January 29 2016

Class at 9am and 5pm Today

IT'S A LONG ONE!

Weigh-ins for the weight loss challenge start today.  If you are planning on participating you have until Monday at 7PM to get your starting weight recorded and pay your $20 cash.  Weigh Ins must be done at the club with a coach, on our scale in the locker room.  To get you all thinking about how you're going to be approaching the next eight weeks I wanted to give you an idea of how even when eating clean and healthy, calories can add up fast and to remind you that without a calorie deficit you will not see any weight loss.  Wednesday I logged my food for the day to show you what a typical day of eating is for me.  Keep in mind, I am not trying to lose or gain weight, this is the amount of food that I have found works well for me and for how I want to feel, perform, and recover.  Basically my goal everyday is to keep a macro nutrient ratio of 40% Protein, 40% Carbohydrate and 20% Fat.  You can find a whole lot of people to tell you a whole lot of different things about other ratios that work for them but this is what works for me and allows me to recover from the workouts I put my body through.  I have no doubt that any of you would benefit the same way but I'm not a nutritionist so all I can tell you is this is what I do.  I have long days and stay very active so I try to take in about 3000 Calories, any less than this I find I'm not at my strongest and would probably start losing weight.  Again, this is for me and I don't suggest 3000 calories for many of you especially if you are trying to hit that calorie deficit in order to lose weight.  The 40,40, 20 can stay the same at a lower calorie intake and I believe you will feel good, perform well and lose weight, but you have to experiment and find what works for you.  The site I use to log and calculate my foods is Fitday.com - you should work something similar or add things up yourself to get an idea of where you are and where you can make changes/ what you can do without for this challenge.   

Here is how my Wednesday went:

4:50 Am – 1 Tablespoon of peanut butter (Skippy Natural) - I do this pre-workout because I don't like working out completely empty and this does the trick, the sugar content in this particular brand is pretty low other brands/options this may not be the case.  Get in the habit of reading labels and always checking the sugar content.  Sugar is making you fat, remember that.  

6:45 am – 2 packets of Glutenfreeda Oatmeal, – post workout protein shake Optimum Hydrowhey, 3 Grams of Fish Oil - I use this brand oatmeal because a lot of instant oatmeal is high in sugar but this is the lowest I could find and it tastes good.  I also have a post workout Hydrowhey shake here to start my recovery from my workout.  This meal almost never changes and is done pretty much immediately after I work out everyday.

9:00 am – 1 cup of Boltenhouse Green goodness – Larabar Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip-
This is new for me, I've recently started drinking this juice (8oz. per day) to try and balance out my body's PH.  The amount of protein I eat could very possibly leave my body acidic which can cause soreness and other stresses in the body.  This juice is full of spinach, kale and other greens that should help balance that and leave me closer to an alkaline state or at least neutral. I've been testing this for about three weeks to see how I feel or if I notice any difference, too early to say.  BUT, and this is big, it also has 30 grams of sugar in it, this is the highest sugar content thing I eat or drink but I can afford it.  If I were trying to lose weight this would be the first thing to go.  I don't recommend any juice for weight loss even if the sugar is coming from fruit like in this case, it's still going to cause more sugar cravings and is not going to help you lose.  I also have a Larabar fruit and nut bar at this time, the flavor sometimes changes day to day but overall I like these bars because there are very few ingredients (nuts and fruit) and they hold me over until lunch.

11:30am – 2 Evol Chicken Burritos and 1 tablespoon of Cabo Fresh Guacamole.  I started eating these burritos after having a blood test that told me I had low sodium.  Most likely because I eat pretty bland, drink a lot of water and sweat out any salt in my body.  Low sodium can cause muscles to cramp and headaches so I started eating these a couple times a week, maybe it was a good excuse to eat burritos maybe not, there are definitely other more healthy ways to get sodium but these are pretty minimally processed, 70% organic, quick to cook and I can afford the carbohydrates so I'm OK with it.  I add the tablespoon of guacamole for the avocados fat content and because it tastes good, this brand is pure avocado and onion and clean.  This is usually my biggest meal of the day, sometimes it's this, sometimes its eggs and vegetables, leftover dinner from the night before or I'll stop in Hannafords and make a grilled chicken salad at the salad bar and buy a quart of milk but either way I try to keep this as my highest calorie meal and make sure it fits my 40,40,20 macro ratio.



2:00pm – Another Larabar, This is common for me, it holds me over for the rest of the work day - sometimes its other flavors or just a handful of nuts and raisins


4:45pm – A banana, a whey protein shake and 3 more grams of fish oil after a quick light workout. I do this often especially if I do a second workout in the day and if I'm at the club late to keep my body fed until I get home to eat dinner.  I take my second dose of fish oil here daily.

7:30pm – 8 Ounces of Chicken, (skin, dark and white meat) on top of a few cups of spinach, kale, cherry tomatoes and 2 cups of whole milk.  This almost never changes except for the animal. I rotate Chicken, fish and steak throughout the week but I always have the greens here with whole milk.  Some nights I add sweet potatoes if I didn't have them at lunch, that's it! Yes, I know its boring, plain and weird but I'm not trying to have fun when I eat, Just repairing my body from the days abuse.

10:00pm – Casien protein shake and ZMA - I do this every night before bed to keep my muscles fueled to recover while I sleep.  You heal while you sleep so its best to give your body what it needs for it.  The ZMA promotes good hormone function and helps me to get good sound sleep to recover. 

Heres how things worked out:

I ended up just over 3000 Calories and my 40,40,20 ratio came in pretty close so overall this is exactly what I wanted to see.  I wanted to put this out there to show you that what seems like a small amount of food can add up in calories pretty fast.  Keep in mind, I don't use condiments, I only drink that one glass of juice throughout the day, I don't use salad dressing and I don't have dessert.  Add any or all of those things to this small amount of food and most people would have a real hard time burning all that off.  Like I said before YOU NEED TO HAVE A CALORIE DEFICIT in order to lose weight, it is that simple, that doesn't mean starve yourself, it just means be mindful of what your putting in and putting out.  Start reading your labels and entering foods into your log now.  There are a ton of online tools like Fitday.com to help you track things.  I would suggest jotting down your basic day of food and deciding what you can do without for now.  Give that change a week or two and assess your results.  There is no real exact formula that works for everybody so you have to experiment, use this challenge to start learning what works for you. Everything you eat should have reason and thought behind it.  During this challenge (and hopefully forever) you should be thinking of food as fuel for your body and activity level and not as something to do when you're bored or for pleasure.  To keep things simple start by cutting 500 Calories from your average day and see what results that brings you in the next couple of weeks.  Then we'll have some real evidence based results to assess and decide if you need to cut more or eat more.  Remember if nothing changes, nothing changes. Good Luck!

Strength:

On The minute for 16 Minutes Perform:

Odd Minutes: 1 Squat Clean + 1 Power clean + 1 Jerk (Increase as you go)

Even Minutes: 20 Double Unders

Conditioning:

For Time:

50 KB SDHP

10 Clean and jerks

40 KB SDHP

8 Clean and Jerks

30 KB SDHP

6 Clean and Jerks

20 KB SDHP

4 Clean and Jerks

10 KB SDHP

2 Clean and Jerks

135/95 or about 60% of best lift in strength portion