Meal Plans

Once you figured out how many calories you should consume each day to maintain or lose weight, then you can begin to build your meal plan. I have been on a 2000 cal/day plan for the past 3 1/2 weeks and it seems to work for me. I happen to be working out everyday and sometimes twice a day. So I am burning a ton of calories, maintaining my muscle mass and losing weight. If you aren’t working out that much then you need to adjust the calories for weight loss (remember 1 pound of fat is 3500 calories) or get your butt moving! Just getting moving and walking can be the first step to incorporating an exercise plan into your daily routine. We all have the time, its just a matter of finding it in the day. Take away 30 minutes of TV, or instead of taking a long lunch walk for half of it, get up 20 to 30 minutes earlier. Part of wanting to really make a change in your health and wellness is COMMITTING! So commit yourself to exercising in some form everyday for 20 to 30 minutes. Once you get in a habit of doing it, it will become part of your daily routine.

So the more frequent meals you have throughout the day, better! Think of your body as a fire that needs fuel to keep burning. Food is your fuel! You wan to keep your metabolism burning throughout the day, from morning till evening. Breakfast is the MOST IMPORTANT meal of your day! You’ve probably heard that a million times. It’s so true. You just spent the last 6-8 hours resting your body, now it’s time to jump start your metabolism for the day. How do you do that? By fueling the fire. I will talk about this later on, but when you fuel the body it is pointless to give it fuel that has no substance. Your body needs energy to work efficiently. So if you are fueling it with empty calories, it is pointless. You will be fine for a satisfied for a little while, but then your body will burn out. You need to get rid of the foods, drinks that are not fueling your body efficiently and give it some real sustainable food (I will give you examples later).

So instead of boring you, I will go into an example of my daily food intake (based on 2000 calories). If you are interested in knowing what your daily food intake should be and how to distribute the calories efficiently throughout the day you can ASK ME.

Workout Day:

5:30 AM - 1/2 apple (30 cal) or 1 banana (80 cal) or 1 scoop Metagenic Rice protein shake (95 cal), 16-20 oz of water (we just spent the last 6-8 hours resting and our bodies are dehydrated, so HYEDRATE!)

6:00-7:00 AM- Circuit Training with Group (8/10 on intensity level, most days; includes weights, plyometrics, abs)

7:30 AM – Breakfast (400 calories) I have a lot of different combo recipes I use to make sure I get my 400 cal breakfast in. This morning I had…

2 whole eggs (140 cal)

1 egg white (30 cal)

1/2 green pepper (10 cal)

1/2 cup mushrooms (10 cal)

1 cup spinach (10 cal)

1/4 cup onion

garlic clove

1/2 cup diced grape tomatoes (25 cal)

1 T Feta cheese (15 cal)

1/2 apple (30 cal)

1 T almond butter (95 cal)

So I took about a teaspoon of olive oil (I’m not super picky with counting the calories on this unless I’m using a ton, you can also use a spray to sauté) and sautéed my veggies in a pan and then added my eggs to the plan and toped it off with the tomatoes and feta and a dag of hot sauce. I didn’t add salt, but a bit of pepper. I cut the apple into slices and dipped it into my almond butter. This whole breakfast is about 400 calories (its not exact, but I usually give or take a few calories each meal to even out in the end).

10:30 AM (200 cal snack) Usually 1 cup grapes with 3 teaspoons slivered almonds, or low fat string cheese with 1/2 fruit

12:30 PM (500 cal lunch) Usually a wrap with 3 oz of protein, veggies, whole grain tortilla, hummus with some veggies on the side (I will post more lunch options later). Yesterday I went to Chipotle and had the chicken bowl with no rice and little black beans, tons of sautéed veggies, lettuce and salsa.

3:00 PM (200 cal snack) veggies and hummus or cucumber, lettuce, hummus wrapped in turkey meat

6 or 7PM (500 cal dinner) 3 oz of protein, salad loaded with colorful veggies with olive oil and vinegar, topped with almonds or sunflower seeds for crunch.

I can have one more snack, but usually I’m full. I drink lemon water throughout the day and herbal tea. If I feel I’m hungry, usually I drink water first. Sometimes we are just thirsty and not hungry. I also try to get a second workout in during the week, but even one workout is enough.