Hey ,
Couple things today.
First, last week I shared with you the changes that I've been making to my training regimen over the last 6 weeks, and I promised to send you
one of my fav metabolic conditioning workouts so you can try it out. I attached it to this email for you.
Second, I received quite a few emails in response - which I always love, thank you - and many gals asked me to provide an idea of how I eat day to day. What was actually awesome about these requests though, was almost everyone who asked also said, "But I know, I know, I need to find what works for me!" Ha! Yes! Exactly. Glad we are all on the same
page.
And right now, I know you want to skip down to the bottom of this email and see what I eat, but I NEED for you to read this email in its entirety to understand exactly why I do what I do and I how arrived here.
How I eat is not like the meal plans you see in Oxygen magazine. I don't eat "clean" 24/7. I
like wine and cheese, and many of you might be surprised at how little I eat comparatively (even though I have never experienced less hunger and cravings in my life).
But I warn you, if you start calculating calories and comparing it to how you eat and want to tell me I am doing it all wrong, you are missing the point. I would never advocate someone eat the way I do. Why? Because my way is for me. It's not for anyone else. And here's the absolute truth:
Following my eating regimen and exercise routine to the T will not work for you.
It won't. As much as you want it to, as much as you want the guidance and the advice and the certainty and "the rules" and to try it out. The #1 rule? There are no rules. There's only the approach that will work FOR YOU long-term, and you find it by looking inward and doing the work.
It took me THREE YEARS to understand my body, my metabolism, identify my likes and dislikes and pinpoint my psychological sensitivities. As much as I dieted in the past, I actually didn't know myself all that well. I was following other people's diets, off-the-shelf plans, etc, to the point that I didn't have a clue what to eat and was scared I was going to mess up and gain 10 lbs every second. This was a debilitating place to be. I was anxious all the time because
I was not able to follow "clean eating" meal plans and when coaches said, "Welp, I don't know what to tell you -- you have to just be compliant," it made me feel like a huge failure every time I inevitably couldn't be compliant. It was all negative self-talk all day long.
I know now that the reason I couldn't comply was because not only was my willpower completely drained after trying to white-knuckle my way through the days and weeks, but I wasn't taking
me into account. In fact, it was precisely because I tried to follow other random programs with no room for messing up that I ended up so far away from listening to my body, my intuition and what I actually could live with long-term. I had no anchor.
It was the incessant program following that got me in trouble in the first place.
So with that said, the last thing I want you to do is see how I eat and try to do the exact same thing. It won't work as a long-term strategy.
Can it give you ideas? Sure. It can certainly provide perspective and insight, but the one thing you need to remember is that the approach that I now use is the culmination of many years of trial and error and
messing up and learning and growing and goals changing and priorities shifting and also getting okay with not being a perfect little dieter.
My current regimen is the result of 3 things:
- Understanding myself better - figuring out the least effective dose of exercise and the most automated way of eating to maintain my physique with little mental effort and time. For me, I got to the
point of food obsession and was finally miserable enough to start trusting myself and trust the outcomes, whatever they might have been.
- Being okay with shirking "the rules," and letting go of the need to be perfect every second.
- Shifting my mindset to the point that I didn't feel the need to be constantly losing weight. I am happy now if I lose a little
and I am happy if I don't lose another pound. Again, a mindset shift that took me a really long time to get to!
One other consideration, for me personally -- and this is something I now know about myself, and chances are it's different for you -- I don't want to think about food all the time. I don't want to prep food and cook a bunch of stuff and obsess over having to eat 6 prepped meals out of Tupperwares every day. That feels like
a fulltime job to me. I think for some people, they enjoy that and that's totally fine and honestly I could probably get leaner if I didn't those things, too. But that's not my priority.
My priority is low obsession. I want easy. I want intuitive. I want to be an automated eater. And most importantly, I don't want to berate myself constantly for not doing it all perfectly.
With
that said, here's what a normal day looks like for me lately:
- Wake up and drink ~16 oz coffee pre-workout (sometimes black and sometimes with half&half)
- 8:30am 30-min workout with Tara, usually metabolic conditioning or sprints
- 9am Leisure walk
- 10:30am Protein shake made with ~30g protein, 2 TB PB2, ½ cup frozen cherries, 10 oz unsweetened almond milk, 1 TB unsweetened cocoa powder
- 11am ½ Quest Bar (I do Intermittent Sampling throughout the day)
- 2pm I normally get a huge BAS
from Whole Foods Salad bar - typically it's 12 oz lean protein, 3-4 cups of mixed greens, 1 cup cabbage, ½ cup each onions, peppers, mushrooms, carrots, ¼ cup sautéed garlic, grilled corn, a few spoonfuls of shaved parmesan cheese & a light Greek dressing on top -- I eat half of this around 3pm
- 5pm: I eat the other half of my BAS + 2g fish oil
- 6pm Leisure
walk
- 7pm 2 glasses of Malbec or Pinot Grigio, ½ Quest bar
- 9pm Bedtime
This is essentially 3 full meals + 1 snack + 2 glasses of wine, water throughout the day. See all the details ongoing on
Instagram.
