When I was younger, I didn't have to worry about what I ate or gaining weight. I ate whatever I wanted, and didn't even have to worry about gaining weight or losing my flat stomach. When I was pregnant with my daughter, I continue the process of eating whatever I wanted, but little did I know that when you are pregnant your metabolism slows down. So my final weight in was 225 pounds at my 9 month check up. I was not a happy camper with that weight, and I hoped that it was mostly just baby fat.

After I had my daughter, the only weight that came off was 30 pounds. This was very upsetting to me, since I thought the weight would have come off after delivery. Well it didn't, I started thinking of ways to go back to my 155 pound pre pregnancy weight. I'm 5'8 so 155 pound is a healthy weight for me. So below is what I did to finally reach my goal after 5 years. Yes it took five years, off and on, to reach my healthily weight goal. So don't worry about having an overnight success like the celebrities. They have nannies and money, and we average folk don't.

Calories
The most important thing that helped me is knowing the amount of calories I needed to cut off, in order to lose the weight healthy and effectively. I went and download an app to calculate my calories intake etc, but there are ton of calories calculator out there, that will show you the amount of calories base off of age, height, and activities.

Planning
Planning my meals HELPED a lot. I have the iPhone and I download an app called "Lose it!” I plan my meals for the whole day (Monday thru Friday). I pack my lunch for work the night before, and when I came home, I ate what I put on my food log (Lose It!). The key is having a food log to keep you on track. The food log tells you the amount of calories (if you plan it correctly) that you are taking for that whole day. That why planning my meals work so well. If I went over my calories intake, I would just adjust it with a different food item. Another thing I did that help with my planing was cooking my foods on Sunday for my work week.

GYM
In the beginning I went to the GYM at least 3 times a day. Now I go 2 times a week to maintain my weight. When I do go to the GYM, I always make sure I do cardio & WEIGHTS. Very important for me. Cardio will make you lose the weight, but Weight lifting will keep you from gaining the weight. For example, if you decided to have dinners with friend once every other week, that may not be an issue for weight gaining at all (just try to keep it healthy with your food selection). The reason that will not be an issue is your increase muscle mass, which will still be burning a whole lot more calories than anything. For example, muscle requires more energy and fuel. That fuel comes from the food you eat every day. So if you continue to gain muscle mass, eating unhealthy for a day, will not cause you the gain the weight as fast as having no muscle mass. So weight lifting is a MUST if you want to maintain your healthy weight loss. Also keep in mind that muscle weight more than fat, so if you want to see your progress, look at how your clothes fit. Muscle is lender then fat so you may weigh the same but your arms, thighs may be slimmer. Just keep on doing the weight living and cardio, and you should reach your goal.

Fact Check: It very hard for females to get what I consider a "body builder muscles". In order to get that, you will need to take additional supplements as well as keep a very strict diet in order to get that 6 pack or "body builder muscles". There a lot of miss information about that, and ladies tend to stick with just cardio, because they are afraid to gain "man" muscle. Trust when I said, that will NOT happen; no matter how many bench press you are doing. LOL.

Note: If you go to the gym a particular day, you will have to increase your calories intake, because of the extra calories you be burning at the GYM. The app "Lose It" was great with that. It allows me to add my activities which made me see she how much extra calories I can add for that particular day.

Food & Drinks
We all know we need to eat healthy in order to lose weight. What made me so successful, was knowing what meal plans works for me. I did have a cheat day. Sunday through Friday was my healthy food days. Saturday was my day to eat whatever I wanted. Sometime I was lucky and didn't have a craving on that day but most of the time that was my cheat day. I will list an example of what my food was in one day below, but the concept of weight loss is simple. You need to eat more green vegetables, fruits, and a little less protein. The protein that are best are fish, and chicken (without the skin). What I usually like to do (since I love vegetables anyways) I pile on the vegetable that I like, and then add a side of chicken or fish (concept of eating protein is thinking of it as a side*). I usually get full off the huge amount of vegetables and small intake of protein.

I didn't completely get rid of crabs. Getting rid of carbs will make you fall off. Especially for us Caribbean folks. If and when I decided to do the carbs, I NEVER eat it after 6:00 pm. So if you want a little rice for lunch, that is fine, just know the amount of rice you taking in. Rule of thumb 1 cup of rice is a portion. Then pile on the vegetables and add a small side of protein. Also if you can, try to switch to brown rice, I couldn't because I hated it, but I was able to switch to whole wheat pasta.

My finally plan was eating three meals a day (breakfast, lunch, and dinner) and having snack in between. Nuts, Fruits, and even the 100 calories packs were my snack of choice. Skipping meal was not an option because if you skip meals, you slow down your metabolism. My final advice on this section is this. GET RID of the sweet drinks. If you can't completely get rid of it, do substitution. For example: For juice, try Crystal Light, and for soda do diets only.

Example of my food for the day.

1 egg with toast (Morning)
Hand full of Almonds (Snack)
Chicken Breast with ton of vegetables (Lunch)
Eddy's Fruit Strawberry Bar (snack)
Fish & Vegetable ( Dinner)


*Please Note: If you do decided to do weight lifting, what helps with the muscle soreness is eating more protein, so the side concept will not apply if you do weight training.

I hope this helps you fulfill your fitness goals, because having a healthy body will enable you to have healthy sisterlocks, and please note that this is my experience, and what I did to get healthy again.