Way back in the day, I lost a pretty good amount of weight by working out and eating nothing special. If Im being honest, my diet consisted of eat-what-I-normally-eat, except that when I wanted chips and salsa (my go-to snack food), I couldnt have it.
Of course it worked (full disclosure: theres only five pounds difference between the first and second picture, but apparently they were an important five pounds), but I couldnt keep up the workouts forever, for two reasons: I got bored, and my diet wasnt conscientious enough for long-term weight training. Basically, I didnt know how to eat for the exercise I was getting, and I was always fatigued and couldnt maintain.
I havent gone and ballooned up or anything, but Ive softened up a little. So when my friend Ali of Complete Physiqueyou may know her as Mrs. Hot Dog from Weddingbeeoffered me and a few other bees some long-distance personal training and nutrition counseling*, I figured I didnt have much to lose (except some flab).
After filling out some forms and a little back-and-forth about my schedule, she sent me some workouts and a meal plan. Now I can get behind meal planning! She told me exactly what to eat for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and some snacks, and exactly when to eat themthe only thing I had to figure out is how to prepare it so that Im likely to actually keep it up for a full twelve weeks.
I wont lie, the workouts are hard (for example, yesterday I did 75 squats, 45 push-ups, 150 jumping jacksand that was just the first third of the workout). I mean, I thought I was in pretty decent shape already, but Im sore in muscles I didnt even know I was working out. Its great! But the diet is so much harder.
Without having given it much thought, for the past few years Ive basically been eating a Mediterranean dietprimarily plant-based, mostly unprocessed foods (and, um, wine). Although Im not perfect about it, this (inadvertent) diet has allowed me to do a pretty good job of regulating my weight to within a few pounds of where I want to be. But its not exactly a muscle-building diet, and suddenly Im trying to eat 11-12 ounces of chicken, turkey, or fish per day.** It definitely takes some getting used to.
SO you might be seeing some slightly different recipes than usual around here for the next few months. Maybe Ill even like it by then. 😉
