This trainer's diet EXPOSED!

One of the most difficult things about reaching health and fitness goals is figuring out what to eat on a daily basis. I tell my clients, "YOU CAN'T OUT TRAIN A POOR DIET!" 


I don't necessarily have a "diet" for my clients, I just try to encourage them to eat less CRAP- Carbonated drinks, Refined sugar, Artificial sweeteners, colors, and Processed foods, follow generally-accepted, healthy diet suggestions. The goal is to consistently get in the habit of eating more real food in well balanced quantities throughout the day. I never tell my clients exactly what to eat; how else would they learn to do it on their own?


People always want to know what I eat so my plan is to take you on a journey with me and completely "expose" my own highs and lows of dieting and exercise to reach my personal goal (found below) by the end of May, 2012. I am merely doing this as a way to show that no one is perfect (not even your trainer), and it truly is one of the most challenging things to do; diet and exercise consistently to reach a specific goal, make changes, and stick with it. Many of my clients' goals are different than mine, and I try to help them follow a much more sane regime that they can adapt for their life, not for just 6 or 8 weeks. So here I am, putting myself "out there" to understand just exactly how difficult it can be. 


Since I already followed a healthy diet consistently, it wouldn't be very challenging to maintain it, so I chose a different goal. What follows is my way of going through what the average person (my clients) might go through while adapting to a whole new healthy lifestyle from "square one". 

CAUTION: this is not meant for the average "Jack" or "Jill" to follow at home. 

OK, so I'm not exactly starting from "square one", but I will admit I have fallen prey to the "slacker syndrome" with both diet & exercise a little bit (ok, fine, a lot) in the last year working full-time and dealing with various injuries that slowed me down considerably. 


Where I'm starting from & what's my goal:
When I started, two weeks ago, I weighed in at 140 lbs, I'm 5'7", and going to be 40 this year! Last week I had my body fat measured with calipers and it is about 14% and at the time I weighed 138 lbs (no I will not post my before picture... no one gets to see my girl-boxers and bed head except my hubby). My goal is to achieve 10% body fat by the end of May for a photo shoot. 

DISCLAIMER-This is not a body fat percent anyone should try to achieve, I would not recommend it for my clients, and I don't intend to stay there after achieving it.

I figured since I consider hiring a quality trainer is one of the smartest things a person can do to reach their goals as efficiently and safely as possible, I reached out to a trainer that knows exactly how to help me with this specific goal!  


I decided to consult one of the Pros (literally), Isaiah Southward, to get a customized prescription to lose fat and get lean. You can learn more about Isaiah here: http://www.isaiahsouthward.com/ He's pretty freakin' amazing! I think his bicep is bigger than my thigh. He's made his way through the bodybuilding ranks completely natural! He barely even agreed to let me use a whey protein powder supplement! sheesh! 


So, I called him up, recruited him for my cause, and he responded with a custom diet and workout schedule to reach my goal as efficiently and safely as possible based on where I'm starting from and where I want to be at the end of May.


Here are some of the things that are going to help me along the way, and you also get to see what I'm eating tomorrow (and the next day, and the next day. . .)! Planning is KEY to making this, and any healthy diet, work. It may take a little time upfront, but the investment pays off big time! In general, this is what I'm eating, with only slight variations, every day. 

I've got slow-cooking oatmeal with a Tbs of natural peanut butter and a couple egg whites for the morning. Baked talapia (measured by the ounce) with no sodium seasoning & lemon juice, and a cup of steamed green beans for late morning. Lunch will be chicken (not pictured because it was still cooking) measured to the ounce, and a cup of sweet potatoes. I'll sip on some green tea in the early afternoon, and then dig into plain tuna and a couple of egg whites in the late afternoon. (mmmm, yummy!) For dinner, I'll either have fish again, or 3-4 oz of lean red meat depending on my workout that day. The goal is 1,700-1,800 calories a day eating every 3 hours or so. 

60-120 oz of water is NOT an easy task!! Sometimes I get there, sometimes I don't, but I give it my best every day! I use a scale to actually measure my food so I know I'm eating exactly the right amounts of lean proteins. Everyone should have a scale and USE IT!

My tools to assist me along the way: running shoes, the new app STRAVA to track my runs on my iPhone, headphones & iPod loaded with audiobooks, and my Garmin watch to give me all sorts of important data!! 

I hope you decide to follow along on this journey with me, good, bad and ugly. Considering I could happily snarf down a bucket of cookie dough on a daily basis (although I never actually have), this will be no easy task for me. 


Sorry for the long post. 


AB