What to do now?

[waterbear1224]

Hi Ladies,

I just found these forums, so I'm hoping to get some answers to a few things that have been buzzing around my brain.

I'm on week 11 of Jamie Eason's LiveFit trainer. I love it! I'm down 14lbs, and stronger than ever before (used to lift and play soccer/basketball/track in high school , but then college, grad school, job, layoff, back injury, etc...etc....but I'm back to the gym and loving it again!)

I was thinking of finishing the trainer; only 1.5 weeks to go! Then taking a week off and starting it again. I was also thinking of checking out a few of the amateur of the week articles and trying those exercises post live fit trainer take 2.

Here are my questions:

Exercise
1) How do you all make up your routines?

Diet
1) In the live fit trainer, it starts by having to eat certain portions ( 6 oz chicken, 3/4 c. brown rice, etc), then later you count calories, then later carb cycling. I'm doing everything she says to do to the best of my ability, but I got to say, it takes me forever to figure out how much of which food to eat per meal. I've been using pen/paper to figure it all out and I'm an artist, so yes stereo-typically bad at math. Is there a faster way? It took me 2 hours just to figure out what I needed to cook up for a carb cycling week, and then I needed to cook it all. All Sun was gone; is there a better way?

2) Do you guys always count calories or can you eat with just specific portions?

Physique
1) I'm 5'6" and 135 lbs. You can see muscles (a little bit) on my arms, legs, abs, back, which I'm very happy with. I would like to get rid of a bit more fat though and still have the muscles. In highschool (due to nerves/stress) I went down to 125 lbs and looked like a walking skeleton. So my concern is this: I want to be a bit more toned/defined, but I don't want to look too skinny or unhealthy. What should I do the achieve this? Do I still eat to lose weight and hit the weights, or something else?

Thanks!
Sarah

[waterbear1224]

bump

[CathyVee]

First of all, congratulations on your progess thus far. Here's some stickies that will answer most of your questions:

http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showth...hp?t=121703921

http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showth...hp?t=127023861

I like this sticky as well. Lots of links to other threads (including the threads referenced above)

http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showth...hp?t=132380633

There are lots of sites to track calories, some better than others. I am using Myfitnesspal.

[waterbear1224]

Thanks for the help!