.  It is not easy being a blogger, I know I slip up and forget to blog daily, but it is a commitment that takes time and dedication and takes some kind of personality to nail the right people. I am still learning the ins and outs and still trying to create a face to my blogs so that all of you will hopefully follow me when I start my youtube channel 🙂 

I know sometimes I can come off very serious depending on the matter but this is because fitness and health are my passion and soon to be career for me. As much fun as it is to workout and be happy with our inner and outer beings, I want people to know how serious this issue is and the benefits that come from wanting to start this journey, The perks are endless once you hop on board and decide to make the positive changes within in. With all this being said, I enjoyed CrossFit, and I will make it to the next class hopefully in 2 weeks (next Saturday I work) and I think if you are one that wants to try CrossFit out, you should do your research on the specific gym and give it a go! I will be posting a post in the near future that talks about CrossFit Fitness. Thanks for reading, Feel free to follow, comment, share, reblog and like my social media pages.

Sincerely,

Your Fitness Blogger Shay-lon xoxo

Okay so let’s cut to the chase, I have provided many diets in my previous blogs that have all explained the pros and cons.  Some have been the more popular diets and some have yet to get much publicity or were unknown to the majority of us.  I think I did a pretty good job with providing information and covering my thoughts. If any of you remember me saying at the end of each blog “I hate diets” & “I hate the word diet” then you know this post is going to be about why I hate diets and how come I don’t believe in them. First of all, I will start off by saying If you are currently “dieting” this may or may not make you reconsider dieting and if I am good at what I do, I hope it does.  I hope by the end of this particular blog post that all of you will share this information and begin to see what path I will steer us in and why. Secondly, I did mention how I liked the “concepts” of some of the diets, but this doesn’t mean I like dieting and it doesn’t mean I am an advocate of dieting, this just meant, I like what it had to offer if someone was to do the diet.  Lets begin!

So dieting, eliminating, taking away, restricting, throwing away, vomiting up, don’t eat this, don’t eat that, am I allowed to eat this, this isn’t good for you, get rid of, I can’t have this, & I wonder if this would be okay to eat even though I am on this diet. Do any of these words and phrases sound familiar? I hope they do, because all of these words/phrases normally have something to do with dieting & I hate it because it’s too much, too hard and suffocates your rights to eat whatever the hell you want to eat. If your everyday starts with a should I eat an apple or pear this morning or should I eat at burger king or captain D’s then you are doing things wrong! The question should no longer be “Should you” the question should be “Why can’t I” i.e example “why can’t I eat an apple or pair?” or “Why can’t I eat at burger or Captain D’s? if you can’t answer these questions with a “I can” then your diet is restricting you and I feel bad because all this time you could have taken the easier way around and still been able to eat what you like without having to make choices that could cost you your happiness.  You are probably wondering why I think dieting is bad? Why is dieting so popular? & Why does dieting cause weight loss if it does one no good? Simple. Dieting is popular because everyone follows another person’s lead instead of taking charge of their own life, dieting causes weight loss because you have limited your amount of calories to the point where you have to literally count your calories in order to make sure you are above the recommended but below the standard. Finally, I think dieting is bad because it takes away your freedoms, it causes people to be more self conscious about their image (body shaming), it confuses people, can cause eating disorders, too many turn into fads and not enough turn into long term lifestyle changes, it promotes rapid weight loss that can’t be healthy for everyone, it can slow your metabolism, and it forces you to change your eating habits without teaching you how first.

I am going to give you a list of Dos in order to eat healthier, so that you don’t have to diet any longer. Now if you choose to continue to diet, that is fine, I won’t stop you or make you feel bad about your choice but when and if you decide you would like to take a new path in eating.. take a look at my list below.  Before I do this list, I just want to mention that I made this list based on my new concept called “EMVG” and this simply means I want you to eat without feeling bad about what you ate.

These 4 simple rules to my concept all have to do with how you can eat without having to diet & eliminate constantly.

Exercise- very important and since I am pro fitness this is number 1 for me, because if you don’t have an active lifestyle (i.e walking, running, biking, sports, ect) then this should change unless you have health conditions that keep you from being able to stay active.

Moderation- Everything is about balance & how well you balance your eating habits.  Make a habit of meal planning because it will help with moderation.  If you don’t understand meal planning, I am going to have a blog post about it and if you are one who doesn’t have time for meal planning, another idea is making a habit of reading the serving size and using it.

Variety: Eat different foods, explore different cultures, taste different spices, and gain more experience in the kitchen

Goals: Establish your goals, then establishing how your eating habits effect your goals and then changing your eating habits so that you achieve your goals by following the first 3 steps.

With this all being said, this is my way of teaching all of you how to eat without eliminating.  Everyone has different goals and no matter what they are, you can eat food without having to eliminate a whole food group or staying away from fast food.  I don’t like fast food, it does nothing for me anymore these days, so I could eat it if I want to but I don’t like to and that is okay.  I want people to branch out and explore their options, make mistakes in the kitchen and find what works for them. It doesn’t matter if someone is training to be a bodybuilder or wants to lose over a 100 pounds, these 4 rules still apply. A bodybuilder’s moderation is different then the “average joes” and the woman trying to lose weight moderation is different than the guy who wants to throw on more pounds. Once you explore what works for you in moderation and gives you results, you can start focusing on variety and then focus on how much exercise you want or need so that you get the best results possible. The rule is What works for you, doesn’t have to work for everyone else.

Truth is, I hope this gives some of you more hope and enlightened others. I am sure someone may disagree with what I have to share and that is okay because my idea isn’t flawless, I am actually still tweaking it every now and then until I find something that catches my attention but for now this is my idea of not having to diet and eating what you want without feeling like it is wrong.  I will talk more about my concept and go into more depth about it as we move along in my future blog post but I just want you to keep this in mind for now.

Sincerely,

Your FitnessBlogger Shay-lon xoxo

Cons:

• Nutrient deficiency: protein, iron, calcium, vitamin B12, and vitamin D
• unrealistic limitations: eggs, dairy, avocados these are just a few
• unintended weight loss has occurred 
• No supplementation (discourages supplements)
• very restrictive diet
• majority of calories comes from whole grains
• Not for everyone
• high carb, low protein

Lets be honest here, I wouldn’t do this diet because I know I wouldn’t be able to do this for the long term and even though the chances of losing weight can be great, it could be dangerous if you aren’t sure what you are doing and if you know that you aren’t trying to lose weight intentionally, skip this.  As a matter of fact, I wouldn’t even recommend this diet as a short term because it would be a waste of time because of how challenging it would be to the average person.  With all the things wrong with this diet, I will just leave it at if you don’t live this lifestyle choice and haven’t done it for a mature amount of years then don’t take on this diet unless you have a health condition that would make it so you need to be on it because otherwise I don’t think you have a high chance of succeeding.  If you are someone who knows someone on this diet or has tried it please feel free to leave comments or share with us your opinion or story. I would love to hear about it since I don’t know anyone who has been on this type of diet.  Thank you for reading.

Sincerely, 

Your Fitness & Health Blogger Shay-lon xoxo

Read this book about the macrobiotic if you think you are someone who could handle this way of life and this type of diet:)