Welcome back ☀️

If you haven’t read my first health and fitness post you definitely should before starting this one so you can get up to date with my journey.

It’s been a week since I started tracking my calories and doing regular exercise, and I honestly can’t believe how good I feel.  After moving, toning, stretching my body and getting my heart rate up for just 30 minutes a day I really feel a difference. I feel motivated, energised and happy. One thing I have noticed is that I’ve felt less irritable and stressed, now that could be a coincidence but in my opinion it’s because of the exercises. I’m helping my body and in return it’s helping me!

 If you are sitting here reading this wondering if you should try it – it might sound like a lot to you 30 minutes a day or it might sound really easy – my advice just do it for 5 consecutive days and see how you feel.

I’ve found sticking to my daily calorie goal quite easy, I’ve been under the 1,630 goal (based on my activity levels, weight and how much I want to lose) most days and if I’ve gone over it’s by no more than 10 or 20 calories. It does add up a lot faster than I thought but I haven’t felt hungry or like I’m missing out so maybe it’s the perfect amount for me or I might need to decrease it slightly.

Who knows if I’m doing enough to see any weight loss but for now I’m going to go with it until the 3 week mark as I’m really enjoying it and am excited for next week to begin!

Let me take you through my week and share some of the meals I’ve been having, I will also link all of the workout videos so if you fancy you can give them a go yourself.

24.07.2020 // First day!

I started my morning with a 20 minute beginners workout followed by a 10 minute stretch because I knew my body would hurt in the morning. Although that didn’t seem to help because I ached all weekend, this is going to be a slow process of building up my body’s strength!

Don’t forget to always stretch your body out after a workout or really any time, stretching is great for your body and for me it’s always played an important role when exercising.

25.07.2020 // Saturday

Weekends are my days off from exercise unless I feel like it but I’m still tracking my calories. Made my favourite vegetarian spinach lasagne – not the healthiest due to the already made sauces but its simple and delicious just do what you’d normally do but replace the meat with spinach.

26.07.2020 // Sunday

Went for an hours walk today. Not only does walking tone your muscles in your legs, bum, abs and help aid weight loss, It has so many other health benefits so if you haven’t been for a walk outside in nature for a while, grab your water bottle and head out!

5 benefits to walking daily:

• Improves mood
• Lowers blood pressure
• Speeds up digestion
• Limits disease risk
• Strengthens your heart

27.07.2020 // Monday

First full week of workouts, I did a low impact cardio workout to start my week.

My breakfast was delicious and keeps me full for so long, much better than some boring cornflakes. Try Alpro yogurt alternative instead of your normal go to, there’s so many flavours! I will be having this for breakfast pretty much all week mixing it up by adding different fruit.

28.07.2020 // Tuesday

Tuesdays workout recommended by a friend was tough, 30 minutes of cardio targeting legs and bum. I really enjoyed it though so will try out some of their other workout videos – POPSUGAR Fitness on Youtube. Tip: If you want to stay motivated to do a workout everyday plan to do it on face time with a friend at the same time. It makes the whole thing more enjoyable and you’ve got that support from someone else too.

Fresh green juice day. I have one of these once or twice a week.

Apples, celery, cucumber and ginger are normally the ingredients I use but whatever you have in your fridge that needs using up juice it, it doesn’t have to be green either!

29.07.2020 // Wednesday

Abs and arms! I found two great beginner videos for getting rid of bingo wings and toning up that tum.  My stomach is one of the main area’s I’d love to tone up, I wasn’t blessed with a flat stomach that is where most of my fat seems to sit so need to work hard and put in the effort to archive it.

I did the abs workout twice so it was about 15 minutes long then the 3 minute arm toning and finished off with a 20 minute stretch.

ABS

ARMS

STRETCH

Leftovers for lunch today a simple stir fry, never waste good food! You can make a stir fry as healthy or unhealthy as you like depending on the ingredients. If you make it all fresh and from scratch with a load of veggies its a great low calorie tasty meal. I on the other hand used a sauce sachet and prepackaged veg and noodles oops!

30.07.2020 // Thursday

Another low impact, all standing, fat burning cardio workout. Did not want to do myself injury during the first week so thought I better start off with the safe option. If you are a beginner like me I’d recommend the Body Projects YouTube channel, their workouts are easy and fun for everyone.

Also did the 3 minute arm toning exercises from yesterday, will do this a few times during the week. I managed to get in a 45 minute walk in the evening sunshine!

We had a yummy homemade vegan chickpea curry for dinner, I will leave the recipe here if you want to try it yourself it was very simple to make.

31.07.2020 // Friday

Cardio and abs today to finish the week off strong! The abs video is linked in Wednesdays diary entry.

As I’m writing this after my workout its 1pm and its the hottest day of the year in England today which calls for Velcro catch ball (if you don’t know what I mean google it) in the park with hubby. Burning calories and catching a tan what more could you want?!

Taking a smoothie with me – Cheated a bit with this ready-made frozen mix from Tesco just blend it up with some water and you’re ready to go, perfect for a day like today.

TGIF! Hope everyone managed to enjoy the sun and soak up that vitamin D today whilst staying safe.

That was my week of workouts and a little insight into my food diary.  It’s quite tricky keeping a weekly food and exercise diary online without it being incredibly boring so I would love to know if you enjoyed reading this post and whether you are on your own health and fitness journey let me know in the comments.

Have a lovely weekend, I’ll see you next Friday for week two! 🥰