5 Steps to a New Year, and a New You!! Step 1!

As cliche' as it sounds, the New Year really is the perfect time for changes, new beginnings, getting rid of the bad habits and restarting the good! 

After a long, beautiful, 2 weeks at home with friends and family, I am just about holiday-ed out. In a holidaze you could say! I'm ready to get back into my routine, which includes healthy eating, meal prep, and working out! 

Ever since starting grad school in nutrition I've gotten tons of questions about health and weight loss and just nutrition in general. While I'm still working on things, I've figured out some things that have helped me maintain a pretty healthy lifestyle (with some fun, sweets, and treats here and there ;) ). I decided to start this blog to share my journey, and what's worked for me! I pray that this helps motivate others, as writing down my journey helps me to motivate myself!! 

5 Steps to Restarting and Re-energizing in the New Year:

1. Get Organized!!! Out with the old, in with the new.
2. Build a Healthy Grocery List
3. Meal Prep, planning, and Portioning
4. Work Out Schedule
5. Setting Goals, Rewarding yourself for reaching them, and Tracking Progress!!

During the week before starting my dietetic internship I would like to write a blog a day, for 5 days. Starting today!!! I hope to simplify this process through explaining how I've gone about restarting and recharging my batteries before my internship... and hopefully I can help you do the same!!! 

Step 1: 
Getting Organized.

Coming home I noticed how much excess we had in the house, things that were never going to be used anymore, or food items that definitely didn't need to be used anymore. Throwing out old cookies and cleaning out our storage space helped tremendously! 

It helps that I got new tupperware containers for Christmas :) 

We got rid of our old plastic containers and made room for Rubbermaid BPA free containers. Our old containers had plastic melted on the sides from microwaving in them too many times and there were just too many. I wish I would have taken a picture but let's just say it got rid of a lot of clutter ;)

New and improved container shelf looks like this: 

After cleaning out our coupbard was settled, and I felt like I had a free space in my mind, it was time to make my meal plan! My sister purchased these awesome containers for me as a Christmas gift as well: 

They're a part of the 21-Day Fix meal plan through Beach Body. No you can't purchase them seperate but you can learn the measurements all on your own with this little cheat sheet: 

The measurements are shown for each container! How neat right. I love that it makes sure to include every food group, and lots of fruits and vegetables!! 

The calorie recommendations are only an estimate, but I also love that it gives you a range to work with. You're also not tracking or counting calories, but tracking food groups and healthy portions!! How awesome is that. 

For calculating calories, remember everyone is different. And as you lose weight you might need to readjust your calorie intake as needed. But just to begin, most public health recommendations for weight loss only includes a -500 calorie balance for weight loss. If you think your calorie intake level looks too low, or you think that the food intake amount is out of reach, readjust!! It's your life, your body, and you know it best. 

Try subtracting 500 calories instead of 750 if that range feels too low. If you're only looking to maintain, but want a more healthy balanced diet, don't subtract the calories!!

Now there are plenty of other meal plans, I just liked this one because of it's simplicity. With grad school, planning a wedding, and driving back and forth to go home every now and then sometimes I just need someone else to do the thinking for me, and this does it! Also, it includes everything I love in moderation, and helps me portion and track my intake daily. 

To track my intake I use this handy notepad: 

I started tallying each food group and next to it at the end of the day I write if the goal was met or not. At the end of the 21 Days I can look back and see how well I've done!! 

Since I'm a tracking nut, and I've been tracking my calories for a while, I also track my calorie intake and calorie burn into MyFitnessPal. It's helped me be so successful in the past. Now the calorie goal is a range, so if it goes in the red by about 200 calories don't fret! Just make sure you're not going over 500 or more every day and you'll be alright. It's meant to be an estimated guess of your intake, and you can track your workouts to estimate how much you've burned. Plus, for me it helps to think about what I'm eating before I go and just ravish a whole hamburger and fries. It does a lot of tracking of progress for you already also so if you're not one to carry a pen and pencil, or you just don't have enough time to tally things through out the day, it can help! 

Here's my breakfast this morning: 

I truly hope this helps everyone restart and get back on track for 2015!! 


Stay tuned for more this week :) 


-Lauren