How to Lots of cardio

How to Lots of cardio

Lots of cardio, doesn’t have to be time consuming but the more minutes your heart rate is in the right range, the more calories you will burn. Also lift weights to tone muscle and add the right definition. Eat a plant based diet, incorporate carb cycling into your diet (google this & learn about it), stay away from processed/not-whole foods, trans fats, but eat the good kind like monounsaturated fats and oils.

The carb thing is really essential though.

Turns out you don’t have to feel guilty about every bite you eat and putting on 20lb can make you look pretty damn good. A lot of people have been asking me what I do to get the body I have so I’m going to try to put together a helpful post, starting with my own struggles with my body. I’m still a little uncomfortable about being so open with such a personal subject, but I hope I can share what I’ve gone through in a way that help others that are struggling and can help people change their bodies in a more healthy way.

So cut back about 2 years ago, I fell into an unhealthy cycle while trying to attain the body I wanted.

I would get up and go to work every morning, usually skip breakfast, and I wouldn’t eat lunch until around 3pm. The feeling of hunger actually made me feel somewhat empowered and better than others who were eating – it’s fucked up, but it’s how I felt at the time. When I finally went to lunch I would only eat a salad and I convinced myself that it was a ~huge~ salad and because it had some chicken in it is was enough of a caloric intake – it wasn’t. I would then go to the gym almost every day and burn between 600-1000 calories. Despite the fact that I was already at a calorie deficit I would often have like a bowl of soup and a protein shake for dinner. 

The word “calories” scared me and the word “fat” legitimately terrified me. I would pick up and put down 100 calorie snack packs because I was afraid of what that 100 calories would do to my body. 

Thankfully I was able to break this cycle. I started focusing on eating larger potions of food that I knew were healthy. I would typically stick to lean meat (chicken) and lots of veggies/fruits/protein bars/etc. As I became more and more comfortable I continued increasing my portions until the point where I was trying to eat 3000 calories a day (because I was trying to put on weight/muscle and also burning a lot of calories during my workouts). My brother was actually a huge proponent in helping me make this transition (unbeknownst to him) because he’s very into fitness and healthy eating, and he suggested meals to me that I realized were very healthy, which made me more comfortable while eating. He also made me realize that your body NEEDS calories and fats and that there are so many healthy foods to deliver those nutrients. While it still took a little while, having that drilled into my head helped me to eat more and having MyPlate also really helped with that too. 

MyPlate is a really helpful app (fyi – I have no affiliation/am not being compensated to mention them). I was able to put in my current weight, my goal weight, and it told me how many calories I was supposed to eat each day. Then as I recorded what foods I ate, it told me the nutritional breakdown of each item and how much more of carbs/fats/protein I needed to eat that day. Actually tracking what I was consuming was a great to hold myself accountable. The app also has a few different workouts you can do (I have the free version so I only have 5) but they’re still a great way to get some direction when you’re not sure what to do. 

Eating healthy is a really huge part of shaping your body, so here are some dietary tips/some stuff I eat. Here are also some of the workouts I’ve done in the past.

Sorry if this was long, I really hope it was helpful, and if you have any questions/want to talk feel free to message me and I’ll try my best to respond :)