Health tips of the week 9

Health Chart Challenge: GUARANTEE to lose weight and gain muscle by making this simple chart each and every day and sticking to it! I promise.



If you've been following my healthy living portion of my blog, I now challenge you to now incorporate all you have learned into just one new habit that will help you get some results. I have been changing my daily habits into healthy choices for 9 weeks now, and the habits that were once new to me are now automatic and ingrained in my brain (and will happen to you too if you replace healthy habits for unhealthy ones and keep it up!). You can organize everything on a simple chart to keep you on track. Once the new habits become part of your daily routine this will become much much easier. This is what I am now doing, and it will help you too. Besides staying healthy, this chart is beneficial if you have a specific goal in mind, such as losing weight or gaining more muscle. Once you begin, you can think of each chart as a personal challenge and a game, and it will keep you motivated to keep going.

1. Find a blank notebook that you can use to organize your healthy habit charts in. You will start by using one page per day (save paper by using both sides of each sheet) but once you form your chart habits you may be able to fit a few charts on each page as they may become smaller once making one is more automatic to you.

2. Date the top of each page. On the top line also remind yourself of your goal. Mine, for example is "Look good in wedding gown which I will be wearing in just 2 months!" This will help keep you on track by reminding you WHY you're making new lifestyle choices. It will help keep you motivated. Make sure you write it at the top of your chart every day to constantly remind yourself, and it may sway you from going for the chocolate cake.

3. Along the right side from the top of the page to the bottom, list ALL of the food you eat throughout the day. This includes beverages (which are easy to forget) and every single snack even if it's just a bite of something. Each bite or sip of something you ingest throughout the day absolutely counts and has calories too. Write down the portion and serving size of everything.

4. Next to each item, list:
- the number of calories for the serving you ate. If you had ½ a serving, divide the calories per serving in half. If you had ten servings, you must multiply the total number of calories by ten whether you like it or not. Measure accurately, or else you're only harming yourself. It's always better to overestimate if not sure.
-grams of fat. Same thing goes.. make sure it is grams per the actual serving you had!
-grams of protein. Same thing...

In order to gain this information you must read ingredient labels. This was one of the important habits you should already have if you have been following my posts and applying them to your daily life! Advertising lies and the only way to know the truth is read the ingredients and the contents of what you are eating. Don't make up nutritional information because it will hurt no one but you in reaching your goal. The only one you're lying to is yourself. By reading labels, you may stop eating unhealthy foods and be drawn towards healthier ones once you know what's in what you're eating.

If your food item doesn't have a label, check out this awesome site where you can type in the food and it will give you all of the nutritional info about it. Remember, when you cook or prepare foods from scratch you have to include the nutritional info of every ingredient... essentially making your own ingredient label. This nutritional site is extremely helpful for this.

If you are trying to track other nutritional content to be healthy such as sodium, sugars, vitamins, etc. they can easily be tracked the same way and written down next to each food item on your chart.

5. On the left column, make a few boxes or areas to designate other lifestyle habits of each day, including water intake, and exercise.

6. In your water intake box, write down every time you finish a full amount of water, such as a bottle, a cup, a glass, etc. A regular glass is generally around 8 ounces, where a larger reusable water bottle may be around 25 oz. Log all the water you drink throughout the day, and drink as much as you possibly can.

7. In your exercise box, write down every time you do a form of physical activity. Whether it's going for a walk, working X number of hours at a labor intensive job (sitting in a chair all day and getting up a few times a day just to walk to the bathroom doesn't count), going to the gym (list all activities), or anything else that is increasing your heart rate or is physically exhausting. Write down next to each activity approximately how many calories you have burned doing it. It's always better to underestimate the number of calories burned if you're trying to lose weight. You should try to get at least have something to write in this box every day, and the more activities the better.

8. Total it all up.

At the bottom of your food list on the right, write a final total for your number of calories, grams of fat and grams of protein. You should try to keep your grams of fat as low as you can (compete with yourself.. each day try to eat less fat than the day before). You should also be getting half your body weight in grams of protein per day in order to replace fat with muscle (which looks leaner). If you don't get enough protein, you'll start losing the muscle in your body as it will begin to take protein from it.

In your water box, total the ounces of water you drank throughout the day. Water helps aid in digestion, your metabolism and helps keep you hydrated and feeling energized throughout the day. You should get at LEAST half your body weight in ounces per day, and if you're active then even more. Each day try to reach this goal.

In your activity box, get a total for how many calories you burned for the day. You naturally burn approximately 12 calories for each pound you way every day, in addition to your physical activities, so multiply your weight by 12 and add this to the total. If you are made of more muscle, muscle burns more calories so you would burn even more. You should want to get this number as high as possible each day when trying to lose weight.

Subtract the number of calories you burned for the day from the total number of calories you consumed for the day. If you are trying to lose weight you should aim for a negative. If you are looking to gain weight, a positive is good. If you want to maintain your weight than you want to get as close to breaking even as you can.

It takes about 3500 calories to gain a pound of fat, so keep this in mind when going over your calories each day.

This method combines some of the post important factors of being healthy: eating the right foods, getting enough protein, getting enough water, and getting enough exercise. It may seem unnecessary but you would be surprised how much you don't notice without writing it down. You might have a soda or sneak a snack without thinking twice.. but if you have to write it down along with all of the calories and fat that come with it you may start to reconsider what you're putting into your body. You may think you get enough water or protein every day... but once you actually start tracking it you might be surprised that it's not as much as you thought it was. You might forget if you did anything physical all day and not be sure if you are a generally active or inactive person without knowing how much activity you're getting and how much it burns off. This will really keep you in tune to your health and what is going into your body. I recommend at least trying it until you don't feel it's necessary to monitor your habits because they are so automatic. This will get you motivated (if you keep up with it) and get you into the shape you want to be in. Once you reach your goal at the top, don't stop! It's easy to fall into old habits and your old body will come back with it faster than you lost it so change your habits for good and don't ever turn back!