Let's Take a Long Walk...

Creation <3

    Exercise in the open air should be prescribed as a life-giving necessity . EGW

In January I joined an events club that happened to have a lot of outdoor activities like white water rafting, zip-lining, and hiking. I signed up for a "hike" and ended up at the Percy Priest Dam and Greenway. The Greenway connects trails all over Middle Tennessee and can take you as far as downtown Nashville. I fell in love with the area with its flowing river and captivating greenery. Nature simply brings me closer to God.

First trip to the Greenway in January.  About a half mile walk from my new apartment complex.

There is just something about the quietness of nature. The way you as a visitor, take to the trails with respect for the sounds of life around you. If alone, its just you the captivating beauty of God's creation and your thoughts. Often my mind wanders to questions of what God was thinking when he made all of His creation and how fortunate I am to have a taste of whats in store when in Heaven.

Guess Who?

Surround him with the beautiful things of nature; place him where he can see the flowers growing and hear the birds singing, and his heart will break into song in harmony with the songs of the birds. Relief will come to body and mind. The intellect will be awakened, the imagination quickened, and the mind prepared to appreciate the beauty of God's word.- Ellen G White

I've been dealing with a lot of internal struggles lately and my walks on the Greenway are starting to be used as another avenue of worship with my Creator. If you can take a break from the fitness DVD and the gym and get outdoors for some one-on-one time with Him and some natural therapy and exercise for yourself :)

Have a fit-abulous day!! xoxo

PS. HUGE S/O to my blog followers  Rebecca, Winsome Smith, vkmnt, and dnmorg10. These ladies are ready to GET IT!! If you enjoy what you have learned and read here please join in the fun and fitness!

EGW Quotes found at http://lifestylelaboratory.com/articles/ellen-white/contact-with-nature.html

The not so secret...SECRET!!

I LOVE workout shirts with a message! Got this one at Target for around $6 in the Men's section!

Hi People!!
I first want to say thank you so much for your response to the first posting! It was a very humbling experience and I am very humbled and happy to know that this blog has touched you in many different ways. You MOTIVATE me and WE are going to push forward in the name of FITNESS!! 


Today I am going to talk about my secret to success with weight loss. I lost 20 lbs in five months which is about four pounds a month, which is a pound a week. If you didn't already know (when I first started I didn't), losing a pound a week is normal and HEALTHY! Weight should come off gradually and at a consistent pace. Trust me, people who are losing more than 1-2 pounds a week are probably either on  a DIET or at the Biggest Loser ranch!! If you don't believe me check this tutorial out http://www.caloriesperhour.com/tutorial_all.php.


That being said get out a paper and a pencil you are about to calculate a formula for successful weight loss geared towards YOU!!

Your Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR)  is the amount of daily energy expended by humans at rest. Rest is defined as existing in a neutrally temperate environment while in the post-absorptive state. source: encyclopedia.com
This basically means, as your body is not doing exercise of any kind, it is burning calories doing NOTHING! For instance when I am at work I sit down all day in front of a computer, I would be considered sedentary. A waitress on the other hand is moving during her whole shift so she burns more calories in her environment then I would. Get it? Good! So here is the Formula:

                                      RMR

• Take your current weight and divide it by 2.2
• Write down your height in INCHES
• Write down your age
• (Keep these at the top of your page, you have to refer to them in the beginning of the formula)

                                     

 1.)    Your weight in pounds__________ divided by 2.2 =__________

2.)    Your height in inches_________ X 2.54 = __________

3.)    9.6 X the # from step 1 __________ = __________

4.)    1.8 X the # from step 2 __________ = __________

5.)    4.7 X your age in years __________ = __________

6.)    655 + the # from step 3 _________ + the # from step 4 _________- the # from

step 5 _________ = ____________ ( this will be your RMR)

     

7.)    Multiply your RMR by the appropriate activity factor: 

·         If you are sedentary (little or no activity) RMR X 1.2

·         If you are slightly active Spend a good part of the day on your feet (e.g. nurse, salesman): RMR X 1.375

·         If you are moderately active: Spend a good part of the day doing some physical activity (e.g. waitress, mailman) RMR X 1.55

·         If you are very active Spend most of the day doing heavy physical activity (e.g. bike messenger, carpenter): RMR X 1.725

     RMR___________ X activity factor__________ = __________

     (This is the minimum number of calories you need each day to maintain your  

      present weight.)

  

8.)   The  # from step 7________- 500 =________

(This is the minimum number of calories you need each day to lose one pound a week).

My number of calories came out to 1465.

So now you have the not so secret secret to success! Knowing your RMR. 

Okayyyyyy...So now what?! 

Okay, so now that you know that in order to lose a pound a week just by eating at or below your calculated RMR you have to do something that you've probably never thought of before...CHECK YOUR CALORIES!!

The HORROR!! How else would you EVER know that you are under or over! Those nutrition facts on the back of your favorite goodies aren't just there for legal purposes, they are there so YOU know whats going into your body. When I first found out about my RMR I thought it would be a piece of cake. I went to Cracker Barrel and got a hearty breakfast. After calculating the calories for the meal and subtracting it from my allotted calories I had 500 calories left FOR THE WHOLE DAY!!! The purpose of checking your calories  is to show you how much is going into your body so you will make wiser choices. It may seem restrictive at first, but within a week I guarantee that those "healthy" meals you thought you were cooking, or those baked chips you never measured out and ended up eating 700 calories worth of will hit you where it hurts... your belly ! (or hips, butt, arms, thighs, neck...etc)

Remember I am here to help you reach your goals and this is SCIENCE! You know that saying 'Knowledge is Power'? Well this is not something I made up! Again I am not a expert but it has worked for me and  its PROVEN by thousands if not millions of people all over the world that have tried it and WON and we all want to be winners right? That's what I thought! LET'S GET IT!!

Have a fit-abulous day!! xoxoxo

#teamfitness
#operationbrickhouse


PS. http://www.myfitnesspal.com/ calculates your RMRKEF

Truth Is...

WARNING: This is my first post and EXTREMELY long so I can get you up to speed! If you want to get to the TRUTH now, scroll to the bottom. -KEF


Hi People!


Its me KEF <3! For several months now I have been thinking about creating a blog. I thought about a lot of topics over the last couple of months. I pondered doing life as a single mom, a post-grad limbo blog, natural hair, and a dating blog but the posts either were never finished, or never published. Though all of those things are HUGE parts of my life, I just couldn't get the "right" posts and pieces. A couple of weeks ago my old pal Becky (you know her as Bee Wade, check out her AWESOME makeup blog http://beeyoumakeup.blogspot.com/) asked me if I had any fitness tips for her as a new mom, and suggested that I start a fitness blog to post those tips. She gave me the boost of confidence I needed to start, and my creative juices started flowing but there was one HUGE problem.

Truth is..

TRUTH IS I started my journey at 207lbs in September of 2009. It took me a whole summer to get it together and my journey stemmed from this picture :

This was Graduation night May 2009. The year my girls Chya, Vee and Chaunte graduated from Oakwood University. When I saw this picture a couple of weeks after graduation I cried so hard because I felt like I had just seen myself for the first time. Of course I knew that my clothes were XXL instead of the Mediums that I had worn pre-Mia but I thought that I was "carrying it well" as everyone had been telling me. My posture was bad, my cups were spilling over, my arms were covered but were a huge mass of flesh. I had become the 'Big-Girl-with-the-pretty-face'. The second blow was that I WAS WORKING OUT! Every single day I  sacrificed my lunch break at work to get it in at the gym! After Mia was born I bought Power 90 and got a gym membership to get my "sexy" back! I was working with the coaches at my gym, I had even become a vegetarian and but still I looked and felt like a big blob. I talked to my coaches and they put me on a strict plan, revamping what was already in place with the goal of looking amazing for graduation 2010.

Weight-Loss Revamp Sep 2009

 Over the course of the year from September 2009 until September 2010 I lost 21lbs (weighing in at 186 lbs). That is almost two pounds a month. (I now know that is possible to lost twice as many pounds a month in a HEALTHY way which I will share next time). During that year I ran into some more snags with Oakwood and didn't get to graduate in 2010 either. (SUPER SENIOR!!! hehe) I transferred and moved to Nashville in May and had a devastating breakup that got my butt into high gear once the dust settled. I got a new coach, Coach Christian. He is a fitness model, a body builder, and a personal trainer who has a passion for helping people with their weight loss goals. I told him why I wanted to lose my weight, when I wanted to lose it (Graduation 2011 and my friend Ellen's wedding was my new goal), and that I had already lost weight but it was coming off slllloooowww. We talked for about 45min and he introduced me to a website http://www.myfitnesspal.com/. This website became instrumental in my weight loss and my path to eating right.

This is when all of you reading this (if we are Facebook or real friends) started to see the changes. I was posting all of my losses, daily exercise, and food logs. My Facebook wall and inbox became flooded with questions and comments on my weight loss and how good I looked. It even spilled over to my job. After I won 'Member of the Month' at the gym and posted my success story, my work inbox had questions, comments, and requests to work out with me at the employee gym. I was happy to share what I learned with everyone and being held accountable motivated me even further. I started to become interested in dating again, was shopping like a mad woman, started having a normal 23 year old's social life...and I started to get cocky.

Going to see Marsha Ambrosius April 2011

Graduation Picture April 2011

Ellen's Wedding with my bestie

In these pictures, in contrast to the other photos above you can see a significant change. By February 2011 I was down to 166 lbs from September until February in just five months I had lost 20 more pounds which had taken me a year to do the year prior. Starting in February after visiting my BFF in Cali and attending my friend Ellen's wedding, I started to slack off due to cockiness. I started eating like I KNEW I wasn't supposed to, and cut my five times a week workouts to three, sometimes even none. In April of 2011 three weeks before graduation, after receiving my graduation application and it being approved, I was told that I needed two more classes to graduate. That devastated me to my core, I had spent over $1k on a venue, catering, pictures, invitations, and all the things that come along with graduation. I sunk into a deep depression and didn't care ONE BIT about what went into my mouth and that I wasn't exercising. I was definitely not practicing what I preached and knew that no one would know my little secret...BIG SECRET, unless they came to Nashville.

So let's fast forward to now.

The Truth is... I am THREE pounds away from where I started in September of 2010 (183lbs)
The Truth is... The reason why you have seen INSANELY long workouts posted, is because I'm working hard to get the weight off.
The Truth is... When you slack off in diet and exercise it is 100x harder to get back on it
The Truth is... a moment on the lips is a lifetime on the hips! (If you don't work it off)
The Truth is...I was a size 8 in February and I am a size 12 again now
The Truth is...I feel like a fraud
The Truth is...This is very embarrassing but also humbling for me to be able to share this
The Truth is...my face is still skinny that's why all my recent pictures have been head shots.
The Truth is...This weight IS going to come off and I WILL get out of this hump and I WILL reach my goal of 145 lbs..

I am just a young woman, who is not an expert but I do feel like I have tools to help myself and you! We can get to wherever you want to be together! I will offer encouragement, tips, exercises, updates and pictures on my progress, product reviews, challenges and I will share my secrets to success.

Have a fit-abulous day!!
LET'S GET IT!!

#teamfitness
#operationbrickhouse

@KEFlove87

http://www.facebook.com/kendaelise

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/LGIFitness2K11