How it all began
Howdy and welcome to "Living Like Leberfing". In the past few weeks, I have had a few people ask me to write them some sample meal plans. I am a natural helper and their requests inspired me to want to help multiple people with this, hence this blog adventure. Over the past two and half years I have made a complete life style change and have lost over 140lbs off of my 5’7 frame. Many people ask me how I accomplished this. I explain it was a life style change I made through my diet and exercise. I also had a continuous flow of support and love from all the people in my life, especially my family. Since my number one love language is words of affirmation, it kept me motivated and encouraged over the two plus years. I knew I needed help attaining this large goal so I began seeing a personal trainer. His name is Sam Armus. https://www.facebook.com/sam.armus
Sam trains people at Bay View Fitness located in Bay View, Wisconsin. I highly recommend him if you live in the Milwaukee area. Sam helped me figure out a daily calorie intake I should consume based on my: weight, age, body fat content and the type of workouts he was going to do with me. Making the choice to work with Sam was the best choice I made. I don’t believe I could have done it without his support, knowledge and friendship. I would meet with Sam on weekly bases, and during those sessions he would put me through a strenuous workout, check in with me on my diet, take my weight once or twice per month and send homework with me. Homework consisted of three additional strength training workouts I was to do on my own.
For the first time in my life I was starting to understand what it meant to be full, not stuffed and/or hungry from trying to cut calories. I started making different diet choices, eating lots of veggies. By doing this it meant I could eat more food, because veggies are nutrient rich and low in calories. I used My Fitness Pal for over two years to help me keep track of my diet and exercise. I found it to be a big help, it forced me to stay accountable to myself. You can access it via the internet and download the app to your phone and it has a large data base including many restaurant meals.
For you (the readers), my objective for this blog is to model healthy eating and an active life. I will be sharing what I consume daily, including a list of the ingredients. I am blessed living with two fine cooks, so I will not always be preparing the food. They both eat a plant based diet, I am also mainly plant based, but I differ slightly that I still consume, fish and eggs but no dairy. It should be pretty easy to switch any of the proteins you normally eat in place of my plant based options. I am by no means the only representation of a healthy lifestyle, but I have found success living the way I do. I have been blessed with a great deal of knowledge and support. I am hoping to pass a smidgen of that on. I will also be posting a lot about the little people in my life; I am currently living the nanny dream during my summer and continuing to prepare for the next set of kindergarten babies to enter room 110. In fact, most of the other parts of my life will probably spill onto these pages.
I thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedules to read a little of me. Smile at a stranger today and say something kind to a person you love.
Love,
April
