My Detailed Meal Plan for a Fit Body

First off, I want to introduce you to a friend of mine who is doing a wonderful thing. He saw a need for nutrition consulting for the general public that didn't cost an arm and a leg and decided to build a website to offer such services for free.

His name is Seth Carr and he is the People's Nutritionist.

The following meal plan was designed for myself in particular but it can be applied to anyone with the same caloric needs. To give an example I am 5'8", weigh 118 lbs and am a 26 year old female who performs moderate workouts for an hour 3-4 times a week. The goal of this meal plan was designed to maintain weight and build muscle. If you are interested, you can contact him for free consultations and to go over what is needed to get you to your desired goal by contacting him here.

2,000 to 2,100 kcal diet template

Breakfast:

 ½ cup oatmeal (150 kcal, 27 g CHO, 3 g fat, 0.5 g sat fat, 5 g PRO, 4 g fiber) 

with 1 tbsp flaxseed (37 kcal, 2 g CHO, 3 g fat, 0.3 g sat fat, 1.3 g PRO, 2 g fiber)

in 1 cup of almond milk (60 kcal, 8 g CHO, 2.5 g fat, 1 g PRO, 1 g fiber);

1 whole large egg (78 kcal, 0.6 CHO, 5.3 g fat, 1.6 g sat fat, 6.3 g PRO) 

1 large egg white (17 kcal, 0.2 g CHO, 0.1 g fat, 3.6 g PRO)

cooked in 1 teaspoon of olive oil (39 kcal, 4.5 g fat, 0.6 g sat fat);

1 medium naval orange (69 kcal, 17.6 CHO, 0.2 g fat, 0.1 g sat fat, 1.3 g PRO, 3.1 g fiber)

Snack #1:

reduced fat mozzarella cheese stick (50 kcal, 2.5 g fat, 1.5 g sat fat, 7 g PRO)

1 large raw carrot (31 kcal, 7.3 g CHO, 0.2 g fat, 0.1 sat fat, 0.7 g PRO, 2.1 g fiber)

Lunch:

 sandwich w/2 slices of wheat bread (228 kcal, 44 g CHO, 2 g fat, 1g sat fat, 6 g PRO, 4 g fiber)

3 oz turkey breast (87 kcal, 3.6 g CHO, 1.5 g   fat, 0.3 g sat fat, 14.4 g PRO, 0.3 g fiber), 

1 cup spring mix (7 kcal, 1 g CHO, 0.7 g PRO, 0.2 g fiber), 3 slices of tomato (16 kcal, 3 g                         CHO, 1.5 g fiber), 

1 tbsp mustard (9 kcal, 0.9 g CHO, 0.6 g fat, 0.3 g sat fat, 0.6 g PRO, 0.6 g fiber);

1 medium apple (93 kcal, 24.7 g CHO, 0.3 g fat, 0.1 g sat fat, 0.5 g PRO, 4.2 g fiber);

¼ cup roasted unsalted or lightly salted almonds (207 kcal, 7.1 g CHO, 18.1 g fat, 1.4 g sat fat, 7.6 g PRO, 4.2 g fiber)

 Snack # 2 (pre-workout):

1 Luna bar (~ 180 kcal, 27 g CHO, 5 g fat, 2 g sat fat, 8 g PRO, 3 g fiber) Blueberry Bliss, Chocolate Chunk, Iced Oatmeal Raisin, Lemon Zest, Smores, or Toasted Nuts & Cranberry or 1 Balance bar (~ 200 kcal, 21 g CHO, 7 g fat, 3 g sat fat, 14 g PRO, 2 g fiber)

Snack #3 (post-workout):

½ cup white rice (121 kcal, 26.6 g CHO, 0.2 g fat, 2.2 g PRO); 

1 scoop Gold Standard 100% Whey Protein (130 kcal, 5 g CHO, 1 g fat, 0.5 g sat fat, 24 g PRO, 1 g fiber); 

1 cup frozen mixed berries (70 kcal, 17 g CHO, 5 g fiber)

Dinner:

½ cup black beans (113.5 kcal, 20.4 g CHO, 0.5 g fat, 0.1 g sat fat, 7.6 g PRO, 7.5 g fiber);

small baked sweet potato or ½ large (60 kcal, 13.8 g CHO, 0.1 g fat, 0.1 g sat fat, 1.3 g PRO, 2.2 g fiber);

 3 oz LEAN sirloin steak (156 kcal, 4.8 g fat, 1.8 g sat fat, 26.1 g PRO);

1 cup frozen broccoli & cauliflower (25 kcal, 3.5 g CHO, 0.2 g fat, 1.3 g PRO, 1.4 g fiber)

Total Calories: 2033.5 kcal to 2053.5 kcal

Total CHO: 260.3 g to 253.6 g (1041.2 kcal; 1014.4 kcal or 51.2%; 49.4%)

*Calories of CHO maybe ~10% lower to due insoluble fiber

Total fat: 55.6 g to 57.6 g (500.4 kcal; 518.4 kcal or 24.6%; 25.2%

Total sat fat: 13.5 g to 14.5 g (121.5 kcal; 130.5 kcal or 6.0%; 6.4%)

Total PRO: 126.5 g to 132.5 g (506 kcal; 530 kcal or 24.9%; 25.8%)

Total fiber: 47.3 g to 46.3 g

Substitutions

•    Egg whites, chicken breast, turkey breast, extra lean ham, and fish such as chunk light tuna, tilapia, cod, and shrimp are lean proteins and are interchangeable (3 egg whites; 3 oz servings meat)
•   Fattier meats (between 5 to 10 g fat per serving) such as lean ground beef, lean roast beef, lean cuts of steak, pork chops or pork loin, and fish such as salmon, sardines, anchovies, and trout are interchangeable (3 oz servings)

Ø  I recommended having more fatty fish per week versus red meat in order to increase Omega 3 Fatty Acid intake

Ø  2-3 times a week for red meat will get you enough iron

•   ½ cup oatmeal can be substituted with breakfast cereals at 3 grams or more fiber per serving (hint: not Lucky Charms, Trix, Fruity or Coca Pebbles, Honey Comb, Captain Crunch, Count Chocula, Boo Berry, Pops, Frosted Flakes, etc.)

Ø  Shoot for 10 grams of sugar or less per serving

Ø  Pay close attention to serving sizes on nutrition label

•  Fruits such as apples, oranges, pears, peaches, nectarines, plums, and kiwis are interchangeable

Ø  cherries and grapes too but should be kept at ½ to ¾ of a cup

Ø  1 large banana equals 2 fruit servings

Ø  melon and tropical fruit (minus the kiwi) are very sugar dense and so should be treated as 2 fruit servings

• Berries are all interchangeable and should be had once daily
•  Light mozzarella cheese stick can only be traded for lactose free yogurt if one daily fruit serving is eliminated (not the berries)

Ø  cheese has little to no sugar and is thus lactose free but the lactose free yogurt comes equipped with added sugar so watch out

•  1 large carrot can be substituted with other non-starchy brightly colored vegetables such as 1 red, yellow, or orange bell pepper, 3-4 mini sweet peppers or 1 tomato
•  Greens such as collard greens, turnip greens, mustard greens, green leaf and romaine lettuce, Swiss chard, and kale are interchangeable

Ø  spring mix contains a variety

• 2 slices of whole grain bread can be alternated with 1 large whole grain tortilla, 1 cup long grain brown rice, 1 cup quinoa / amaranth, and 1 cup whole grain pasta
• ½ cup refined white rice for post workout meal can be replaced with ½ cup white rice noodles, ½ cup white pasta, 1 medium flour or corn tortilla, 1 large piece of white bread, 1 small or ½ large Russet potato, 1 small or ½ large Yukon gold potato, 1 small or ½ large red potato, ¾ cup grits, or 1 cup cream of wheat 
•  ¼ cup almonds can be substituted with ¼ cup of any type of nuts or seeds

Ø  sodium can be a real problem here so purchase unsalted or lightly salted

Ø  2 tbsp of natural peanut butter or almond butter can be used on vegetables or on a sandwich in place of nut serving

•  The selected flavors of protein bars above are interchangeable since they were similar in Calories, PRO, and fiber

Ø  try and choose those with 5 grams of fat or less since fat is undesirable in a pre and post-workout meal due to it slowing digestion

Ø  also think of it as your multivitamin supplement plus Calories; since it’s jam-packed full of added vitamins coupled with lower fiber content, the micronutrients should absorb well

• ½ cup black beans may be substituted with kidney beans, pinto beans, garbanzo beans, navy beans, cannellini beans, etc. (you get the picture)

Ø  beans (legumes) contribute a lot of fiber to the diet and you may have some intestinal discomfort at first with this food

Ø  it is important as a CHO and PRO source plus it is a good source of iron

• Small sweet potato or ½ large sweet potato can be replaced with other starchy vegetables such as ½ cup corn, ½ cups peas, ¾ cup butternut squash, 1 cup spaghetti squash, 1 cup banana squash, ½ cup water chestnuts or, ½ cup garlic, ¼ cup edamame (soybeans; additional 5 grams fat) and 1 cup pumpkin
• Serving of cauliflower can be replaced with other white vegetables such as 1 cup white cabbage, ½ cup turnips,1 cup white mushrooms, and ¾ cup white onion
• Broccoli can be traded for any other green vegetable such as 1 cup green beans, 1 small cucumber, 1 cup Brussels sprouts, ½ cup artichoke hearts, 1 cup of any of the above leafy greens, 1 cup watercress, 1 cup bok choy,1 cup arugula, and 1 cup zucchini

Recommended H₂O intake

At a 2,100 Calorie diet, and individual should be drinking 2,100 milliliters (ml) of water which equates to 70 ounces (2,100 ml / 30 ml per ounce [oz] = 70 oz) or 9 cups daily (70 oz / 8 oz per cup = 8.75 cups; round up to 9 cups)

Approved Condiments

  pepper

Mrs. DASH seasoning

 any herbs and spices (salt free)

mustard

 Stevia

Cautioned Condiments (add Calories)

salad dressing (including low fat)

 tartar sauce

 BBQ sauce

 ketchup

 mayonnaise

marinades

 jams/jellies

gravies

 artificial sweeteners

Additional Notes

I attempted to decrease the amount of fiber in this diet to closer to the 25 grams per day as recommended for woman but trying to achieve this while maintaining nutritional integrity was a real chore. I did follow up research and learned that there are several individuals (even credentialed health professionals) that follow diets upwards in the 40 to 60 gram range without adverse effects. This seemed to be the norm especially amongst people follow a vegetarian or vegan diet. To prevent any discomfort, it is VERY important that you drink the amount of water daily as stated above. If the amount of fiber is giving you digestive issue, you can decrease it by peeling off the skins of fruits, subtract beans from the diet, get a juicer and juice your veggies, or change to white bread or refined grains (do this last). To maintain nutritional content of your vegetables, steam or use the microwave instead of boiling, pressure cooking, or frying. Vegetables where the nutritional content actually improves with cooking include tomatoes, carrots, asparagus, mushrooms, spinach, peppers, and cabbage. Also, you may have noticed that PRO is well above the 80.5 grams daily that we discussed but it still falls shy of the 30% marker for overall Calories from protein and therefore no big deal (you will just use the excess as an energy source and it won’t strain your kidneys as long as you have a healthy pair). I hope you find the above template customizable enough based on the substitutions list. To prevent burnout on your new diet plan, I recommend that you allow yourself 2 to 3 cheat meals per week (meaning that you treat yourself to something not on the nutrition plan). Now go and put it to good use!

**Disclaimer: These are all my honest opinions. I was not compensated in anyway for this post**

Work Out Wednesday

Man am I feeling it today. I've decided hopefully on a weekly basis to update my workouts and diet for the week; partially to hold myself accountable and hopefully to help others who are trying to get on track as well. I was supposed to go grocery shopping yesterday but that didn't exactly happen so I had to go fast food on the diet today.

Breakfast: 260 Calories

Mcdonald's Egg White Delight

Sugar Free Red Bull

Lunch: 346 Calories

Potbelly's Skinny Regular Chicken Sandwich with buffalo sauce, swiss, lettuce, onion, & pickle on wheat. Potbellys has awesome nutrition counter you can use on their site.

Snack: 170 Calories

Special K Double Chocolate Protein Meal Bar

Dinner: 450 Calories
Strawberry, Banana, and Pineapple smoothie with whey protein and apple juice.
Pre-Workout w/water

Post-workout Snack: 200 Calories

1/2 Toasted English Muffin 3/4 tbs. natural peanut butter

Total Caloric intake: 1426

Calories burned per MyFitness Pal: 300
Net calories: 1126 < right under my suggested amount

Now for those of you who think this is a good way of going about dieting I'm afraid to tell you that eating this way is not going to get you looking like this chick....

The terrible thing about fast food is the amounts of sodium! My sandwich at lunch alone probably had more sodium in it than my daily intake should be, same goes for Mcdonalds. It will help with the progress of losing a small amount of weight but I can definitely tell that my stomach is VERY bloated today despite the extra water I drank. The redbull doesn't help with this either but it is good to start your day with a source of caffeine to jumpstart your metabolism and my taste buds have yet to gain a liking towards green tea.

On to the workout!

I always like to start my workouts with Cardio to get my pre-workout drink to kick in.

Today I did an interval running outdoors

• 1/4 mile walk
• 1/8 mile fast walk
• 1/4 mile sprint
• 1/8 mile jog
• 1/2 mile sprint
• 1/4 mile fast walk

Total: 1 1/2 Mile- About 18 mins. (keep in mind I had to chase a puppy a few times)

100 Jumping jacks - I don't know what it is but I love the shit out of jumping jacks and I randomly do them throughout the day as well, sometimes to help wake me up.

Then I started my actual workout, while Winnie watched in amusement

Notes: I could not for the life of me figure out how to do the Oblique Crunch so I skipped over it and did an extra rep of each of the other workouts
On the Russian Twist I did bicycles with my legs instead of leaving them stagnant.

Source

Source

How are you workouts working out for you?

SunLabs Sunless Tanning Review and How To + Body Scrub

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I have had a tanning membership for as long as I can remember. I think the first time I tanned I was probably 15 years old. Now, don't get me wrong, I was never one to go tanning EVERY DAY or even every week. I usually would tan once every other week, if that, but I would stay in the full amount of time and rarely wore any sunblock. That is until now. Awhile back I learned that my mom has skin cancer and it has taken me a long time to realize the severity of this issue. Every month she has new spots come up that she has to go get removed or taken care of. The saddest thing of all is that she didn't have to be suffering from this. She was just like me and didn't really bother with sunscreen much and she used to go tanning as well. I'd like to think this whole experience is one that I will choose to learn from someone else's mistake and not go through it myself. Knowing that I am more prone to getting skin cancer I decided that I need to start taking care of my skin and my health. That lead me to try the sunless tanning experience!

After much research I came across SunLabs sunless tanning lotion. It has the best reviews out of any other tanning lotion in regards to ease of use, quality, price, and results. I normally have VERY fair skin, we're talking porcelain doll here people, so I was pretttty worried about turning in to one of the oompa loompas off of Jersey Shore. To test it out I decided to try putting it on just my legs. I read through quite a few blogs about how to apply it and watched my fair share of videos too and this is the process I came up with.

Sunless Tanner Application process:

Step 1:

Buy your products. I purchased all of my products from Ulta BUT! SunLabs website is having an awesome sale on their products. For $39.95+shipping you get

 1 Very Dark Self-Tanning Lotion 8 oz
1 Exfoliating Body Scrub 8 oz
1 Tan Maintaining Moisturizing Lotion 8 oz
1 Exfoliating Net Sponge
1 Sun Labs Beach Bag (Gift with Purchase)

Plus if  you add two other products to your cart you get a 25% off your purchase. Note: They have "freebies" you can add to your cart that will go toward this discount, although they are not free, but very cheap. 
I chose to purchase my products from Ulta because of their lenient return policy. 

The products I personally used are

Very Dark Self-Tanning Lotion 8 oz in color: Dark

100% Pure Cocoa kona Coffee Body Scrub
Cetaphil Moisturizing Lotion

Step 2:
Ex-foliate! This step is actually very important. In order to ensure that you will have an even tan with no patches you need to make sure to be very thorough with this step. To apply the ex-foliant you simply apply it liberally all over, including your face. To make sure I got all of the dead skin particles I rubbed my hands in a circular motion while applying the ex-foliant.

(Looks kind of funny, huh :p)

Step 3:

Shower and shave. Make sure you shave any areas that you have coarse hair that you will be applying the tanner to. Also, be certain to get ALL of the scrub rinsed off.

This is my preferred razor in case you were wondering.

Rinse Rinse Rinse! (And no I'm not in my birthday suit)

Step 4:

Dry off and apply your moisturizing lotion all over. Allow your lotion to dry completely.

Step 5:

Apply the awesome new sunless tanner you just purchased! A little hint I have for you is to keep your fingers tightly together while applying and apply in sections in a circular motion. Blend, blend, blend. You do not want to accidentally keep going over the same spot over and over again as it will make that area darker than others. One of the good things about this lotion is you can pretty much see where you are applying it because it is a dark colored lotion so that helps tremendously. Be careful not to get too much of the lotion on your joints or rough parts of your skin as it will be much darker( i.e. knees, elbows, knuckles, toes and ankles). I didn't think about this until after and I got a LOT on my toes but I went at them with a pumice stone and scraped those suckers clean.

If you decide to put it on your face, I mixed a little bit of my moisturizer in with the tanning lotion to make it more subtle.

OH! Wash and ex-foliate your hands often! The tanner will make your hands crazy dark and weird looking if you don't. :p I don't suggest using gloves because it may make it a bit streaky looking. 

Done! You will see subtle results pretty quickly, I'd say within 3-4 hours, and by the next morning you will look smokin' hot! DO NOT take a shower until the next morning to make sure the lotion has plenty of time to soak in and settle in to your skin.

Here are some before and afters. These were taken at different times of the day, but the results really were quite dramatic. 

 

(excuse the mess, we are in the process of moving)

Just to give you an idea, this was immediately after putting on the lotion. 

Reviews:

SunLabs UltraDark Sunless Tanning Lotion in Dark- I would give this tanning lotion 4 out of 5 stars. It was extremely easy to use and apply. It doesn't actually smell terrible like a lot of tanning lotions do. The color was very nice. I wouldn't say it was entirely a natural looking tan but it's the closest I have seen so far. The only down side to it was that even though I washed and ex-foliated my hands multiple times it still stained my hands, it did wash off after a day or so though. 

100% Pure Cocoa Kona Coffee Body Scrub- I loved and hated this body scrub. It worked SO well. My boyfriend even commented on how smooth my skin was and how nice it looked. My only complaint was the smell. I bought this scrub on clearance at Ulta and it was the only scent left but it was true to it's title. It smelt exactly like Coffee. Ew. Luckily it didn't overpower the scent of my body wash after rinsing it off. I would give this body scrub a 3 out of 5. Had I purchased it in a different scent, it would have a better rating. 

Feel free to leave me a comment if you have any questions!