"Abs are Made in the Kitchen"

Sunday, 11/20, made a week from when I started this journey. Since day 1, I have lost 2 lbs and definitely feel stronger (and sore...in a good way). I had taken about 1.5 months off from working out prior to starting this due to a surgery I had but my trainer, Kristi Romero, helped me "ease" into it. As of right now, the working out is the fun part! The food...everything other than breakfast has been somewhat of a challenge. I am trying out new recipes though so I'm hoping it helps. I'm sure I will go back and forth with which one is harder as my journey continues. As the workouts get more intense I will probably be praising the part of the day where I get to sit down and eat yet another meal of chicken, brown rice, and broccoli. They key to eating is definitely having all of the food already prepared in the kitchen. This makes it much easier to weigh, throw in a few tupperware containers, and go! I'm pretty sure my boyfriend has enjoyed having prepped food already in the house as well. I'm currently doing strength training about 4 days per week and cardio 5 days per week/20minutes a day. My cardio consists of walking on a treadmill, at an incline, which burns about 200 calories. I asked my trainer about ab and calf exercises at our last session and she informed me that in the competition, calves aren't necessarily judged and abs are just like any other exercise so 3x/wk at 15 reps/each. Sound crazy when you look at figure competitor's abs and see how shredded they are??...well, "they're mainly made in the kitchen".