I started seeing a personal trainer a week ago, and he put me on this new diet. It seems in line with the "paleo" diet. Just speaking on the paleo diet right quick, the "eat like a caveman" explanation for it sounds ridiculous. "Our ancestors ate this, so this is how we are meant to eat." Since our ancestors hardly even lived to see their grandchildren, and also lived completely differently from how we do now, I can't see how applying their diet to modern humans makes sense. However, I do think that most of the nutritional ideas behind it are pretty sound.
This is for anyone who asks what I've been doing when they see I've made progress. Occasionally people expect you to tell them you've been drinking a magical potion, living your life as normal, and still losing weight. There is no secret, calorie restriction and exercise are the best way to lose weight. When you're eating on a calorie deficit, that does not mean you can eat one pint of ice cream per day and that is okay since it's under maintenance calories. Especially if you're exercising, you're going to need proper fuel for your body.
This is the menu my trainer has me on:
- Breakfast
- 3 eggs scrambled in 1/2 tbsp coconut oil with sauteed onions and mushrooms (also cooked in coconut oil)
- Second Breakfast
- 4oz tuna with 1c asparagus/broccoli/green veggie and 1/4c of dry roasted almonds
- Lunch
- Spring mix salad with 4oz chicken/fish/shrimp and balsamic vinaigrette
- Snack
- 5oz Greek yogurt and 1/4c dry roasted almonds
- Dinner
- 4-6oz lean meat, 1c asparagus/broccoli/green stuff, 1 sweet potato or 1/4c dry, 3/4c cooked plain old fashioned oats
I can eat what I want on Saturday, but not go totally crazy. I track my calories on MyFitnessPal, and it will calculate your Basal Metabolic Rate for you if you set your activity level to "sedentary". The above menu adds up to 200-300 below BMR for me, and I feel STUFFED for most of the day. I love to eat in large quantities but it's hard to eat this much, and it's only about 1200 calories. That is truly impressive. I'll usually have another greek yogurt after I eat dinner, since I also work out, reducing my net calories even more. For flavor, I put lemon juice or salsa all over everything, because those are delicious and low calorie.
I do all of my meal prep on Sundays. I cook enough egg breakfasts and chicken for the work week. The salad and veggies are easy to throw in a tupperware container before work during the week. For tuna, I buy the lemon pepper tuna packets. It's less than 4oz but it tastes really good. You could easily make and measure your lemon pepper tuna out yourself, I just prefer to spend less time cooking everything on Sundays.
A note on portions: 4-6oz of chicken is about half of a chicken breast. 1/4c of whole almonds is a small handful (about the size of an egg). The 80 or 100 calorie individual greek yogurts are a little over 5oz and don't have a lot of sugar.
My next few posts will be about how I make this diet food delicious enough to want to eat repeatedly every day. Stay tuned.
