Gearing up for the change at the gym

I've come to the conclusion that the thing I need to do to get the rest of this weight off and to up my metabolism is to increase strength training. This goes along with the joining the Rock Your Jeans event too. I just need to up what I do for exercise in the weight room and rely less on classes.

I'm not done with the books I want to read to educate myself, but I'm about halfway through the New Rules of Lifting for Women. I just finished the nutrition part.

I was happy to see that they don't condemn diet soda and caffeine - I have these things in moderation, but I do enjoy them. They also agree that alcohol is a waste of calories and hinder weight loss - already drew that conclusion too. The emphasize eating nuts and the fats that I already eat - check, and they recommend even the balance of food I eat - 40-30-30 - approximately.  I was tickled to even see that they recommend the protein bars (Atkins Advantage- why? They are high protein and low carbs/sugar) I use and the whey powder I use. Yay!  So, food-wise I'm right on track with recommended eating even with their nutritionist. But... I eat less calories than the recommend.

This is where it gets hard to trust the experts. According to their calculations, on non-workout days I should eat 1639 calories for weight maintenance. This, actually, seems pretty accurate for my age, weight, activity level. For work-out days, they recommend eating 1913 calories for weight maintenance.

For the beginning, they want everyone to eat at the weight maintenance range - one month. After that one month assess. Are the pants getting looser? Tighter? Scale going up? Down? if things are going in the wrong direction, then it's recommended to lower calories, but otherwise stay the same.

What I've been doing is eating at or around 1550 calories everyday (there is always a 100-150 range) even on workout days. I don't give my body a protein shake after working out - which is where they want you to get the extra calories on workout days.

I'm nervous about changing what I'm doing, but I also understand you need to feed your body to gain muscle and that's what I want -to gain more muscle to boost my metabolism.

I'll keep reading and see more about the program, but I'm getting kind of excited about changing things up!

Oh, and the scale is my friend today - down two pounds from yesterday!

Highest weight: 275  Now: 176.4