Graduation Day
Time to celebrate! You’ve made it through the boot camp!
How Much Have You Changed?
Remember the Before/After Snapshot worksheet you filled out four weeks ago? Take that out and fill out the right-hand side. How does it differ from the left-hand side? What have you learned over the past 28 days?
Beyond the 28 Day Calorie Counting Boot Camp
After 28 days, you know a lot about counting calories. You figured out a daily calorie goal that works for you; you eat smaller meals more frequently to curb hunger and cravings; you can balance out those calories and make healthier food choices. Now what?
Analyze your worksheets
Gather up all your daily worksheets and your weekly worksheets to analyze them for patterns. Here are a few ideas to get you started:
- Group all your “good” days together from all four weeks. What worked for you on those days?
- Group all your “challenging” days together from all four weeks. These are areas where you can lapse back into bad habits. Prepare for days like this.
- Group your daily worksheets into days of the week. Do you see any patterns? Are weekends particularly challenging? Is there a time of day that throws you off?
- If you were tracking your weight (or body fat % or waist measurements), is there a week where you made progress? Was there a week where you didn’t make progress? Why?
- What daily calorie goal worked well for you?
- What carb/protein/fat percentages worked best for you? Why?
- What meal frequency worked well for you? Why?
Keep Learning, Track Your Progress and Make Adjustments
You’ve only just learned about counting calories. To create lifelong habits will take a bit more time. Keep tracking your calories until you really know your food habits. Track your progress on a weekly basis with the Daily Eating Habits Awareness worksheets and review your week with the End of Week Review worksheet.
As you continue counting calories, listen to your body. When losing weight in a healthy way, you should feel energized and satisfied. Feeling hungry and lacking energy are warning signs that you’re not eating enough.
Keep learning your portion sizes, especially for any new foods you eat. After a while, it’ll become second nature to serve yourself normal-sized portions.
Create “go to” meals and snacks. These are meals and snack where you know the serving size and calorie count. Having “go to” meals and snacks means you don’t need to think about what to eat; this helps create good eating habits.
Your body’s needs change over time. Track your progress and make adjustments as you go along.
If you stop losing weight, read “Why Am I Not Losing Weight? 5 Reasons You’re Stuck in a Plateau”.
Exercise
Not everybody likes it, but adding exercise or physical activity to your daily routine can help accelerate fat loss by burning extra calories. It also gives you more energy, builds muscles and helps make you heart healthy.
When to Stop Tracking
It’s really up to you when you stop tracking. Some people stop tracking once they reach their weight loss goal. Some people stop tracking once they’ve got a handle on their portion sizes. Most people stop tracking at some point and then start again when they hit a plateau or when bad habits start creeping back in.
Maintenance
Once you reach your weight loss goal, you no longer want to eat a calorie deficit. You want to balance your calories in vs. your calories out so they’re equal. Add 100 calories to your daily calorie goal for one week and track your weekly progress. If you’re still losing weight, add on another 100 calories to your daily goal and continue to track your progress. Continue this until you’re maintaining your weight instead of losing weight. If you find you’re gaining weight, cut your daily calorie goal by 100 calories and keep tracking until you maintain your weight.
Regaining Weight
If you wake up one day and realize your bad habits have crept back in and you’ve now gained weight, restart the 28 Day Calorie Counting Boot Camp to get yourself back on track.
Remember, weight loss and fitness are lifelong commitments!
Let me know how you did! Please share in the comments down below!
I’d also love your feedback on the Boot Camp.
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Week 1
Prep Day | Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 | Day 6 | Day 7
Week 2
Week 2 Prep | Day 8 | Day 9 | Day 10 | Day 11 | Day 12 | Day 13 | Day 14
Week 3
Week 3 Prep | Day 15 | Day 16 | Day 17 | Day 18 | Day 19 | Day 20 | Day 21
Week 4
Week 4 Prep | Day 22 | Day 23 | Day 24 | Day 25 | Day 26 | Day 27 | Day 28 | Graduation Day - Beyond the Boot Camp