Personal – Page 34

June 8, 2016June 17, 2016

5 Week Challenge Status Update – Week 2

Hi everyone!

I am now venturing onto week 3 of my personal goal to lose 15 lbs in 5 weeks (3 lbs a week). Here’s a status update on how I’ve been doing…

So week 1 went by without a hitch. I shared with you my personal diet plan last week and it worked well for me. I lost 3 lbs. within 5 days. I was eating well, keeping track of my food in my #COfitnessjournal, and exercising regularly. Then comes week 2. Oh week 2, why did you forsake me?!

I was still on the same diet and exercise plan, but when I weighed in on Monday how much did I lose? 0.4 lbs. Zero. Point. Four. WHAT?! Arghhhhh! I wanted to scream! I was extremely discouraged. I started to think wtf is the point of doing this if nothing is going to happen? Why not have french fries and chips then?! Why not stuff my face?

I threw myself a pity party for the morning. I allowed myself to feel frustrated and then just said to myself, “Kissa, it doesn’t matter. The scale doesn’t define your success here. Your diet and exercise do. The number on the scale is the product of your determination at having a healthy lifestyle. So screw what the scale says today. It will say something different next time as long as you keep at it.”

So I am. I’m choosing to keep at it. I’m on week 3 now and decided to make some updates to my diet:

I lowered my carb intake to 55g of carbs instead of 75g
I am going to keep my workout plan the same (coming soon)
Although I shouldn’t have weighed myself until Monday I did. And you know what, the scale showed me a different number. 🙂 I’m down 3 lbs. since I weighed in 3 days ago! Woot woot! This means I’m now 5.1 lbs. down in a span of 2.5 weeks. I have every intention of still losing a total of 15 lbs. in 5 weeks so I’m going to make up for the lack of weight loss by adding the 3.3 I didn’t lose to the rest of my remaining weeks. This means I need to now lose about 3.96 lbs. per week (let’s just say 4 lbs.) to stay on goal.

Moral of the story kids, don’t give up just because you might have had a bad day (in my case a bad weigh in). As long as you keep at it and work hard change will happen. The number on the scale will eventually show it. 🙂

xoxo,

Kissa

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June 1, 2016February 4, 2017

My Diet Plan for the 5 Week Challenge

I hope all of you had a great Memorial Day weekend! I’ve been getting some questions about what type of diet I’m on for the #COfitnessjournal 5 week challenge. The answer is – low carb. Here’s what I’m doing…

I went into my favorite fitness management app, Myfitnesspal, and created an account. The site asks you some very simple questions to help you determine what your caloric and nutritional intake should be. From there, I went into settings and cut my suggested carb intake in half. I felt that this starting off point would be a good way for me to step back into a ketogenic diet instead of jumping into keto cold turkey.

Low carb vs keto, what’s the difference?
Now I’m not a nutritionist or dietician, but I think the main difference between the 2 diets is the amount of carbs. With a ketogenic diet you would need to have an intake of >50-30g of carbs daily (sometimes even less depending on your body). With low carb, it can be higher than that. My carb intake is set to 75g of carbs/day which was half of Myfitnesspal’s suggested allowance for my body type and activity level.

As time goes on I intend to slowly lower that number as my weight loss progresses. So far it is working for me compared to when I tried to start the ketogenic diet suddenly. I was extremely lethargic and had really bad headaches for almost 10 days before my body started to regulate itself. It was a crazy realization for me, how carbs (especially bad carbs like processed sugars) are like a drug for your body. The moment you decide to quit, your body fights back and makes you think you want it.

I know for some people it’s extremely annoying to have to log in your food constantly. But if you’re really serious about your goal it’s a must. At least in the beginning. It doesn’t matter what diet you’re on, the best way to understand the way food works with your diet, body, workouts, etc is to log in your food. You’d be surprised what kind of nutritional value each ingredient in your food has. Who knew that kale had carbs in it?! Log in your food for 5 weeks, and see what a big difference it makes!

Personally, I love to write things down. I’m not always good at staying on top of my technology to do lists, calendar, fitness apps, etc. So the best way for me is to write things down and go into my phone later or in the middle of the day. That’s why I created the #COfitnessjournal.

xoxo,

Kissa

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May 30, 2016February 4, 2017

NYC 2016

It’s been about 2 weeks since we got back from our first trip to NYC. It was such a great trip! Just very short. We were there for 3 days (4 technically) and we barely got to do anything. We just tried to fit in as much sights (and food) as possible. 😉

This was us before we realized our flight got moved to a different gate. No worries though, we didn’t miss it. Our flight was delayed by over an hour. By the time we arrived at JFK it was past 12:30 and we arrived at our hotel around 1 am EST. It was late, we were starving. We didn’t eat anything but rice crackers the entire day. So first stop – Halal Guys!

The next day we made our way over to the Javits to go see what the last day of set up looks like. Before heading out we stopped by a coffee shop a couple blocks from our hotel called Bibble and Sip in Midtown. It was such a refreshing sight to see a great place like this amongst all the chain cafes in the area.

bibbleandsip — Lattes and Espresso at Bibble and Sip

Because it was the weekend the 7 train wasn’t running so we decided to walk to the Javits. On our way we ran into a street fair in Hells Kitchen and had to stop to try the delicious food. We had some pork buns, sangria, and our personal favorite – Jamaican Oxtail stew with rice. *drool* The street fair went for countless blocks. So much to choose from!

Pork Bun and Sangria from Brickyard in Hell's Kitchen — Pork Bun and Sangria from Brickyard in Hell’s Kitchen

When we got to the Javits first thing we did was visit our good friends Robin and Alvin from Scotch & Cream. They needed a small errand run so after we walked up and down the aisles to get a glance at set up we headed out to Lowes. On the way, Charlie and I were discussing our plans for our own NSS booth and all the eye candy/inspiring booths we saw during Saturday’s set up day.

That evening we had some drinks with our friend David and headed out to eat more food! We had some Shake Shack (it was good 😛 but the Cali girl in me loves me my In n Out) and some noodle soup from Tasty Hand-Pulled Noodles II in Hell’s Kitchen. The noodles were delicious!

The next day was dedicated to sight seeing. We saw the city the only way we would enjoy it – through food. We went on our classic food crawl and hit a bunch of great places! We started our journey at Bibble and Sip again. Got some coffee and a Milk Bun to share. Not pictured: Green Papaya Salad and Lychee Mimosas from Pig and Khao in the Lower East Side.

Mushroom truffle oil and Margherita Pizza from Table 87 in Brooklyn

Strawberry Shortcake at Big Gay Ice Cream in the East Village

Fried Pork and Chive Dumplings from Vanessa Dumpling in China Town

And our personal favorite *drum roll please* –

Cold Skin Noodle from Xi'an Famous Foods — Cold Skin Noodle from Xi’an Famous Foods (they have various locations throughout NY)

Guys, I would go back to New York just for these noodles. They were unlike anything I’ve had. So delicious, simple, full of flavor.

We got to catch up with our friend and former Unique LA booth mate, Diana. She took us around Brooklyn and her favorite pizza place, Table 87 (pictured above).

Our last full day in NYC was Monday and we were heading back to NSS to walk the show now that everyone was set up. Everyone’s booths looked wonderful! It was night and day. We got a pic of some of our friends’ spectacular booths. I must say they were killin’ it!

Thank you to all our friends for making our first trip to New York so great! We can’t wait until next year!

xoxo,

Kissa

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