VP Health & Fitness

The BEAST has arrived!!! Arrrrgh!

I’m retaining water like C-R-A-Z-Y… eating horrible hasn’t helped either. Sigh.

I will be re-starting my end of 2007 challenge tomorrow with new exercises & a new eating plan. I’m about half way through the protein power book and have finally come to the part where I find out what my minimum protein intake and ECC (effective carbohydrate) range is. Since i’m over 20% of my ideal weight and I still have about 50 lbs of fat to lose, I will be starting on Phase I intervention.

In a nutshell, this is what I have to do:

• Protein: Determine my protein needs and plan my meals around the right number of grams of protein. You need to know your lean body mass and your activity level to do this. Since I already keep track of my lean body mass on my measurement tracker, I know that right now my lean body mass is about 127 lbs. How did I figure this out? Check out the post titled, How to measure body fat percentage. Now, according to PP, I now need to calculate my activity level from 5 different options (sedentary, moderately active, active, very active & athlete.) I chose very active because i’m planning to engage in vigorous physical activity lasting and hour or more, five or more times a week. All I have to do to find out my minimum daily protein need is multiply my LBM (lean body mass) by the activity category number which was .8 for very active.
  • 127 (LBM) x .8 (activity level) = 101.6 daily minimum protein need
  • Divided minimum protein needs (101.6 grams) by how many meals you are planning to eat: 101.6/5 = 20.32 g per meal

• Carbohydrates: Add 30 grams of NET carbohydrates per day or less divided throughout the day for phase I (About 6 g of NET carbs per meal). Remember to subtract fiber grams (25 g or more per day recommended) from total carbohydrate count to find out net/impact carbs.
• Fats: Healthy fats should compose the rest of my macro-nutrients. My body can and will be using fat as fuel in this phase.

And THAT my friend is pretty much Phase I Intervention of Protein Power. I am planning to stay on this phase for 3-4 weeks and then slowly transition over to Phase II Intervention where I can consume 55 g of NET carbs. I will stay on Phase II until I reach my goal weight and then transition into maintenance for life where I can increase my carb grams and options significantly.

I will keep a daily journal because it keeps me publicly accountable.  Additionally, you will probably see me frequent the PP message boards as well.

As far as my exercise goes… I will again be using Turbulence Training because it’s quick, effective, and the program where I saw the fastest results in terms of body composition.

So…. to all my low carb readers, please keep my in your thoughts! Words of advice and encouragement are also welcomed as I embark on my 1st ever serious low/moderate carb journey.

Be on the lookout for a Protein Power book review later on as well as other programs i’ve tried.

That’s it for now…. make it a GREAT week everyone!

~ Vilma

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