BFL.
Short BFL Rundown: Body For Life is basically a weightlifters workout/diet augmented to be used by real life people. You follow a strict, but VERY doable, diet and follow a workout routine that REAL people that have kids and jobs can actually do!!
The meal plan: Has you eat small portions six times a day. The meals include one portion protein and one portion of carbs. A portion is an amount the size of the palm of your hand or a clenched fist. So, you can have a chicken breast and a half a cup of brown rice.. or scrampled egg whites and a slice of toast… the point? You get to have carbs! I’ve found a bunch of Body For Life specific recipes that I’m more than certain I will ennjoy. Plus I LOVE cottage cheese and fruit. Cottage cheese is PAKCED with protein!
So that I don’t have to prepare and carry six meals a day I’ve invested in some Myoplex shakes and bars. One shake or bar can be substituted for a meal. And these shakes are VERY thick and VERY filling.
There really is a lot of options:
Proteins:
Chicken breast
Turkey breast
Lean ground turkey
Swordfish
Orange roughy
Haddock
Salmon
Tuna
Crab
Lobster
Shrimp
Top round steak
Top sirloin steak
Lean ground beef
Buffalo
Lean ham
Egg whites or substitutes
Trout
Low-fat cottage cheese
Wild-game meat |
Carbs:
Baked potato
Sweet potato
Yams
Squash
Pumpkin
Steamed brown rice
Steamed wild rice
Pasta
Oatmeal
Barley
Beans
Kidney beans
Corn
Strawberries
Melon
Apple
Orange
Fat-free yogurt
Whole-wheat bread
High-fiber cereal
Rice cake
Popcorn
Tortilla
Whole grains |
That’s a WHOLE lot of food to choose from! And when you think about it, that’s a lot of food to eat in a day also. Twice a day you add veggies to the meal and you are set. It’s that easy.
The Workout: Is 20 mintutes of Cardio every other day and 50 miutes of high intensity weight training every other day. Do it will look like this for the first week:
Monday: Upper Body Training
Tuesday: Cardio
Wednesday: Lower Body Training + Abs
Thursday: Cardio
Friday: Upper Body Training
Saturday: Cardio
The next week you switch and do lower body twice and the upper body once. The workouts have you focus on ‘high points’ where you REALLY push yourself to do the best you can. The cardio, while only 20 minutes is an INTENSE 20 minutes of exercise. And the weight training is the most important of the exercises for sevrel reasons:
1) Healing muscles eat up a LOT of energy (fat)
2) Even when you are sitting doing nothing, muscle is using that energy just to sustain itself.
3) You get stronger!!!
I joined Gold’s Gym today where Ben is already a member. We are going to work out together every evening. 🙂
The Free Day: The one thing this plan has like none I’ve seen before. One day a week (Sunday for me) you can eat whatever the hell you want AND you don’t have to work out. WHATEVER YOU WANT. The plan allowes this for a few reasons two of which are:
1) You don’t set yourself up for failure that way. It’s not realistic to think that you are going to go 12 WEEKS without slipping once. This plan GIVES you a day to do that. This also allowes you to set short term goals within the long term goal (If I can make it till Sunday I can have that ice cream too!!)
2) Once you realize how good your body feels when you exercise and eat right, all that heavy food and the lack of energy and the heavy feeling will MAKE you want to start all over again on Monday.
I’m extremely excited to start this plan. On Monday I’ll take all my measurements (Body fat index, weight, measurements and pictures). When the 12 weeks are up I hope to have gained muscle, lost weight and have so much energy I don’t know what to do with myself.
Excited!!! 😀
