Manifesting Body Diet and Fitness Plan – Day 7

It has now officially been 7 days since I started my Manifesting Body Diet and Fitness plan last week.

In this post I just wanted to do a quick update on my progress so far.

Let’s start off with my weight loss results so far.

Manifesting Body Diet Weight Loss Results – Day 7

So far I have lost a grand total of 1.3 lbs in the first 7 days as you can see from my Fitbit graph.

Losing 1.3 lbs in my first 7 days is not a lot compared to some of the other diet programs I’ve been on in the past, but I’m pretty happy with these results based on what I’ve done so far.

Meaning, for the first week of my diet my primary focus was simply to just track all of my food intake using MyFitnessPal.

In other words 90% of my focus was just on tracking my foods daily, and not so much on trying to change what I eat too much.

I just want to first establish and build the habit of tracking my food intake and then I can start making changes.

Of course just by tracking my food intake, I automatically wanted to try to stay within my set calorie goals but that was only about 10% of my focus.

As I started tracking my food with MyFitnessPal this week I discovered something REALLY cool.

The MyFitnessPal and Fitbit Connection

One of the coolest things I discovered this past week that I’m really excited about is how the MyFitnessPal app and my Fitbit tracker talk to each other and work together to give me a much more accurate calorie assessment on a daily basis.

This one simple change solves one of the biggest hidden challenges I had in the past when tracking my food / calorie intake.

Essentially, the challenge I ran into in the past was when I would track my calories on a daily basis or log my food intake I would be following a predetermined plan which would take certain data into consideration at the beginning of the plan and then it would calculate my calorie targets ONCE at the beginning of the program.

So for example, after asking me some questions the program I would be on might tell me that I should try to target 1,700 calories/day, or 1,500 calories/day or whatever the number may be.

This simplistic approach seems reasonable and logical, but the challenge I ran into with it was that it didn’t take into account the caloric needs of my body on a day-to-day basis.

For example, on a day when I would mostly be working at my computer or just sitting around all day those plans would tell me to target 1,700 calories (as an example).

But then on another day when I would be outside doing landscaping work in my back yard, and I would burn 1,000 or 2,000+ EXTRA calories throughout the day, I would still be trying to only eat 1,700 calories!

What that ended up doing to me was that I would get VERY hungry on days when I’m outside working on my yard or doing exercise, and then if I ate a bit more than my 1,700 calorie target I would start to feel like I was cheating on my plan.

So in effect, on any day when I would exercise, or perform activities like yard work / landscaping I would in effect be “punished” because my body would crave calories way more than on a typical day when I’m just sitting by my computer but I wouldn’t be allowed to eat any more than any other day.

Psychologically that is the exact OPPOSITE of what you want right?!

That is one of the reasons I always had a challenge with diet programs that used a calorie tracking system to track your food intake.

But the cool thing with MyFitnessPal and Fitbit is that now my Fitbit tracks my activity throughout the day, and it tracks how many calories I am burning each day by tracking various metrics such as my body movement and heart rate, and it sends that data to MyFitnessPal.

This way MyFitnessPal can actually adjust my caloric plan and adjust it throughout the day.

So for example on a day when I’m not really active, and lets say I’m just sitting at my computer for most of the day, MyFitnessPal might calculate that I should try to stay within 1,500 calories for the day…

… but on a day when I’m outside working on yard work or if I do a workout, and lets say I burn an extra 600 calories ON TOP of my regular base metabolic rate, MyFitnessPal will receive that info from Fitbit and it will give me an extra 600 calorie allowance for that day.

So this way if I exercise or have an active day, I get REWARDED instead of punished by my calorie tracking system — YAAY!!!

Of course you don’t have to use up (eat back) the extra calories you get from exercising, but it just gives you that data so that you can decide what to do.

I love this feature. 🙂

Hiring a Personal Trainer

Another new addition to my plan this past week has been that I have decided to start working with a personal trainer to help me to put together a solid strength training program.

The company I started working with is called Ivanco Fitness.

My wife and I were introduced to Ivanco Fitness and it’s founder – Ivan Mirosavljev – by my sister Agata last year.

Agata has been working with Ivan and his team of trainers at Ivanco Fitness for a while now and has had a lot of positive results and positive things to say about Ivan and his company.

So when I started my program last week, I was speaking with my wife Drea about possibly working with a personal trainer and she suggested that I give Ivanco Fitness a try to see if I like their energy.

I had my first consultation and functional movement assessment today with Ivan.

It was actually very interesting to go through the assessment to gather data on which areas I need to work on.

I’ve never done a test like this before, so it was kind of neat to go through it.

My next steps are to complete my consult with Ivan and get a program put together by him and his personal trainers.

I’m looking forward to getting started on that this week.

Have you ever worked with a personal trainer?

What has been your experience with them?