Day 4 - Eat REAL Food

You should now understand how many calories you should eat to properly fuel your body and promote weight loss and what those calories should be composed of. Let's take a closer look at the what it means to eat real food.

Take a mental note. What have you eaten in the past 24 hours? Did you consume any local, pasture raised, pesticide free eggs? How about a bountiful salad with a large amount of varied vegetables? Did you drink fresh water and herbal tea? Did you consume most of your food from a package? Did you order your food from a window and eat in your car? Could you pronounce even half the ingredients listed on the nutritional information? Did the food you eat make you feel energized and alive? Or did it make you drowsy, gassy, constipated, have diarrhea or uncomfortably full where breathing felt difficult?

I define real food as food that has one ingredient. An apple is simply that, an apple. This chart is very helpful in understanding the best choices you can make.

I challenge you to begin looking at what you are really consuming in your diet. I don't expect you to make radical changes instantly. Just take 15 seconds of your time to look at the nutritional information of the product. Begin to ask yourself this question: Is what I am about to eat going to benefit me or harm me? The food you choose to eat can either give you health or disease. It is really that simple. You might only have digestive issues initially, but over your lifespan, you are actually causing disease, illness, chronic health problems and decreased lifespan through your choices.

 

 Although that sounds depressing, the flip side is that you are in control of your health simply by making educated and purposeful decisions with what you put in your mouth. It doesn't have to be complicated.  I hope you feel empowered to understand you are in control of your body. You can make wise choices. Food can make you feel energized, alive, vibrant, refreshed, nourished and satiated.

 

 

- FitWhitt

Day 3 - Macro what?

The previous post walked you through step by step how to calculate your daily caloric needs. Today we will address where those calories should come from.

Calories are a unit of measure for energy. Our body uses this energy to sustain all the functions of living. We are constantly burning calories as energy even during sleep. It takes energy to exchange air in our lungs or for our heart to pump blood throughout our body.

When we relate calories to food, we are actually referring to the amount of energy the food will provide for our body as fuel for metabolic needs. Weight loss occurs when we burn more energy than we consume.

A macronutrient is a required substance for living organisms. The three main macronutrients are protein, carbohydrates and fat. There are varying theories as to how much of each your body really needs, but I am taking a conservative approach and including an almost even amount of all three. I will be using a 40/30/30 split. That means that of my daily caloric needs, 40% will come from protein and 30% will come from carbohydrates and fat.

Macronutrients provide calories needed for bodily functions. They yield differing amounts. One gram of protein provides 4 calories. One gram of fat provides 9 calories. One gram of carbohydrates provides 4 calories. This explains why healthy fats have a large calorie price tag. It does not take as much volume of fats to reach the caloric needs compared to a protein source.

These macronutrients all serve different purposes in our body and are important. Protein is important in maintaining and creating muscle tissue. If you lift weights, you will need a significant more amount of protein than the standard recommended daily amount. Lifting weights breaks down the muscle tissue and dietary protein intake is necessary to rebuild that broken down protein. Carbohydrates are considered protein (muscle) sparing. This means that if adequate amounts of carbohydrates are available to your body, the body will use them as fuel first and use the protein for growth and repair. If you do not have a sufficient amount of carbohydrates, your body might turn to muscle to break it down for fuel. This is why timing your carbohydrates around your training is an effective strategy for weight loss and muscle building. Fats are very important! Do not believe the trend that low fat is a good thing. Fats are required for hormone syntheses and keep your hair, skin and nails healthy. We will go into more detail about each of these important macronutrients in future posts.

 

The main concept I want to enforce with this post is actually the importance of eating real food. Take a moment to realize that the food you are choosing to eat is more than just what might have sounded tasty. It is literally the fuel your body uses to provide all necessary energy needs for your body to function.

Stay tuned to learn about the importance of whole food (real food) and meal planning.

- FitWhitt

Email questions at fitwhitt@gmail.com

Day 1 - GRIT

Grit -  a positive, non-cognitive trait based on an individual’s passion for a particular long-term goal or end state coupled with a powerful motivation to achieve their respective objective. This perseverance of effort promotes the overcoming of obstacles or challenges that lie within a gritty individual’s path to accomplishment and serves as a driving force in achievement realization.

 Be willing to start over. Be willing to learn. Be willing to try again. Be willing to fail and fail hard.

I've had success with personal health and fitness goals, but I have also failed. The issue of losing weight is never truly the hardest part. The hardest part is finding that magic balance of maintenance. I am sharing my journey as I attempt to find and achieve balance. I will be sharing as much as I can with all of you.

On Sundays, I will be sharing my nutrition and training plan with you. Be patient with me because I promise I will go into further detail as the week progresses on how I created my plan. I know how to loose weight fast, but that is not my goal. My three goals with my nutrition and training plan are: to preserve as much muscle as I can, to maintain high energy levels for my workouts and to gain strength while achieving a leaner physique. Because I still desire to not only preserve my current muscle mass but build more, I am keeping a large amount of carbohydrates and calories into my plan. This will truly be a first for me.

Here is this weeks nutrition and training plan. I will be explaining how I came to my exact nutrition plan/numbers in the following posts this week. I will be eating more than I ever have but it is all science based so I am giving it a try. I know what I need to do to get lean but I am on a mission to not only be healthy and lean on the outside but healthy and lean on the inside.

Four days a week I will be lifting in the gym and preforming marathon training. On these days my calorie goal is 2400 calories a day. I will create a 750 calorie a day deficit (how I came to this deficit goal will be explained in a future post later this week) with training alone on these days so I will not be cutting any calories from my maintenance BMR/activity level diet.

Three days a week I will be working so I will only be preforming light cardio these days. I will create a 750 calorie a day deficit through a combination of training and diet. On these days my calorie goal will be 1700.

I will be incorporating one rest day a week. On this day I will be creating my calorie deficit with diet alone, so my calorie goal this day will be 1400.

My nutrition macronutrients daily goal is 40% of my diet from protein sources and 30% from carbohydrates and fat sources.

Here is my diet plan for this week.
'
2,400 Calorie Day

1,700 Calorie Day

1,400 Calorie Day

I schedule my workouts around my work schedule. I work 12 hours shifts as a nurse three days a week. I designed a 4 day weight training split around my non-work days since I will not have time on work days to train.

My training routine is long. I LOVE to lift weights. It is honestly my favorite thing to do. I am allowing a large increase in my calories to allow for an extended lifting session. This will be something I will have to monitor closely to make sure I am fueled appropriately but also well rested and not over training.

Training Schedule
Sunday: Marathon Training (3 miles) & Glute Training

Monday: Light Cardio (work night)

Tuesday: Marathon Training (6 miles)  & Back/Biceps/Abs

Wednesday: Light Cardio (work night)

Thursday: REST (work night)

Friday: Marathon Training (3 miles) & Glute Training (Plyo and functional cardio)

Saturday: Marathon Training (11 miles) & Shoulder/Chest/Triceps/Abs

Glutes - Heavy
Hack Squat 4x10
Reverse Hyperextension 4x15

Single Leg Pressdown 3x10
Cable Kickback 3x10

Butt Blaster 3x10
Sumo Squat - weighted 3x12

Abductor 3x12
Curtsy Lunge - weighted 3x12

Step Ups- weighted 3x12
Stiff Leg Deadlift 3x10

Smith Squat - Low 3x10
Hip thrust - 3x10

Donkey Smith Press - to failure

Back/Biceps/Abs
3x15,12,10 - Drop Sets
Lat Pull-down
CG Seated Row

CG Seated Pull-down
One Arm Row

Straight Arm Press down
Hyperextension- weighted

Hammer Curl
Barbell Curl

Preacher Curl
Alternating Dumbbell Curl

Glute - Plyo/Light
3x15
Box Jump
Cable Squat

Lateral Jump
Cable Kickback

Abductor
Pop Squat - On Step Ups

Split Squat Jump
Bulgarian Squat

Butt Blaster
One-Leg Squat

Functional Finisher
2x10
Burpees
Kettle Bell Swing
Renegade Row
Pull-up
Pushup
Mountain Climbers

Shoulder/Chest/Triceps/Ab
3x15,12,10 - Drop Sets
Dumbbell Press

DB Single Lateral Raise
Cable Front Raise

Rear Delt Flye
Rear Delt Rope Pull

Flat DB Press
Inclince DB Fly

Pullover
Machine Flye

Rope Pulldown
Overhead Ext
Dips

This week I will be addressing: how to find your BMR/calorie goal, meal planning, macronutrients, recipe of the week, FitWhitt approved products and an example of how to live a life of balance.

Email me at fitwhitt@gmail.com with any questions.

Exercise description and examples can be found on bodybuilding.com and exercise directory.

- FitWhitt