I work out but I am not loosing weight?!

Hello beautiful people!

I have been asked by a few of the readers how I lost weight after my recent post pregnancy post. Three people told me pretty much the same thing…”I work out but I don’t see any change so I get discouraged and just quit.”

  
First let me tell you that I am not a nutritionist (hopefully one day soon I will be) nor am I a  personal trainer. Whatever I share with you has been from my own personal experience, hard work, studying and research and what I have learned over the years. I will list 7 possible reasons why you may be stuck, but usually I find that a lot of people easily fall under the first reason.

1. You’re eating wrong foods If you are not loosing weight, the first place you should look into is the kitchen. I see a lot of people working hard at the gym to burn off calories than using that as an excuse to eat whatever they want. “I just worked out I can eat that,” when in reality you are being counter productive. Diet is 80% of your weight loss battle. The exact foods you should be eating depend mostly on your body type and metabolism, a good rule of thumb is to just stick to all natural whole foods. Eat all your natural sugars (fruits) in the morning. Eat your starchy carb foods (whole grains, potatoes, brown rice) on days you will to a heavy weight training and on cardio or light exercise days eat high protein (lots of lean meats, eggs, etc.) and vegetables. Avoid prepackaged foods and foods with ingredients you can not pronounce 🙂

2. You are eating too much If you already cleaned up your diet and you are still not loosing weight, it may be that you’re simply eating too much. In order to shed pounds your body needs to run a calorie deficit, meaning you need to burn more than you consume. I recommend using a food tracking app like MyFitnessPal to keep you on track.

3. You are doing too much cardio Yes you read that right!! Cardio is necessary and it keeps your heart healthy, boosts your metabolism, and gives you a good sweat (you should break one daily 🙂 ). However, only doing cardio or doing too much of it can actually add to the problem. Longer cardio sessions like staying on the elliptical or treadmill for 90 minutes or going for regular 5-mile runs can eat away at your lean muscle mass, which is essential for increasing your metabolism to burn more calories. Not to mention it dramatically increases your appetite, making you more susceptible to unnecessary snacking or overeating. Instead try doing 20-25 minute cardio then lifting weights or body weight exercises or just a good HIIT session. PopSugar Fitness on YouTube has awesome HIIT workouts you can do at home. They are short workouts but highly effective.

4. You are not lifting weights This one goes in hand with # 3. I am not saying you can not or should not do cardio. If you run purely for enjoyment of running (I DO) than by all means continue. But if your primary goal is fat loss, there are other forms of exercise that give a much better and quicker results. The best way to loose weight and gain lean muscle is to do some sort of strength training in addition to your cardio.

5.You are not working hard enough Your workouts should be intensity dependent, not time dependent. Keep this fact in mind: the harder you work the shorter your workouts time may be. That’s why again I favor the HIIT technique mostly. It’s so important to maximize your time spent in the gym or fitness class so you can achieve that coveted ‘afterburn’ effect which keeps your metabolism revved for 24-48 hours afterward. Don’t waste your time chatting with a friend at the gym and do no rest too long between workout sets.

6.You are not taking time to recover Recovery and rest are often more important than the workout itself. It’s during those periods that your body does most of the actual fat burning. So give yourself that time to fully recover so you’re ready to work hard the following day. Most importantly, listen to your body. Push yourself, but also give it some love, too.

7.Your body is under too much stress
Exercise is a stressor on your body. When you have a good healthy balance of exercise related stress and recovery time, your body is healthy and can loose its excess fat. Not giving your body enough time to recover can also be a negative  as you’ll start to produce an excessive amount of cortisol, a stress hormone. However, when your body is exposed to cortisol for longer periods of time, it starts to cause negative effects, like stubborn fat in areas you don’t want. Exercise isn’t the only stressor that can produce excess cortisol. A very stressful personal or professional life can also make your body produce too much of this hormone. Make sure you’re keeping your mental and emotional health in check in addition to your physical health. Always work on total body wellness.

I hope that this post helps some of you get over your weight loss plateau. I love that you guys ask me questions via Facebook, it provides me with great writing material for all of my readers, so please keep the questions coming. If you do not already follow me on Facebook you can do so here.

Til next time ❤ Maya

Things I wish I did differently my first pregnancy

Hello beautiful people!!!

I though I could share with you things I wish I had done and knew differently during my first pregnancy. Some of you may be able to relate and those that have not had kids yet will hopefully take something from this post.

My oldest son is 8, he will be 9 in November. I was 19 when I got pregnant with him. Throughout my teen years I was always on some type of diet, unfortunately even those teen magazines put “skinny pressure” on us early on. I have a very athletic body type. No matter how little I weighed I never looked  skinny and I love that about my self now but I did not back then, so through out high school I always felt the need to diet so I can fit in with the rest of the girls. When I became pregnant shortly after getting married I used that as an excuse to eat whatever I never allowed my self to eat before.

I am 5’8 and my starting weight was 155, the day I went to deliver I was 222 even 😳 That’s 66 pounds, my 8 year old weighs that much now!!!!

I was only 5 month pregnant in that middle picture, and in that December picture above I was one month post partum. I could not recognize myself.At one point these were the pictures I would burry in a deep dark hole and never show it to anyone, but I am proud of the way I look today, I have never felt more comfortable in my body before but it took a lot of hard work and discipline to get there.

1 year after first pregnancy.

2 years after 

During my pregnancy I ate anything and everything all the time and I used my pregnancy as an excuse. I remember eating 4 honeybuns in one sitting. I had acid reflux so bad that I would vomit blood because my esophagus could not handle any more acid. Did I meantion how swollen and how much edema I had?! I went from shoe size 8 to 11 wide. I wish I knew better, I wish I would have nourished my body and my child differently. I was at such high risk for gestational diabetes and thank God I did not get to that. Luckily my son was healthy, but he was 9lb 14 oz and yes I had to have a c-section. I was so upset with my self that five months after having my son I was still 195 pounds. That’s not the worst part, the worst is that I risked gestational diabetes, the extra weight put pressure on my joints and the heartburn was out of this world. I had severe leg cramps even when sleeping. Of course there are risks of complications during delivery, and like I said I ended up with a C-section. I got stretch marks not only in my belly like most people do during pregnancy, I got them all over, back of my legs, arms, thighs…everywhere. I blame my self completely, but I also blame my doctor for not putting more pressure on me and telling me the risks, he would always jokingly tell me “wooooa Maya lay off salt” and that’s it. He never mentioned that an overweight mother is more likely to give birth to a large baby with a greater risk of diabetes and obesity throughout childhood. That would have scared me enough to be more careful. So I am using my self as your PSA…be healthy all the time but be even more careful what you put in your body during the time you are nurturing and growing another human being. “Eating for two” is a LIE, you are eating for your self and a pea size that will slowly grow and get enough from what you eat for ONE. Feed your self with quality not quantity.

It took me a year and a lot of visits to the gym…no really A LOT, to loose the weight I gained. It was torture. I had to retrain my MIND (yes this is the hardest part to train) to learn to eat healthy. Not diet by eating nothing but salads and sandpaper lol but eat clean and nutritional meals. My second pregnancy I was much more educated, and was much more careful. I only gained 29 pounds, and I had no side effects of pregnancy other than the belly to show for it 🙂 I ran in my first trimester, and most of second, then I had to stop because my bladder could not handle it 🙂 There are pleanty of websites, apps and resources that can help you with this. My favorite one that I used a lot was Fit Pregnancy.

December 2014

Please do not get me wrong. There is nothing wrong with gaining weight during pregnancy. It is ABSOLUTELY normal, but the normal weight to gain is 25-30 pounds. There is nothing wrong with stretchmark’s either. I call them my souvenirs from pregnancy 🙂 Most of us can not avoid them and some of you lovely ladies are blessed to not have them. However, its it important to take care of YOURSELF and the BABY in the best possible way. We may enjoy the junk food at the moment but the reality that hits us later is just not worth the temporary indulgence. There are many delicious meals and desserts that you can eat that are still clean and healthy you just have to put the work in to fix them for your self. YOU OWE IT TO YOURSELF AND YOUR CHILD.

              The day of my wedding 09/2005                                         My anniversary 09/2013  
                        2006                                       2012                                             2015

Bouncing back to normal after vacation

Hello beautiful people! Mi gente!

We just came back from a wonderful family vacation. We spent a week in Playa Del Carmen, Mexico. We stayed in the beautiful Grand Riviera Princess. The weather was mostly perfect except a few days of short showers and the last day it was raining all day.

For many people, a vacation is like a trip into space, at least for me it is. 🙂 The blastoff takes place once you book your vacation and days of careful planning. Then a few days of serenity and peace are followed by a harrowing re-entry to the real world. But with a bit of planning, you may find that you actually did get some rest on vacation and you are ready to resume your regular life again. (As I mentioned before I plan everything lol)

(Some pictures from our vacation, our oldest child is spending the summer in Europe with our family)

I am a morning person and while on vacation especially when I am well rested my body just wakes up early. Every morning I would wake at 6:30 to 7:00 am. It was perfect for morning runs on the beach. This gives me time to my self while my boys sleep in 🙂 Its just a nice and early morning breather.

My one and only rule is to leave your self at least one rest day post vacation. This day allows you to rest from travel and restock your house with groceries, even do some laundry maybe. If you are a drinker and plan on drinking on vacation I would cut it very short or completely the last day of vacation and hydrate with a lot of water that will detox your body at least a little and give you more energy. As soon as we got home the next day I got laundry out of the way. I find it if it’s hanging around it is only adding more on my to do list and God knows those of us that have to go back to work have already a lot to catch up on and adjust back to, having heaps of laundry when you come back from work simply sucks. On that off day I also meal prepped and even cooked some food for the few days ahead. I try to have nothing to do when I get home from work that first week, other than relax, get back into my workout routine and play with the kiddos.

 If you have been eating more than you usually do or consuming alcohol I would recommend a detox. There are plenty of recipes out there you can look up on Pinterest but my favorite one is lemon water (with a lot of lemon slices) through out the day, I even add matcha, and detox tea at night.

I hope everyone is enjoying the summer so far and have vacations or staycations planned ahead to just take a few days to kick back and relax. If you are not traveling anywhere do some research there are plenty of things around your town to do and I am sure some are free too just like here in HOT HOT Gerogia.

Headspace

I am so sorry I have not been posting for a week. My goal is to post at least once a week. I was involved in a car accident Monday. I caused it! Its a shame the way it happened. It happened on the way to work I was standing on a red light, staring straight into it. The car next to me pulled up to stop and I guess I saw movement and I just started to drive, slamming straight into the person coming from my left on their green light, driving minding their own business. I was devastated when I saw two kids in the car. I was shaking so bad took me three times to push 911. The kids were ok, I slammed into her passenger door and luckily did not touch the kids in the back. Bless her heart she came out yelling at me that she has two kids in the car…I was in my pediatric nursing uniform and she looked at me and just hugged me. We were both standing in the middle of the road hugging and crying her son was looking at us like we lost our minds. Of course I am not happy that it happened, I am upset with my self for not thinking, I can’t say I was not paying attention because sadly I was looking straight in the red light. My mind was somewhere else.

Like the name of my blog, we all have busy lives. Sometimes I feel like we are all robots and everything is constantly moving just in different speeds for each of us. I have so much on my mind lately its crazy. I had some health issues (all good and well now thank God) since December, death in the family, boys were sick for a couple of weeks back to back, hubby had back pain again, my dad was in the hospital. Needless to say its been CRAZY!

So I set a new daily goal for my self. It is a absolute must. When I run its my way of clearing my head, but I do not run everyday. I do weight lifting and other exercises that I count reps in and stuff and that does not clear my head like running. So instead I promised my self a daily 10 minute meditation. I sit somewhere alone, even if its on the floor of my closet :-), and meditate. I found this awesome app called Headspace. You must try it.

I have been using it for four days and I love it. 

  

Our mind needs exercise as much as our bodies do, so let’s take care of our mind.

My Tuesday workout

Tuesday’s workout felt so good, it was 1010 calorie burn good 🙂 It was an hour and 20 minute session in our garage with my husband.

2 mile HIIT. If you are not familiar with what it is here it is. If the speed is too fast for you lower it to your comfort.

10 Burpees
20 30lb Barbell weight squats
10 Push Ups
30 second wall sit

Repeat 3x

30 10 lb weight Russian twists
30 Mountain Climbers
15 Sit Ups
30 10 lb weight plank rows
Repeat 3x

12 Barbell clean and press / overhead press
12 Barbell deadlift
12 Bent over barbell row
12 Barbell good morning
Repeat 3 x (I used 30lb barbell weights)

The website for illustrations is http://www.workoutlabs.com  You can create your daily workout sheets for your work outs and print them. And the final result……FELT SO GOOD!

Update on FitBit Charge HR Review

Recently I did my review on FitBit Charge HR. I was so excited. My employer enrolled into Humana insurance this year which automatically involved us in Humana Vitality. It’s a program that you get points for doing a wellness exam, health assessment, walking 10,0000 steps a day, for logging food and workouts…in the end you can earn gift cards and different prizes and also drops our premium rates. We all decided to track this through the FitBit. We have been using it for about 3 weeks and I have learned that the fitbit is only good for that….sleep tracking, step tracking and food logging. If you are hard core workout person, running or weight training I would not recommend spending your money on this gadget but rather a Polar watch or another watch that has a heart rate strap as it is more accurate. I found that during weight training on the fitbit the heart rate was blank, it was not measuring at all. I tried positioning it higher and lower on my wrist still the same. I even turned it around so that the heart rate would be in the inside of my wrist still nothing. I had my husband wear it to see if it was a user issue and still the same for him as well.

So I put it to the test and wore both watches at the same time, one on each arm.I did a quick HIIT run on the treadmill and weight trained. Here is a comparison.

THAT’S A HUGE DIFFERENCE! FitBit 181 and Polar 546.

So I think FitBit is a good motivator to get you moving. Everyone at work loves it for that purpose. We are also very competitive so its a healthy competition in who will make more steps. I would recommend it for people who are just starting to workout walk/run. If you do Crossfit, intense training, weight lifting, look into a Polar or something with an actual strap.

Sunday Funday

This week Georgia has had all four seasons of weather but today it’s the best! It is 66 degrees and sunny and I am thinking about going to Stone Mountain to enjoy this weather. But before I do I wanted to share this awesome cool thing that saves me time.

 I don’t know if many of you like to listen to music while working out but my workout results are based on how good my playlist is, but what annoys the life out of me is tangled headphones. When I grab them from my purse or my gymbag I have to first waste time in detangling them and once I do the cord is all out of shape. I recently found Cordskinz and  I think I finally solved my problem. It’s basically a skin for the cord that prevents it from bending and  tangling. If you have the same problem I do you can get yours at http://www.cordskinz.com they have it in many different colors. 









Here is a video that explains this simple and easy time saver. 

http://youtu.be/zEYUIwCWXKM

What I love most about it I can change colors with my outfits 😂😂 gotta look cute all the time. 

Fitbit Charge HR Review

So I finally bought a Fitbit Charge HR. I have been waiting for the release of the HR one because heart rate monitor is important to me, however when I went to pick it up everyone was sold out!!!! If you only knew what l went through to get this little gadget lol. So far I love it. I have had it for a week and I will definitely tell you it motivates me and makes me realize how much I am moving through out the day. I wear the fitbit to bed as well because it tracks your sleeping patterns. When I wake in the morning it will already show like 250-350 calories burned. I have heard people say “how am I burning calories when I am sleeping”? The calorie value that you see on your fitbit when you wake up in the morning is your estimated calorie burn for the day so far. People do not realize that you still burn calories even if you are sedentary or sleeping. It is estimated  on your age, gender, height, weight and heart rate.

It measures my steps walked throughout the day, mileage, work out and active minutes (active minutes is when your heart rate is in moderate-to-intense activity).  Since I have a mostly desk job it motivates me to get up more and even walk around my little office, or do jumping jacks. Also I have been walking up and down the stairs on my break or lunch so that I can meet my personal goal for the day (which you can set in your app). It made me realize that sometimes I get home and it was a busy day at work and I think that I am exhausted and did enough for the day physically but then I look at it and I barely moved from my desk. So I have been increasing my cardio even if I only have time for only 2 miles I will do a quick HIIT workout and lift some weights to keep my heart rate up.

You can log your food, your water and best part you can buddy up with other people and motivate each other and see each other’s numbers and goals.

If you need motivation and you are a visual person I strongly recommend this little gadget. My company participates in a Humana Vitality program where I can link my fitbit to and I earn points and eventually prizes or gift cards for being active. Check if your company has a similar thing.

Too cold to go to the gym

I am in Georgia and its has been unusually cold for the south lol. We even got a couple of hours of snow that I am sure wont even stick to the ground. But as usual, we freak out over it. I have serious problem getting motivation to leave the to go to the gym, and then worse leave the gym all sweaty and its cold…I know..excuses. However, I do try to workout at least 3o minutes a day no matter what the situation is. I even did it with pneumonia last week and almost killed my self (I DO NOT RECOMEND THIS TO ANYONE).  I have a treadmill at home, if I did not I would pull up some you tube video with a good cardio workout or do a T25. However, I have been loving the HIIT treadmill workout.

I recommend this video right after your treadmill. If you have weights at home then lifting always takes priority in my book.

What is your favorite at home workout?

Monday Motivation

I know Mondays are rough at work but that is exactly why you need to sweat it out! I believe that workouts are more of a mental push then a physical, once you motivate your mind your body will perform. Summer is right around corner. I am sure many of you have seen that quote “Summer bodies are made in the winter” and guess what..its the truth. So here is you motivation picture (this one always makes me get up of my butt) and a workout to finish up your Monday.

20 Body weight squats
20 body weight walking lunges
30 jumping jacks
30 second plank
20 regular sit ups
30 second wall sit
Repeat 3 times.  

HAPPY MONDAY