What a crappy few weeks I just came through. My mind is like mush, my body is drained of all energy. It sucks bad.

It seems like stress and daily life pressures are never ending. I kept telling myself “tomorrow I’ll start”… “tomorrow I’ll do something about it”… “tomorrow will be better”… etc.

I have come to the conclusion that “tomorrow” never comes.

Each day I stil wake up with a pounding head ache, the same stresses in my life, the same shitty circumstances in my daily routine.

So how can I escape the rut that I am in?

Well, first off, I am going to get active again. I am going to start going to the gym regularily. I am going to start eating healthy. I am going to track what goes into my body and how I treat myself.

…and I’m starting TODAY, right now!

In fact, I actually went to the store, bought a whole bunch of organic whole foods!! I also registered at the local Health and Wellness Center!!

I’ve take the first steps to success and I’m proud of myself for doing that.

Once I realized that nothing changes until I change, it clicked.

I’m going to use this blog as a tool to track everything I do from here on out. I need to be accountable to myself and this is the way I’ll do it.

Pictures, videos, daily updates, and more… I’m on a mission now to change my body, change my mind, change my spirit… and hopefully inspire others along the way.

I’m outta here for now. I got to go to the gym to get my health assessment done.

Will update later.

Peace out.

Wow, that body detox went by FAST! I did have a few hard times, but just kept my mindset strong and slammed back a large glass of water if my mind started playing tricks on me.

Got through the full three days only drinking down extracted Veggie-Juice concoctions of mine, and water

So Monday morning actually came around and it seemed like those past three days really whizzed by.

Today I did my first workouts. Here is my thought process on this…

In the past, I have tried to go hard on a workout routine right out of the gates, but time and time again I get so stiff and sore the following days, that I give up.

I’m sure most people are like that. If you haven’t done any good hard physical exercise in a long time, then you all of a sudden jump into it, you get very sore for like five days following, right!?

Well, not this time my friends… This time I am doing things the RIGHT WAY!

This morning I got on my stationary recumbent Schwinn bike. I did a full 30 minutes at about 50% MHR. Sure felt amazing when I finished!

Then later in the day, I did a full body cardio routine and included some various push ups and ab exercises.

I have decided that I will do “that” routine for my first three days this week to condition my body back into a more active state. Then I will start adding in some weight routines, and next week, I will hit it up harder.

It’s not about speed, it is about doing it right so your results are with you long term.

Here is a quick video I made right after getting off the bike this morning.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Stay strong,

~R

Tomorrow morning, my nutrition eating plan starts for my body transformation, so I’ve been doing research on how much I should be eating.

I’ve heard and seen lots of different things, but they all seem to come back to one main point, which is “portion control”.

Okay, okay… I get… Portion control… but “how” much daily is optimum.

I get the idea that I can use my fist or palm of my hand to roughly judge the size of a portion. But I am so committed to success on this body transformation that I want to nail it.

Here is a basic formula that I found, to determine the right daily calorie consumptions…

Take your body weight and multiply it by the following to determine the approximate caloric intake per day for your goals:

• 8-10 if you are interested in losing body fat
• 12 if you want to gain muscle and lose body fat
• 15 if you want to gain muscle mass.

Once you have the calorie total determined, you need to break that down into Proteins, Carbohydrates, and un-saturated Fat sources.

A general rule of thumb for the breakdown is 40/40/20 (protein/carbs/fat). Obviously you can adjust the amounts depending on what your goals are. (I am going to try and eat more protein and less carbs on my diet for the first while)

So here is an example of how I will be starting my eating plan this week.

255 lbs x 10 = 2,550 calories per day

P: 2,550 x 50% = 1,275 calories from Protein
C: 2,550 x 35% = 892.5 calories from Carbohydrates
F: 2,550 x 15% = 382.5 calories from Good Fats

So now I know how many calories of each to eat, but where do I go from here? Next I am going to need to convert these calories to grams (which will then make the label reading all come together, right!?)

Protein = 4 calories per gram
Carbohydrate = 4 calories per gram
Fat = 9 calories per gram

Again with my personal example, this is going to be my breakdown:

1,275 protein calories divided by 4 calories per gram (1275/4) = 318.75 grams of protein

892.5 carbohydrate calories divided by 4 calories per gram (892.5/4) = 223.13 grams of carbs

382.5 fat calories divided by 9 calories per gram (382.5/9) = 42.5 grams of unsaturated fats

Ok, there I have it… the total breakdown of Protein, Carbohydrates, and Fats that I will be eating on my nutrition plan this week during my body transformation.

I am going to eat 6 separate meals, so accordingly I will now need to equally divide the grams/calories into the various meals. (these totals are NOT per meal… they are the TOTAL for the DAY that I am to consume)

• Protein/Meal = 318.75/6 = 53.13 grams
• Carbs/Meal = 223.13/6 = 37.19 grams
• Fats/Meal = 42.5/6 = 7.08 grams

Awesome! Now with the assistance of the nutrition labels and my mini digital food scale, I will be able to get my portions exact for my body transformation nutrition plan.

Hope these examples are helpful in getting you started with your own eating healthy lifestyle!

Eat well,

~R