Our secret

So, I have had a lot of people ask me exactly what Jon and I are doing to lose our weight. Now, I am definitely NOT an expert but I thought I would share what has worked for us. Just to give a quick overview of what we do. We count calories and try to stay under 1200 Calories per day. We are not on any sort of fad diet, we just try to eat as healthy as possible, watch our portion sizes, make key substitutions to make old fav's healthier and of course exercise 4-5 times per week.

Quick Tricks:

1. No soda

2. No eating after 10 pm (we go to bed late though, so if you go to bed at 10, then try no eating after 8pm)

3. Throw out ALL food that is not healthy (i.e. butter, cheese, snacks, chocolate, candy, chips..etc) This may seem extreme, but if it's not in your house you will be MUCH less tempted.

4. Only weigh yourself every TWO weeks (you will see bigger results, which will keep you motivated)

5. Keep a food diary for every day and write down EVERYTHING that goes in your mouth. You will be very surprised to see how fast calories can add up.

6. Drink lots of water...if you can't handle plain water get the off brand Crystal light from Wal-mart....it's ALL we drink

7. If you want to add butter flavoring to anything we recommend the "I can't believe it's not butter" spray butter....it has 0 calories

Sample Menu:

Breakfast: 1 cup of cereal (usually honey nut cheerios) 110 cal

skim milk 90 cal

1/2 banana approx. 50 cal

total breakfast: 250 cal

Lunch: Lean Cuisine meal 290

1 cup baby carrots (raw) approx 55 cal

handful of grapes approx 50 cal

1/4 cup of 1% fat cottage cheese 40 cal

total lunch: 435

Dinner: 2 Tilapia filets 200 cal

1/4 cup of rice 150 cal

1/4 cup of 1% fat cottage cheese 40 cal

1/2 cup of steamed frozen vegetables 50 cal

total dinner 440 cal

Snack: sugar free Jell-o pudding 60 cal

Total calories for the day 1185

Exercise:

For our exercise we walk/jog a 4 mile bridge down here approx. 3-4 times/week. We do sit ups and push ups almost every night. And if the weather is to bad to walk outside then we do a circuit that was recommended on The Biggest Loser. The ciruit goes as follows do 10 jump squats, 20 bicycle crunches, jog for 3 minutes, then rest for 1 min, then repeat the whole process 2 more times.

I hope this helps!! :)