Intake

Ok, just finished my first session with Lori. Wow, a lot of info, my head is swimming, but in a good and excited way!

We started off with some basic "stuff" so she could get a baseline of my strength and flexibility. Then came the dreaded measurements (inches and BMI) and a weigh-in, ugh! Thankfully she had me weigh-in without looking at the scale, or telling me the number. I know what my scale at home says, but now I'm not allowed to step on the scale for at least a month. We also took some "before" photos, and she promises me that I'll be thankful to have those down the road.

What else? We went over the food diary I kept and came up with a list of some small changes for me to make - starting tomorrow!

I need to eat every 3-4 hoursI
My food diary showed that I was waiting 6 hours between breakfast and lunch - big no-no! My body goes into panic mode, slows my metabolism down and stores everything "extra" as fat. Yuck!

Eat 5 times a day
I've heard this many times, but it just hadn't made much sense to me until now. I need to eat regularly throughout the day so that my body keeps using energy to process my food the right way rather than turning it into fat.

• 3 of the meals (breakfast, lunch and dinner) need to be 300-400 calories each. Here's a little secret I learned today: Did you know that your liver can't process more than 400 calories at a time? So, any calories over that amount are stored as fat. Yuck again!

• 2 of the 5 meals (snacks between breakfast and lunch, and another between lunch and dinner) need to be 100-200 each.

Water, water, and more water!
Good rule of thumb - drink a 1/2 ounce per pound of body weight. So, I person who weighs 150 pounds needs to drink 75 ounces of water a day!

That's a snapshot of what we went over today - there's a lot more to come and I'm looking forward to learning more about whole foods and how to eat healthy without feeling deprived.

I'll end with a recipe Lori gave to me for some cookies...enjoy!

Almond Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

• 1/2 cup almond butter (best price at Costco or Trader Joes)
• 1/2 cup (JIF) natural peanut butter
• 3/4 cup dark brown sugar or sucanat (whole cane sugar)
• 1/2 cup egg beaters (or 1 egg)
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp sea salt
• 1/2 cup oats (optional)
• 3 Tbsp (3 oz) dark chocolate (broken into very small pieces, 60% cocoa or greater)
• Dried cranberries (optional)

Mix together and spoon small balls or spoon-size amounts onto parchment covered baking sheet. Preheat oven to 350 and bake for 11 minutes. Cook on rack for 15 minutes. This recipe will make 24 cookies and is an ideal between meal snack.

Nutritional breakdown per cookie (not including cranberries): 94 calories, 1.3 g sat fat, .9 g polyunsat fat, 2.1 g monosat fat, 76 mg sodium, 9.5 mg potassium, 4.5 g total carbs, 1.3 g fiber, 3.5 g protein, 3.1% iron, 2.2% calcium, 1.5% vitamin A