Exercise Diary #1 – Adding Weight Training October 22, 2007

I went to the gym again. Looks like I’m on a roll!
 
This time I added strength training to my cardio session because muscle = faster metabolism. Strength training also helps turn body fat into lean muscle mass. I don’t want to bulk up, though, which is why I’ll use lighter weights with more repetitions.

• 30 minutes of cardio on the treadmill (5 minutes walking, 25 minutes jogging)
• Weight training with free weights (2.5 lbs) focusing on arms, shoulders, and upper back – 1-2 sets of 20 reps of each
• 50 ab crunches
• Extensive stretching before and after

I exercised before dinner and I discovered that I was very hungry after my workout. However, as I started eating, I felt full quite fast and I did not have any sweet cravings after dinner. Two hours after dinner, I still feel pretty satiated. And my mood is better than usual. 

Food Diary #1 – Adding Breakfast October 22, 2007

I’ve made leaps and bounds today when it comes to controlling cravings. I’ve found that some of the food combinations I ate (protein + complex carbs) reduced the cravings significantly. I also noticed that when I went too long without food, as I did between breakfast and lunch, I had a ranevous appetite at lunch as well as a massive post-lunch sweet craving. 
 
Breakfast
 
1 glass of light soy milk
4 whole grain biscottes with nutella
 
Snack
 
1 banana
 
Lunch
 
Leftovers from yesterday’s party (in small portions): coconut chicken, a little bit of beef, lentils, fresh tomato salsa, cabbage/green bean/carrot salad
4 squares of coconut white chocolate (very bad, but couldn’t help it!)
 
Snack
 
1 slice of whole wheat bread with peanut butter
1 banana
 
Dinner
 
Tilapia fish fillet, cooked cabbage and brown rice
1 kiwi
 
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I’ve already planned tomorrow’s snacks/meals. Five of them are all packed and ready to go for work: breakfast, mid-morning snack, lunch, mid-afternoon snack and late afternoon snack, all spaced by 2 hours. From now on I will be having breakfast, something which I seldom did during the weekdays. Doing so should make me more energetic in the morning, will get my metabolism into gear early on, and will prevent me from having those wild carb cravings after lunch.