Had another great week of killer workouts but this week I’m going to focus on nutrition as it has been a big key for me lately.
I’ve been monitoring how I feel in correlation to my eating over the past month or so and realized I’d be spent in regards to energy when I tried to workout in the evening. What I came to realize was that I wasn’t getting near enough calories a day and lacking very much in my protein intake (which wasn’t helping my muscle gain goal).
I spoke with a nutritionist on Monday and it cleared up many things for me. It confirmed several of the things I was doing right and highlighted some of my core areas. I’ve started to track my calories for a period of time to make sure I am hitting some goals. Right now, I am trying to hit about 3,000 calories per day. It’s insane how much food that actually is but I know in the long run I’ll put on some weight and start to see my muscles get some growth as well.
Cliffs Notes version of changes:
- I was eating a “good” breakfast in regards to nutritious foods like bananas, avocados, oatmeal, etc but was lacking big time in protein intake. This was putting me behind the eight-ball for the day and I was always hungry midday.
The Change: I am now eating 2-3 eggs in the morning and having that on top of avocado toast or scrambling up with some sweet potato hash / pepper combo. It’s kept me full for the last week and I feel I have way more energy.
2. For snack, I was eating mainly fruit and about 1-2 cups of blueberries, strawberries, or a banana.
The Change: I am adding some protein like peanut butter or some yogurt to the snack and still eating the fruit.
3. Since I took away meat from my diet 18 months ago, I’ve been trying to figure out what to replace it with and have come across these plant based items that taste and feel like meat. I used to eat a lot of this stuff like several servings a weeks.
The Change: I didn’t realize that not only are these heavily processed but they are made mainly of soy. For males, too high of soy intake adds a lot of estrogen into the body and can mess up hormone levels a bit. So, I’ve cut back on this drastically to see if I notice any big changes. I’ve added more fish to my diet to get back to a cleaner protein.
I’ve been very conscious the last several years of my food intake and eating cleaner but didn’t put this level of thought into it. Just recording my eating habits this week and monitoring how I feel I can say that not only am I full throughout the day but I have a lot more energy when it comes to evening workouts.
Moral of the story is that it’s important to always be asking questions of yourself on how you can improve and get better and don’t be afraid of the answers as hopefully figuring that out will improve “YOU” in the long run.
Keep at it folks!