I've been working out and eating healthy for about a year now and it has improved my quality of life more than I could ever have imagined. Here I am at the end of today's cardio session at the Y.
I feel like I'm finally shedding some of my unwanted fat and replacing it with muscle. There is nothing worse for a runner than to be slowed down and hampered by his own body weight, and that's how I feel I have been hampered for the past several years. I know that in the grand scheme of things the scales don't mean all that much because they can't distinguish between fat and muscle. But that doesn't mean we can just throw out the scales or that weight doesn't matter. The bottom line for fat loss is that you maintain a net calorie deficit over time. Just make sure you get the fundamentals down first -- eating healthy foods, getting enough protein and fiber in your diet, and getting enough rest and sleep for recovery. After my workout here is where I went.
It's our local Mennonite bakery. It's full of interesting signs like this one.
I grabbed a cup of coffee and did a little more Bible study before heading home to prepare lunch. What do I normally have for my mid-day meal? Well, today's a good example. Here are the ingredients that went into today's sandwich:
- avocado
- cheese
- lettuce
- tomato
- ham
- beets
- low calorie mayo
- sandwich bread
The result was a delicious meal accompanied by a tall glass of whole milk.
This should tide me over until dinner, when I usually focus on stuffing myself with lean protein sources like chicken, beef, or fish. It is not necessary for you to maintain a perfectly consistent diet plan; it's more about what you do for a week on average. Remember that fat loss nutrition is all about how you eat in the long term, so going overboard with calories here and there is not a really big thing. Not only that, but if you're weight training, a certain number of those calories will go into muscle growth anyway.
Well, sorry for this belabored blog post, but it sometimes helps me to verbalize my thoughts about diet and exercise so that I can better develop a bodybuilding diet plan that is efficient and sustainable in the long term.
As always, thanks for reading.
Dave