About Me

Intro: 
My name is Naomi, I'm 24 years old, and I am looking to lose 50-100 lbs. My starting weight in January 2013 was 180. As of June 2013, I'm 157 lbs. My original goal was to reach 120 lbs, but now I'm thinking 130 lbs is more realistic due to the amount of muscle I'm seeking to develop.

Getting Started:
When I decided to get healthy, the first things I did were: Get my gym membership reinstated, go grocery shopping, lay out my goals, take before pictures, start this blog to track my progress, start a food log on loseit.com, and communicate the changes to those closest to me.

Calories:
Initially I had my calorie intake at 1200 a day. Then I'd work out and burn 500-750 calories a day...making my average intake around 600 calories a day. As I learned around week 15, my body was seemingly going into starvation mode and gripping on to only fat. I learned this because my fat % on the scale wasn't dropping like it should have been. After this, I found that my BMR is 2300, so I adjusted my calorie intake to 1700, meaning I cut 500 in food calories and if I work out 500 calories a day (making my net 1200 calories consumed) then I will drop 2 lbs a week. If I don't work out, I should still lose 1 lb a week as long as I stay around 1700.

Support:
Along with family and friends support, I sought out other ways to encourage myself. My good friend recently had a baby and I encouraged her to start a blog too so we have been weight loss buddies from the beginning pretty much. I also read a handful of books on nutrition and weight loss. I wanted to make sure that I understood why certain things were good and why my body reacts the way it does. My favorite read was Jillian Michael's "Slim For Life" because it laid out all the information, for the most part, that all the books had in the simplest form. I also found an amazing online community called Tone It Up which has been incredibly helpful. It was my TIU sisters who showed me that my body was going into starvation mode and suggested I up my calorie intake. I used pinterest to create motivation boards and I found a couple fitness video-bloggers to follow for workouts. (Blogilates, Tara Stiles, and of course TIU)