Eat enough calories!

I have had alot of questions about serving sizes and calorie counting. This is the most important part of losing weight so I appreciate the questions and the effort you are all making to make good food choices.
First and most important, eat enough calories. If you are under 1200 you are starving your body. don't do that! Let me explain how the body works. Your body need a certain amount of calories for fuel to live off of without any physical activity at all. If you are not giving yourself at least that amount of calories your body goes into starvation mode. It begins to store every calorie you give it as fat and starts looking for another fuel source in your body to use for energy, which is your muscles. You don't want to use your muscle for energy. Muscles keeps your metabolism up which helps you burn calories and lose weight. Which is also the reason your body chooses to use it as fuel, to be able to cut the calorie loss. Sure with under 1200 calories you will lose weight at first, but you will not be healthy and with your body in starvation mode and a lower metabolism, you will gain it back and twice as fast. In the same respect if you are giving your body enough nutrition filled, healthy calories everyday it will be more willing to give the stored calories (fat) away as fuel for your workouts. Your body will recognize it will have more calories coming in tomorrow and it has the nutrients it needs to be heath so it sees it doesn't need to store the calories and can use them for fuel. So you have the stored fat for fuel for workouts, building muscle with weights (which burns more calories) and eating right, all working together to get your body where it wants to be. Yep you heard me right! Your body knows where it should be weight wise to be healthy. If you give it the tools (calories) and do the work (workouts) it will do the rest! That is very exciting!!! So don't cut the calories below 1200!! (For some this number may be higher. Once again please put your info in here http://www.myfitnesspal.com/welcome/learn_more to find your number or talk to me and i can help you.)
Second: As far as servings go, here is some info, and please continue to ask question!!!
Lean meats, poultry and seafood is usually about 3oz. That is about the same size as a computer mouse and a check book size for seafood.
Fruit and veggies: You need 4-5 servings a day. So get them in there. You do have to count them in your calories but they are not much and have the nutrients your body need. Try to make at lest half of those servings veggies. A salad with mixed veggies is 60 calories. It can fill you up, give you the vitamins and minerals you need AND is not high in calories.
Third: Eat your snacks!!!! if you keep your blood sugar from going up and down it will make you feel better and keep you from getting hungry. So eat a snack at 9:30 or 10 and another at 3. I eat a 3rd snacks in the afternoon if i have room in my calories.
Over all I am very happy with the feedback I have been getting. It sounds like everyone is losing weight and doing great! Remember you can ask questions on the blog at the bottom of any post or call, text, or email me anytime. It is so exciting for me to see the hard work and progress being made. The thing I love the most is being able to be apart of you reaching your goals and being healthy and happy. Keep up the great work!!!

Size Doesn't matter

I am a firm believer that healthy does not mean fitting into a size 6.  Also, healthy doesn't always equal skinny or skinny equal healthy.  I have told most of you this exact idea.  The BMI chart doesn't take build or muscle to fat ratio into consideration.  Women tend to define themselves with a number.  It shouldn't be that way. 
http://hellogiggles.com/size-doesnt-matter-chart-proves

New Priority

Now that you have a schedule written down and planned out we are on to the next step.
 Step 2: Priority.    If you have a real goal to loss weight you are going to have to put it higher up on your priority list.  You might have to make some sacrifices but in the end it will be worth it. This means don't put off your workouts. Some days I would swim at 5 in the morning.  If I wake up and am too lazy to get out of bed and tell myself I'll do it later I seem to run out of time in the day before I can get it in.  So DON'T PUT IT OFF.  Keep to your schedule.  And don't let other time consuming things distract you. (Like the computer, TV, reading, crafts) :)
   Another tip for this step is not over schedule your life.  Easier said than done but you must make time to get the workouts in.  Now, please do not get me wrong.  I am not asking you to take time away from your family.  I am however asking you to take your personal time and spend it wisely.  Some of you might say "What personal time?!?!?"  And believe me I understand that.  But I bet if you look you can find sometime to get it in.  Convenient time? Maybe not but time all the same.  Sometime I have had to make rules for myself that included, No checking facebook until my workout is done (or what ever is a everyday thing).  You can do it.  Make the time