Many of my friends have asked me what did I do to start losing weight. At first, I watched what I ate and did some low-impact exercises, like yoga. While that yielded a couple pounds off, I decided that I was not achieving the results that I wanted. After doing some reading in Men's Health and on the Internet, I decided to try a fat burning, muscle building program that focused on my core. In hindsight, that choice was the way to go. Your core affects your endurance, overall strength, and visual appeal. My initial program included several sets of bicycle crunches, decline crunches, cable row wood choppers, dumbbell squats, planks, medicine ball jerks, jump rope, and vertical jumps. Then I would usually finish up with 5 to 10 minutes of cardio on the elliptical. This workout didn't require lots of weights, and for the most part, just used my own weight as resistance. I did that workout 3 days a week for about a month. I eventually phased out the vertical jumps and jump rope, because I was too uncoordinated and those moves really stressed my knees. I replaced them with medicine ball crunches and push-ups. I really pushed myself hard (or at least what I thought was hard) early on to get my heart rate up and make sure that I was burning enough calories to beat Tiffany! I have since abandoned that workout in favor of a more whole body/balanced strength workout, but I do incorporate some of those exercises into my routines for variety.
On my mp3 player: Jesse McCartney - How Can You Sleep? It's pure bubblegum, but it has a good beat.
Snack of the day: Banana nut bread Cliff bar. 6 g of fat, 5 g of fiber, 21 g of sugar and 10 g of protein. As snack/energy bars go, this is one of the best tasting. I would have liked less sugar and more protein but it's pretty comparable to other health snacks. I usually eat 1/2 before a workout and the other 1/2 for after.
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