I’m back, finally!
This week started off with a workout on Wednesday, which brought up my blisters from my sun burn (silly muppet!) and hindered workouts for the rest of the week, but thankfully as of yesterday, I’m back to full training.
My diet has been on track this last week now I’m back in my regular routine. It just proves how important routine is. By having a routine, it enables me to put in the effort I do, whilst doing all the regular family duties and working full time.
Having put on some weight (according to scales, but not visually) during my week off, over the last week it’s already come straight back off. Not that weight is an important measure, it’s simply one additional data point that we track, but seeing it drop off so quickly once I got back into my routine was a pleasant surprise.
Rather than go into any more detail of the last week, which hasn’t been terribly eventful, I thought this week I would focus more on what a typical day of eating would look like for me at the moment, along with what supplements I’m using to assist my journey, so here it goes.
The Diet
As mentioned in a previous post, I’m a bit of a fussy eater. Sadly this means no fish for me, though that is something I’m trying to address so I can perhaps introduce some kind of fish into my diet.
Luckily, my kind of fussy means I like chicken (which is a bloody good job!), beef and pork. Veg duties are taken care of with broccoli, peas, mange tout, cauliflower, carrots, sweet corn, green beans and I like rice, pastas etc. On the fruit front, I like the usual suspects; bananas, strawberries, grapes, raspberries, oranges and pineapple.
Although I have what is basically a child’s palette, I like enough of the staple foods to be able to construct a healthy diet plan around.
The way in which Tom (TRHF) works with me regarding food is to provide some targets regarding how many calories I should be working toward each day, along with an ideal macro split, which is primarily focussed on hitting a protein target and the rest of the calories being split between carbs and fats. I do this tracking using the MyFitnessPal app, which is a godsend!
Tom provides loads of meal ideas in several PDF documents, which I think would be really useful for most people, but I tend to prefer keeping things really, REALLY simple when it comes to my diet. Again, this is because it makes things easier to manage and with not being that much of a foodie; consuming rather than enjoying a carefully prepared meal is much more practical (for me).
Tom’s general attitude to diet is to be sensible. He’s not there to mother me, but to just guide me. It’s then up to me to hit the targets. Fortunately, I’m not a big drinker, so I simply cut all alcohol out of my diet, unless it’s a special occasion, even then I would probably have no more than a couple of bottles of Peroni.
So, with that said, here’s what a typical day of eating may look like for me.
Breakfast
- 1 NY bagel with organic peanut butter
- 1 white coffee (no sugar)
- 1 protein shake (20g protein)
Lunch
- 4 bacon medallions in 2 slices of whole grain bread or 3 medium eggs scrambled on 1 slice of whole grain bread
- 1 white coffee
- 1 protein yoghurt (20g protein)
Dinner
- 150-200g chicken
- 125g tilda rice
- Mixed steamed veg
Snacks
- Protein shake (20g protein)
- 40g of Coco pops with 150ml of skimmed milk
- Fruit
All of the above roughly comes to around 1800 calories, 165g being protein. This gets me in the ball park of my current targets and will vary day to day, swapping in bananas, strawberries, grapes or raspberries, but generally, the breakfast is the same each day, lunch is near enough the same, but dinner is usually where I change things up a little and swap the meat out for beef or pork, or have a bolognese or something else like fajitas.
I’ll normally have 2 protein shakes per day and a protein yoghurt to assist with reaching my protein targets as trying to eat more meat would leave me way too full.
That’s been my biggest issue so far, is actually eating enough as before I had a very small appetite, but it is improving and one thing I found helped me, was to put my evening meal into a big bowl, chopped up, eating it like a curry. This makes it much easier to get through.
Essentially, I’m eating out of a trough!
Finally, I aim to drink a minimum of 2 litres of water per day and I always start my day with a full glass of water before anything else.
Supplements
When it comes to supplements, there’s nothing complicated:
- Creatine (1 dose per day, mixed with my first protein shake of the day)
- Whey Protein powder (Protein Works’ Whey Protein 80 – this is some of the best flavoured and easily mixed protein powder I’ve tried.)
- Vitamin D & K2
- Multi Vitamins
- Omega-3
And that’s it!
Aside from the above, I get more direct sunlight each day too as I’m clocking up more steps.
Wrapping It Up (and the pictures)
Although I didn’t manage to get all my sessions in due to the sunburn, I’m feeling really motivated now I’m back at it. This week is a big week for me; my calorific target has just been upped and I’m looking forward to my sessions for the rest of the week…ok perhaps not the 5k run, but then I never look forward to that!
Have a great week and thanks for reading!
Zach
