Exercise & Diet Vlog #1

Hi all, this is my first 'Exercise & Diet Vlog'. I talk briefly about my background and why I'm doing these before giving you an insight into my new exercise program and also my dietary plans. This is a good way for me to track my progress and to give me that extra bit of motivation to keep at it! Would be great to hear your stories too! :)

Juice Plus has started! (weekly progress)

Hello everyone!

Well I finished my detox after 12 days in as this package arrived >>>

Above, you can see that it was a months supply of Juice Plus supplements! The box on top contains lots of capsules! The capsules that have 27 different nutrients in from veg, fruit and berries. I take 2 of each per day and have been doing so for the last 4 days. The packages below are full of powder which I make smoothies with. I'll talk more about that later.

I'd done so well with not cheating on my detox so I had to treat myself (treats are important!) with something very naughty...

2 10 inch pizzas which (at the time) were lovely. It was a little experiment too, I wanted to see how my body would react to this food after the previous 12 days of detoxing. I felt TERRIBLE! I felt sick, bloated and actually put on 0.2% of body fat which didn't go till a few days later! I did used to have 3 of the pizzas so at least I only had 2! (I had a mars bar too!)

Before showing you a few snacks and meals I've been having, I'm going to show you the latest results of my PROGRESS. Still no pics but they are saved for a later date!

In the last post, my latest results were:

6th May:
13 stone 8.6
18.9% body fat.

Today (15th May) my results are:
13 stone 5.8
18.7% body fat.

I'm happy with the amount of weight lost as it isn't too much. However, I'm a little disappointed that I've only dropped 0.2% body fat. 0.4% if you include the pizzas!!!

I'm happy with my diet so exercise is the next thing I really need to focus on. I have made slow progress with that but it's hard when you have a chronic illness that debilitates you. The last couple of mornings I woke up with very heavy pains all over so exercise would not have been a good idea. I'm working my way up slowly and I'm sticking to pure body weight. To get more out of the exercise, I will perform each exercise slower so that the muscles are under tension for that bit longer. Here are the exercises:

Press-ups (normal position)
Press -ups (close position)
Pull-ups
Plank
Squats
Calf raises

There's a bit of everything in there. I will perform 8 repetitions of 1 set. Any more and I start to go light-headed and fatigued so it really is slow progress. If I'm up to doing any more later in the day then I will perform the exercises again. I'd love to be doing much more but it's just not possible. I started Juice Plus to strip the fat and feel healthier, I don't want to get carried away and send myself into a relapse.

Since I've started the SHAKES it's been such a relief for me as I don't have to worry about making breakfast or lunch. It gives me that extra freedom during the day. I'll give you an example of what my diet is like now... I like sticking to the same foods and then will change something once in a while:

This was the first day I started on the shakes. I have a soup maker which blends the smoothies for me. There's chocolate and vanilla flavours and I like to mix it in with strawberries, banana and soya milk. It also shows the capsules too.

This is my lunch (1 of my 2 snacks). 3 rice cakes topped with feta cheese. Tastes good!

Mid-afternoon I will have my other shake, here's the vanilla one mixed with strawberries and banana. Usually though I will have both shakes the same flavour in a day as I can make them both at the same time.

Here's a picture from my last post hence the reason it's smaller. This is my tea. Still my favourite. Chicken, sweet potato, mixed veg and tomato with seasonings.

Here's my last snack of the day. I'll sometimes have greek yogurt with frozen raspberries but here is a nakd bar (delicious and very good, lots of flavours too) with a little box of raisins. Perfect to line my stomach up before bed time.

Lastly, I'm going to show you a pic of a soup I made last week:

It had butternut squash and sweet potato in. I had oat biscuits to dip into the soup too. A bit watery but I'll know next time to put less water in!

And just thought I'd share with you my neat presentation of a days worth of shakes:

DELICIOUS!!!




Thanks for reading and see you all next week!

Barry x