Here is the foundation of my nutrition plan.
- Eating every 3 hours (about 5 times a day for me).
- Combining lean protein, veggies or fruit and a healthy fat every time I eat.
- Placing grains or starchy carbs at my first morning meal or the meal following my workout.
- Choosing veggies to fruit in approximately a 4:1 ratio.
- Drinking approximately a gallon of water a day.
- Taking fish oil and a multi-vitamin every day.
- Aiming for 90% compliance.
- Planning my non-compliance in advance.
More to come on each of these line items, but there are a few things I want to point out.
There is no current, fad diet included here. The plan is based on clean, whole foods, so the effort is in planning and food prep, not fancy recipes. The focus is a positive one - not what I can't have, but what I should be consuming for muscle growth and energy. The plan is balanced and without deprivation. I'm not expecting perfection, but I am holding myself accountable to a threshold for compliance. The plan is balanced and without deprivation of anything necessary to help my body function and thrive. If I focus on eating in this fashion, there's not a lot of room or desire for processed foods out of a bag or box, or candy and other sweets.
My husband said it well after our sporadic holiday eating that included too much bread and too much sweet stuff: "After I started eating the sweets I kept going back for more, and I finally realized it was because they didn't really satisfy me, so it's better to just leave them alone in the first place." This explains well the trigger pattern of nutritionally empty foods, or a carborama as I like to call it!
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