I’ve been wanting to do this post for a while and finally got pictures of my daily eats this past Saturday. This is a weekend day of eats and not my typical weekday, but maybe I will do a weekday one later.
In October when I signed up with a coach (SD Evolution) to work on powerlifting and building muscle, I also decided to sign up for the nutrition plan as well. Basically they provide me with what my daily macros should be based on my goals and I try my best to meet the number of grams in eat category (fat, protein, carbs) daily.
To my surprise, I learned I was not eating enough. This is mainly because my focus is to build muscle and to build muscle you need your carbs and protein. In the last couple years, I have learned that my body does better with higher fat and fewer carbs. However, to incorporate more carbs into my diet, I have tried to add in more fruits and veggies. I will say this particular day was not a great example of fruits and veggies, but during the week I usually eat a daily salad.
Saturday morning I started off with a bowl of the new chocolate and peanut butter cheerios with almond milk and some bacon for some protein on the side. On a typical day I would have oatmeal, but I have been buying cereal from time to time to switch things up.
I then decided to have a Smores Luna bar because I was still kind of hungry. I also drank an Advocare rehydrate pack.
Fast forward to lunch time after running errands in the morning, I had some shredded chicken breast so I weighted 4.5 oz of that and topped with my favorite Wegmans salsa (2 tbsp) and finished up some pickles in the fridge.
Again I decided that wasn’t enough food so I finished up the last little bit of salsa in the jar (another 2 tbsp) and paired it with Everything bagel pretzel crisps (I recently started to buy these over chips since they have the carbs without the fat). I also got in some more protein with a couple slices of Honey ham and a slice of cheese. I don’t eat cheese often but sharp cheddar is my favorite and pairs well with honey ham. I also like buying the pre sliced so I can easily count the macros.
I ended my lunch with a handful of Lily’s dark chocolate chips. These are also the best for macro counting because a serving is 60 chocolate chips which I feel like is a lot and therefore makes my eyes and brain feel more satisfied rather than eating 1 square of chocolate.
Mid afternoon, I made my favorite almond butter muffins for part of my meal prepping for the week. I couldn’t resist eating one as well. I inputted the recipe into My Fitness Pal so I can easily track these. They are pretty high fat with the almond butter, but delicious and fit into my daily tracking. There is also some protein in them which makes them a great snack.
For dinner, I had a mix of my leftover shredded chicken (2.5 oz) with some buffalo style spiedie chicken (3 oz) and I decided to put them in a multigrain Flatout wrap which has 9g of protein per serving! I topped it with a bit of spinach leftover from a salad but didn’t track that because it was really just a few spinach leaves. To fit in more veggies, I made some steamed broccoli, which is probably my favorite veggie besides roasted Brussel sprouts.
I then ended the night with half a grapefruit, another handful of Lily’s chocolate chips and some honey wheat pretzels.
Now that I look at my day, I realize there was quite a bit of chocolate in there…I like chocolate, but hey, if it fits your macros and you are eating a balanced diet, I see nothing wrong.
My macro totals for the day were: Protein 132g, Carbs 206g, Fat 57g.
My current macro daily targets are Protein 130g, Carbs 237g and Fat 70g so my fat and carbs were a bit low on Saturday, but it was a rest day and I was happy to hit my protein goal. A lot of days, hitting 130g of protein can be difficult for me, but I ate a lot of chicken which helped me. Usually I will have a protein shake with some protein powder or some collagen which has 18g of protein per serving. It has taken practice to track everything and honestly some days I don’t (for example valentine’s day, I tracked most things but not all the dessert I ate). I believe it’s ok to have some days where you go a little over as it all averages out. Most of the time I try to stay on track though. I prefer to make my own meals anyway. It really helps to plan out my meals the day before, especially during the week as I will bring snacks and my lunch and sometimes my dinner, if I have somewhere to be after work, with me. Since I have increased the amount of calories I eat and worked on my protein intake, it has really helped me start to build muscle and lean out as well. I also find I have better recovery after workouts and am not as sore. Of course I have also recently added more stretching into my routine so that is probably helping too. It is all a learning experience and I know for my first meet I have quite a bit of room in my weight class so I don’t have to be super strict on my eating. In some ways, I should be gaining a bit of weight due to muscle, but I have definitely noticed quite a bit of fat loss in the last few months and the number on the scale has only changed by a couple pounds.
Do you count macros?
Sharing is Caring:
Leave a Reply