Pushing past frustration into a fresh beginning! | 43 of 90

Hello! It may be day 43, but today’s blog post is all about my NEW day 1 in Phase 2 of my 90 Day Journey.

Why the new day 1?

Well, my progress stalled and I wanted to find a way to push past that instead of giving up and getting frustrated. Over the past couple weeks, I struggled with stagnation. BUT, the struggle made me realize that I couldn’t keep doing the same things if I wanted different results. So, here’s how Phase 2 is going to be different!

MY PHASE 2 VOWS:

  1. I vow to make sleep is a priority. 7-8 hours of sleep every night, MINIMUM. 
  2. I will track everything I put into my body via MyFitnessPal, focusing on macros and caloric intake.
  3. I vow to take MORE DANCE CLASSES!!!

SLEEP:

I started getting more serious with my sleep a few days ago, and I actually haven’t taken a morning workout class at all this week. I made it a point to sleep in because I kept going to bed past 12AM. Already, I feel like my body is functioning better.

TRACKING:

Okay, so this is crazy. Between yesterday and today, tracking my food has already helped! I didn’t snack at all. I put away the nuts that I probably ate 1000s of calories of per day, and made sure my meals were satiating enough.

DANCING:

Dance just make me so happy. Dance classes are for cardio, but more importantly – for PURE JOY! This 90 Day Journey is supposed to be about be getting in the best shape of my life physically and mentally – and let me tell you – dance is all mental wellness for me! I don’t know why I ever stopped!

Here’s me taking my 2nd dance class of the week! 😀

 

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First time taking Beginner Heels!!! 👠 Omg it was so much fun! Here’s the lil Beyoncé routine we learned tonight! I felt sexy, powerful, and soooooo soooooo happy after! It’s truly joy in movement. 🥰 I love that dancing loosens my body and relaxes my mind. Plus oddly enough, my Apple Watch told me I burned more calories than in a circuit training class! Crazy!! I want to keep going and I want to keep getting more comfortable with letting go. That will happen with time. I feel a bit stiff right now! The cool thing is, I know I’m not the best, but I also feel like I don’t have to be. I just have to have fun and if I can do that, then that means I’m being the best version of me – and that is all that actually matters. #blogilates

A post shared by Cassey Ho (@blogilates) on

Now, let’s talk food.

My first day of tracking was tedious, but it wasn’t terrible at all. It made me conscious of when I was eating, why I was eating, and if I was actually hungry or just bored. I know that I am someone who loves tasting flavors, so it is no surprise to me that all those extra calories that I had been consuming came from me snacking on nuts for fun. The stagnation makes total sense.

Below you will find my meals along with macro breakdown and calories.

BREAKFAST:

23% carbs, 77% fat, 0% protein

50 calories

I had 1 scoop of BHBs + 1 scoop of MCT Oil Powder over a few water bottles.

LUNCH:

23% carbs, 62% fat, 23% protein

538 calories

This meal was so good and so filling! OMG. I had avocado with scrambled eggs, pico de gallo, chicken breakfast sausages, and mini bell peppers. Just look looking at it, I thought this meal would have hit the 5% carbs, 75% fat, and 20% protein distribution that Drew suggested. But – the fact that it doesn’t makes me think, maybe I don’t want to be hitting those numbers! To add more fat to this, I would have had to probably take out the bell peppers and the pico de gallo, and I’m not about the sacrifice my veggies.

SNACK:

0% carbs, 0% fat, 100% protein

35 calories

Collagen matcha powder in water for my hair, nails, and skin! Happy to report that the hair keeps growing! Whoo!

DINNER:

4% carbs, 46% fat, 50% protein

1,183 calories

Okay, tracking while at a restaurant was hard but I did my best!

Sam and I met up with a few of our friends for dinner at The Joint (the dry aged fish place). We started off with some sashimi. OMG so DELISH. I don’t remember the name of the white one, but the red one is tuna, the orange is salmon, and that pinky one is amberjack.

I made sure we ordered 2 dishes of the scallops in mushroom butter sauce. Literally one of the best scallops I have ever had!

Not a fan of shrimp so I only had one of these!

We ordered plenty of veggies for the table, including this roasted kale.

And these sautéed green beans.

We finished off the meal with 2 pieces of fish (salmon and cod) over roasted parm asparagus!

So, overall, yesterday’s macro breakdown looked like this: 51% fat, 41% protein, and 8% carbs. I don’t know if I want to do any more fat than 50% fat to be honest with you. The whole 90 day journey is about exploration, experimentation, and figuring out what works for me. I think super strict keto was a good starting point that gave me direction with eating – but eating bacon, eating cheese, taking oils, feeling thirsty all the time and having to eat more salt while trying to hit 75% fat is not something that I see myself doing long term.

I’m glad that after just 1 day of tracking, I am able to come to that conclusion! I think from here, I will in general do moderate fat and protein with low carbs. What percentages? Not sure yet. Will need to assess how I feel based on what I eat each day.

CALORIES IN vs CALORIES OUT

I put in my current weight, my goal weight, my goal date, my activity level (active), height, age, gender etc and MyFitnessPal suggested a caloric intake of 1310 calories if I don’t move at all. Now, keep in mind that based on how much I work out, I get to eat more than 1310 calories!

Yesterday, I ended up eating 1,806 calories in total and then dancing, so I almost broke even! (Went 96 cals “overboard”.) BTW I’ll still be tracking all my meals in the Fit Journal and then calculating calories later on in the app. I just know that by the time I open the app and type in every food I am ingesting along with quantities in the MyFitnessPal app, my food will have gotten cold! It is much faster to write it in the Fit Journal, and to deal with the details later.

I know it’s only been 1 day but the morning before I started tracking, I was 129.4 lbs yesterday and this morning, I weighed in at 128.8 lbs. Umm, that is a 0.6 lb loss. Now, who knows what that could REALLY be due to…but I was stagnating/gaining weight for 2 weeks straight. So, something tells me overeating was the problem.

Let’s see how I do tomorrow though before I jump to any conclusions!

25 thoughts on “Pushing past frustration into a fresh beginning! | 43 of 90”

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  1. hilabene says:

    Hi Cassey, I am trying to make a change and improve my lifestyle, my strength and my self 🙂 I started tracking the October calendar. its been really hard for me to stick to it, but I am starting to kipe track. however I started eating MORE and that is making me really frustrated. I started using the app as well to kipe track of what I eat, and I was wondering how can I know how much calories I lose in each workout in the calendar?

  2. alessia says:

    but possibly something that burns fat or cdomuqnue an herbal tea that breaks the hunger a bit?

  3. Karri says:

    What brand of Collagen matcha powder do you use? I’m struggling with growing out my hair after a surgery that had about half of it fall out 🙁 I’d love to know which one you use, because I don’t want to buy one that doesn’t taste good!! I could not find samples of any of the ones on Amazon, so I’m stuck on what to buy!!

    1. blogilates says:

      Well the one I am using is out of stock and discontinued. So after I may need to buy Vital proteins matcha collagen.

  4. Saraahx says:

    I like how detailed your vows are! It gives you much more clarity and encourages you to do better. Aww you always look happy when you dance. It must be hella hard with high heels but I guess it works your body in such a better way, and probably helps with balance too. (By the way, we POPsters need more dance workouts. They always fill me with joy. I love how they never feel like a workout). I especially love the “Dance #LIKENINA” w/ Les Mills + “Hip Hop Dance Workout” by Danielle Peazer and last but not least “30-Minute Sexy Cardio Dance Vixen Workout” – so, so fun!!!
    Smart thing not to sacrifice your veggies! All that fish and all these greens make me hungry!!!

  5. Strawberrypekoe says:

    Great job hun! Try latin dance or zumba. Both are super fun and easy to let loose. Best of luck!

    1. Diana says:

      The first time I did Zumba (quite a while ago) I had sweat pouring off of me within minutes. Never have I experienced a workout where I sweated so much lol. I don’t even think I finished it because it was so intense. And I don’t even think it was advanced or anything. Crazy.

  6. Megan says:

    So glad you’re making progress and feeling better Cassey! Ive been eating my feelings/out of boredom a lot lately and you’ve inspired me to try to figure something else out to fill the hole 🙂

  7. leora says:

    I only ever lose weight if I track my calories! I lost 5 pounds in a few days just by being good about it and I’m still eating at least 1400 calories but I also work out. It’s hard to keep up though because counting calories gets annoying but it definitely works if you do it.

  8. SunshineCozy13 says:

    Since you love dance so much, are you going to make more pop pilates dance type videos? Those are fun

  9. Michelle says:

    Have you ever checked to see if you have diastasis recti? Sorry, random comment, but it would explain a stomach pooch.

  10. Share some of that sashimi!

    And in love that you’re getting more detailed with your tracking. Can’t wait to see where this leads ya 🙂

  11. Gaby says:

    Although for tracking it’s nice to weigh in everyday, but its really your weekly weigh in that is going to show the real results. Your body weight naturally fluctuates throughout the week because of water retention and slow digestion. So don’t be discouraged! You will notice results as long as you stick to your calories and macros. You are so disciplined I know you can do it!

  12. Laura says:

    That sexy dance! It fits you so well! Don’t you ever give up! 💃👑

  13. LisaZ19 says:

    I have a question, all the fitness people I follow (Rebecca Louise and the girls from Tone It Up) say eating lean protein helps with weight loss and muscle toning. Also that fitness/getting healthy is 80% nutrition and 20% fitness/exercise. I’m still just trying to figure everything out, what is the right amount of protein to eat?

    1. LucyLoo says:

      The best place to start is with a registered dietician. Most insurance companies cover a few visits.

    2. Kaitlin says:

      .8 x lbs of lean muscle for your goal weight.

      Or for macros try at least 30% of your total macros being protein!

      Plenty of free calculators on the web.

    3. Gaby says:

      To build muscle you sheet eat 0.8-1g of protein per pound of body weight. 1g is easiest to remember. So a 150lb person should eat 150g of protein a day. If you are looking to lose weight, caloric deficit is the only way to lose weight. Weather that is burning an extra 500 calories a day through exercise or eating 500 calories fewer a day, you will lose 1lb per week.

  14. Amina says:

    Hey, another good way of breaking a plateu is intermittent fasting. You still get to eat whatever you want, but you give your body a break and a chance to utilize fat. There are amazing videos on yt and books that help understanding the point of IF and all the health benefits of it.

  15. Laura says:

    Roasted kale? I LOVE kale but never had it roasted,I will have to try!

    I’ve also been thinking about using myfitnesspal. Ive been running for a while now and I want to fuel my body properly for longer distances. But I’ve been putting it off because during uni when I was living alone for the first time I came really close to having a full blown eating disorder. I was afraid tracking food would make me obsessed again.
    However, I am the same age as you and I don’t know if you feel the same, but I realized I know so much more about food now. I feel like 10 years ago we (me but also society) just didn’t have the same knowledge as we do now. Back then I thought a calorie = a calorie, so I would eat less dinner for example so I could eat more cookies (and from there things spiraled). With what I know now I would never do that again, it just wouldn’t make sense. So I think I can safely track my food now. But I’ll see for a bit how you’re doing and what you think about it 🙂

  16. Diana says:

    Nothing like a good Beyonce song to dance to. You did really good. How is the bloating going? Are you feeling any better?

  17. Ash says:

    I definitely have to food track occasionally, just to help me be more aware of what and when I eat. It’s not something I can sustain over a long period of time but it’s always been so helpful in month long increments! I do appreciate you’re doing this challenge and sharing it with us, by the way. Sometimes fitness and getting to a healthy point feels kind of like throwing darts in a pitch black room. It’s really cool to see the process of breaking down what effects you and the changes you make accordingly, I find it very inspiring.

  18. Angie says:

    I’ve had to start tracking my food again a few weeks ago too, because I’m also a snacker. My weight has been going up and down the same 5-6 pounds for two months now and it’s so frustrating! It’s currently down, so I guess that’s good. For now. I wanted to lose 10-15 before my birthday, and I’m not going to make it. It’s two weeks away. Then I’m heading to the Epcot Food & Wine Festival where I’m going to eat all the things and seriously not care because Disney vacation.

    After that is when the “real work” will start, since I do want to get back to my pre-surgery weight. That’s -13 pounds from where I am today. I know it’s doable. It just takes time and me getting on the right track and sticking to it. I had maintained that weight for several months without being super strict, so I know I can do it.

  19. Katie says:

    Hi Cassey! Dancing is so fun, I wish I could do more of it but I don’t know how to dance well lol! Glad you are having fun though and good luck to you.