Weight: 212
Body Fat: 19%

Ok, I started today!! I don't feel much different, but then again it is only the first day. There was a lot fo stuff that actually led up to today, so I'll start with all of that first...

First, I bought a scale to help me track my progress, after some looking around I ended up with a Tanita BF683W (http://www.tanita.com/BodyFat_BodyWater.shtml). I figured I would weigh myself every morning when I got up before I did anything else - the goal of this "life change" is not so much to loose weight as it is to simply get healthy but tracking your weight is always a good thing to do regardless.

Next, I did a lot of reading on calories, and how they affect your body's weight gain and loss. In my reasearch I ran across a really good page to help identify your RMR (Resting Metabolic Rate). I won't go into all of the details of whayt this is, so please visit this page for the details: http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/calrmr.htm. Anyhow I discovered that my RMR requires me to eat 2049 calories a day in order to maintain my current weight (212). In very layman's terms - to gain weight I must eat more than 2049 calories a day, and to loose weight I must eat lest than 2049 calories a day. From what I've read a good rule of thumb to use (and stay within a healthy range) is to eat 500 calories less a day to loose weight. This means I have to eat 1549 calories a day in order to cut the fat I have.

Based on the info above I started learning more about what my body needs to function properly, sure you can say you'll eat fewer calories, but you still need to provide your body the right amount of nutrients to be healthy. Without getting really carried away with the length of this blog, I came up with the following "menu" for my first week:

Breakfast - Protein Shake (300 Calories)
Snack - V8 Juice (70 Calories)
Lunch - 6oz Lean Meat & Veggies (400 Calories)
Snack - V8 (70 Calories)
Dinner - 6oz Lean Meat & Veggies (400 Calories)
Snack - 1Cup Ice Cream (300 Calories)

Total Calories for the day: 1540 (509 Calories less than my RMR)

In addition to the food I eat, I've also stocked up on Multivitamins (http://www.gnc.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2641168&cp=2566638&parent...) which I'll take each morning with my protein shake. I'm going to do some more reading into Fish Oil and a few others that I've heard about but don't know enough about yet to start taking them. As I do, I'll add them to this blog.

That's it for now, I'm exercising too, but I'm still working through the routine so I'll get that worked out before I post about it. Talk to you tomorrow...