Mr. Consistency

For most of us, eating is :

Morning--- rushed breakfast or nothing at all
Lunch-- Eating out during work, with limited healthy options
Mid-afternoon-- Hit up the vending machine
Dinner-- Whatever takes least amount of time to cook, or drive- thru

These days our lives are so fast paced that we rarely have time to eat prepared meals or even think about what we are putting in our bodies--- All we care is that it satisfies the hunger cravings without taking a lot of time or money!

If anyone were to ask you--
How many calories do you think you consume daily?
How many grams of protein/carbs/fats do you consume a day?
--Unless you have tracked what you are eating, it would be extremely hard to answer these questions.

The hard truth is, that in order to correctly achieve your weight/strength/performance goals you would need to know these numbers.

I will tell you what these numbers do for you in later posts, but for now let's talk about the easiest way to track what you put in your body.

• Pre-Schedule your eating times

-Aim for 6 smaller meals a day
-Easiest way to do this is eat a smaller breakfast, lunch, and dinner and then add in snacks
- Go ahead and set times to eat and stick to them
For Example, here's my eating plan:
8:00 am -smaller breakfast (Honeynut Cheerios w/ low carb protein shake)
10:30am- mid morning snack (Protein Bar)
12:00pm- smaller lunch-- (Turkey sandwich on wheat, carrots, granola bar)
3:30 pm-- Mid Afternoon- (Wheat crackers and protein shake)
5:30 pm -- Pre-workout snack-- (banana or sugar-free energy drink)
7:30 pm-- Post workout snack-- (protein shake and 1/2 cup low fat yogurt)
9:00pm -- Dinner (2 Grilled Chicken breasts with broccoli)
11:00pm-- Bedtime snack --(Protein Shake before bed)

NOTE **The key is to eat about every 2.5 hours. Never let yourself go hungry. By not letting yourself get hungry you will tend to choose foods more wisely instead of waiting for the cravings to kick in!**

This meal plan is about 3,000 calories. Which is fine for me (6'2 250lb active individual) because I need the calories to workout. I also could tell you how much protein, carbs, and fats I usually eat because I use food diary websites to help me out--- Check out the daily plate- Set your daily nutrition needs to suit your lifestyle.

--But hardly anyone has time to put in what they eat everyday into a website!! Well I have a solution!

I tend to eat the same things everyday or stray very little. So entering just this one day's calorie count helps me gauge my calories and protein count for my other days.

- I'm not saying eat the same thing everyday but at least be consistent in the foods you are putting in your body. Maybe have three or four days worth of foods you normally eat that you mapped out on a food diary website. This way you can easily guess what you are putting in your body and how you are coming along on the calorie count! This saves you the time of entering in the diary everyday!!!