Are you passive or aggressive with your life?
Take a minute and think about the question. That’s what I contemplated after reading this article by
Martin Rooney. Rooney describes how all success is determined by your view on MTE. For the minimalist, MTE stands for “Meet the Expectation.” For the high achiever, it means “More than Expected.” They are opposite sides of the same coin, but in many ways, MTE reflects whether you're passive or aggressive. Do you search for opportunities, set challenges and step outside your comfort zone? Or do you simply follow the beaten path and play it safe knowing that you'll still reach a desitnation?
I’ve always been one to push a little harder—but that doesn’t always mean it’s the best decision. I’ve pushed myself to the point of breaking my back (that happened twice), tearing every ligament in my left knee (somewhat of a freak accident), and smashing my teeth (it’s a long story and embarrassing). And while the bumps and bruises are not a necessary part of the journey, the perseverance and search for something special is something I’ve never regretted. It’s a reminder that as long as you refuse to be intimidated by the threat of a challenge, your destination will result in a worthwhile benefit.
That’s why I’ve decided to continue my aggressive pursuit of life by creating a fitness bucket list. I going to build an itinerary of challenges, experiences, trips, and goals, and seek out those opportunities. Life is too short to be passive and hope things will happen. That’s the mistake most people make with their health. They wait until they’re forced to change. Don’t wait. Do.
I’ll share my list in the coming weeks and keep you updated on my progress. One surprise item that I’ve already identified: Yoga.
I consider myself a relatively strong guy, but it wasn’t until I watched
this video that I realized how much strength was involved with yoga. The movements performed went far beyond my ability, which is why I decided to make this a priority. I saw the poses and realized a weakness. Maybe you’ll watch the video and feel the same way.
If you're searching for an unbeatable yoga experience, then circle September 10-15 on your calendar. It's the type of yoga experience that belongs on a bucket list. That’s when David Swenson and Shelley Washington are providing a
hands-on opportunity to teach Ashtanga Yoga to anyone willing to take on the challenge. It's a once in a lifetime experience. The best part? The entire event takes place at the Four Seasons Resort in Maui, the only AAA Five-Star resort in Maui. It’s the perfect way to reward yourself for taking on a new and different challenge in a location that can't be beat.
No matter what you do, I encourage you to start taking a more aggressive approach to life and your well being. It doesn't matter if it's a big event like the
Four Seasons or something small like eating greens twice per day--you need to be aggressive. Build an inventory of what you can do better, seek out great opportunities, and take action. That last step, more than anything, is the real secret to living a healthy life.
Are you up for our next challenge—and the chance to win cash?
Starting today you can join the LIVESTRONG.COM Best Post Workout Food Challenge.
We want you to SHOW us your Best Post Workout Food? Is it eggs with veggies? A power smoothie? A delicious Chicken Sandwich? You tell us.
Here’s how it works.
Time Period: The challenge starts Monday August 1st and runs through Sunday August 7th.
Rules: Take a picture of what you eat after your workout and upload it here. (You can also upload any recipes in the MyPlate database) Include the foods and ingredients and why it is your favorite. At the end of the week, one winner will be selected and awarded a $50 American Express gift card and a LIVESTRONG.COM t-shirt. You may upload as many submissions as you like, but an image is required.
Best of luck!
-Susy
Hello LIVESTRONG.COM Members,
You may have noticed a new weekly feature we started – Member of the Week.
Our goal is to highlight members on the site who inspire, motivate and encourage others to reach for their potential. Do you know a member who creates healthy habits, achieves new goals, and makes positive choices? If so, tell us. Submit your favorite and most inspiring Member of the Week, and tell us why they represent LIVESTRONG.COM
Has this member changed your life? Are they helping people on the site? We want to know.
Send in your submissions here.
Keep an eye out starting next week as we showcase a member submitted Member of the Week.
-Susy
Looking for a new workout and diet plan? We have a new approach that will take you out of the gym, and offer a flexible way of eating. We teamed up with UFC Personal Trainer, a new game dedicated to fitness, to help provide a comprehensive approach to improving your health. When you pick up the game, you now have the ability to track the fitness activities using
MyPlate. Simply do the activity, and then
log it here to find out how many calories you burned.
In combination with your new exercise program, we also created 30-day meal plans inspired by the different workout goals in the game. You can choose from three options: Build Strength, Cut Weight, and Build Endurance. Feel free to print out the linked pdf of the diet you want to follow, and use the meal template and shopping list to guide your experience. When you follow the meal plan, be sure to log your foods on MyPlate so you know your total calories consumed and burned.
After all, research has found that those who track their food lose 3.5 MORE pounds than those who don’t. In order to track, simply select the foods you eat from the MyPlate database, and enter the quantity you consumed. The calorie tracker will provide the rest of the details. Getting back in shape has never been this fun—or easy.
Download the UFC Build Strength Plan
Download the UFC Cut Weight Plan
Download the UFC Build Endurance Plan
Have you lost weight with MyPlate or The LIVESTRONG.COM Calorie Tracker? Share your success with your social network via your blog or personal website with the LIVESTRONG.COM weight progress widget. The weight widget will showcase your total pounds lost and can be installed in just seconds.
To implement your own fully customizable widget, click here.
Editor's Note: The following article was adapted from the new book SUGAR NATION, written by renowned author Jeff O'Connell. For more information on the book, click here.
Keith W. Berkowitz, M.D., medical director of the Center for Balanced Health in New York City, must have felt like he was addressing a conference of cancer experts, only to be handed a pack of smokes for his trouble. “I was asked to give a lecture on diabetes at a hospital trying to raise money for care, and for lunch they served salmon glazed with sugar,” he says. “Can you imagine?”
Unglazed, salmon ranks among the healthiest foods a diabetic can eat, packed with protein and healthy omega-3 fatty acids, with nary a carbohydrate in sight. But it makes no sense for those charged with leading the fight against diabetes to sweeten up a healthy food, especially one that’s tasty without it.
Such institutional ignorance has reigned for decades where diet meets diabetes. The American Diabetes Association and other organizations have focused on warning diabetics about the perils about dietary fat. Their logic: Diabetics will often die from heart disease (true), and dietary fat is the leading cause of heart disease (false). So diabetics are steered toward a diet high in carbs, which become glucose when ingested.
It sounds, well, crazy, but our national approach to a lifestyle disease characterized by chronically high blood sugar has been to funnel more and more sugar into the blood of type-2 diabetics. “We’re manufacturing type-2 diabetes in the same way we would skin cancer if the guidance was for people to sit on the beach all day, every day,” says Ron Raab, past vice president of the International Diabetes Federation.
Now that one in three adult Americans now has type-2 diabetes or pre-diabetes, the time has come to stop sugarcoating the truth. Hence my new book, Sugar Nation (Hyperion, 2011). I believe that our nation’s approach to the diabetes prevention and management has been a windfall for the pharmaceutical industry, prosthetic-limb makers, and, perhaps, those who breed seeing-eye dogs. For the rest of us, however, it’s been a complete disaster.
What’s worse, the rest of the world is mimicking our diet and following the lead of our diabetes guidelines. A very recent study by a team of experts working in concert with the World Health Organization pinned the number of diabetics at 350 million, 70 million higher than previous estimates, and more than double the number from 1980.
“Diabetes, along with obesity, is looming as the biggest epidemic in human history,” says Paul Zimmet, M.D., Ph.D., director of international research at the Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute in Australia.
So where’s the cavalry? If you think your doctor will rescue you, consider a 2006, University of North Carolina study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, based on surveys of all 126 accredited U.S. medical schools. A mere 30 percent of those schools were requiring students to take a dedicated nutrition course. Eighty-eight percent of the instructors surveyed said students were being underserved with nutritional science.
Okay, so how about food makers? Well, they pour 160 pounds of sugar per person per year into the food U.S. supply, a recipe for fat profit margins and waistlines both.
Insurance companies? Most don’t cover nutritional counseling for prediabetics, even though this is the last chance to forestall the onset of a dietary disease. Seems more than a little backwards, doesn’t it, like fastening your seatbelt after a crash.
Drug firms? They sell tens of billions of dollars worth of diabetes drugs every year to help us manage all that sugar. Diabetes will take its sweet time killing you, so you’ll be filling expensive prescriptions for years, if not decades, as it picks you apart.
THE SOLUTION LIES with you. If you’re among those with or threatened by type-2 diabetes, you can very likely beat the disease, starting with a diet overhaul. When I was diagnosed with prediabetes in 2006—a week after learning that my estranged father had lost a leg to the disease—I reengineered my diet. It wasn’t the only thing did; I also began exercising daily in specific ways, which I’ll outline in subsequent articles. But the cornerstone of my anti-diabetes plan was the elimination of what had become my metabolic poison: excessive carbohydrates, especially simple sugars.
The sugar load that comes from snack foods and soda has been divorced from the fiber that once surrounded it in foods; and concentrated in forms, such as soda, that allow vast quantities to jolt the bloodstream, panicking the pancreas and leading to an over-secretion of insulin. Our metabolic systems weren’t designed to handle anywhere near that load, and our body’s ancient sensors for hunger and satiety are now easily tricked.
My body certainly fell for it. For too many years, I asked my metabolic system, my body’s carburetor, to handle fuel it was never designed to handle.
Eventually, it broke.
Perhaps yours has as well. Fixing the problems of glucose intolerance and insulin resistance, which lead to chronically high and/or volatile blood sugar, and eventually type-2 diabetes, means learning basic truths about what you put in your body every day:
Control your carbs--or type-2 diabetes will control you. “The majority of Americans still think the ideal diet for their health is high in carbohydrate and low in fat,” says Rab. “To make a major difference in this diabetes epidemic, switching to a significantly lower-carbohydrate diet [should serve] as the mainstream advice.” A low-carb diet is ideal for anyone who has type-2 diabetes or is at high risk for it.
So how low is “low carb?” Someone with prediabetes or diabetes should be wary of consuming more than 100 grams of carbs a day, in my opinion, and those carbs should come from healthy sources such as vegetables and and nuts. The more you exercise, the more carb-tolerant your body will become. If you want to consume more than 100 carbs grams a day, work out more to account for them.
What can you eat? Here are the items I’ve used to ward off type-2 diabetes:
• Eggs (the best way to start your day, every day)
• Certain fruits (such as avocados, peaches, plums, apples, and cantaloupe)
• Certain vegetables (such as spinach, cucumbers, and celery)
• Certain nuts (such as almonds and walnuts; go easy on the cashews, which contain more than twice as many carbs as those two)
• All meat (such as turkey, chicken, and steak; exception: certain lunchmeats can be packed with a lot of sugar, and they’re not the healthiest option anyway)
• All fish (such as salmon, halibut, and sashimi, my favorite)
• Tuna, chicken, or egg salad (on lettuce wraps or Scandinavian Bran Crispbread)
• Soft cheeses (such as mozzarella and ricotta)
• Almond butter or cream cheese (great on celery for a snack!)
• Cottage cheese (spice it up with walnuts and cinnamon)
• Hummus (spread it on sliced cucumbers for a yummy snack)
• Herbal teas (with or without a packet of artificial sweetener)
• Coffee (with a nice splash of heavy whipping cream and no sweetener)
• Red wine (white wine, less frequently and in smaller amounts)
Complex carbs, like simple sugars, can easily be overconsumed. According to the experts with whom I spoke, a trickle of the wrong carbs is preferable to an avalanche of the better ones. Sure, whole-wheat bread falls lower on the glycemic index (GI) than white bread. Yet both products break down into glucose. The same goes for brown rice versus white rice. With a GI 10 points lower than white rice, carbs from brown rice enter the bloodstream more slowly. Yet they still arrive. Consume a lot of even low-GI carbs, and your bloodstream can become overwhelmed by too much glucose.
Whole foods are best, processed foods worst, but “engineered” foods can help you. These differ from typical high-calorie, processed foods—which harm rather than help the blood sugar-impaired—because engineered foods are designed to achieve specific means, rather than for mass production and consumption.
Protein powder is a prime example. Even more than healthy fats, protein forms the foundation of my low-carb diet. However, milk, for example, also comes with lactose, a simple sugar. The powder gives me what I want (protein) without the stuff that’s making me sick (sugar). All I have to do is blend the powder with 1 cup of cold water and a few ice cubes for the equivalent of a healthy milkshake.
A product like PaleoMeal fits with my eat-like-a-hunter-gatherer approach. It contains 13 grams of carbs, but 7 of them were fiber, so essentially it had only 6 grams of carbs. Other great ones are Isopure, by Nature’s Best; and Metabolic Drive, by Biotest. Both combine high-quality protein with few or no carbs. They also taste great. That’s what you want—something you’ll want to drink instead of a brew or soda.
No matter what, don’t assume you’re eating healthfully just because you’re not overweight. I’m tall, thin—and prediabetic. As it turns out, 10 to 15 percent of those with insulin resistance, the condition underlying type-2 diabetes, are not overweight. Among other populations, particularly in Asia, the percentage of normal-weight diabetics is actually much higher.
“People are eating a diet that predisposes them to diabetes, and that diet also causes a lot of people to gain weight,” says Dr. Wortman. “There are overweight people who don’t have metabolic problems, and normal-weight people who do have these problems. That’s telling us that weight gain isn’t the underlying cause of diabetes. Something else causes both, and it’s our [high-carbohydrate] diet.”
Adapted from SUGAR NATION, by Jeff O’Connell (Hyperion, 2011).
This week we celebrate Deb our Member of the Week. Deb joined LIVESTRONG.COM on July 3, 2009 and since that time has lost 125 pounds. Deb is truly an inspiration and testament that if you put your mind to something it can be done. Deb has tracked her food, exercised daily, and created a new life for herself by being diligent and committed.
Here is how it happened in Deb’s own words.
Like many of you, I stumbled somehow onto LIVESTRONG.COM when I weighed about 251 pounds in July 2009. I had very little hope of losing weight then, and had not been trying. But somehow that day, the journals of 2 women, one who started at 400 and lost 200 pounds, and another who started at 335 and lost 100, these 2 women really inspired me. I guess I thought, “Ok, you are not the fattest person in the world! If they can try, you can try.”
I made no promises to myself, not even that I could do anything for a week. I just decided to be honest with myself. I wrote what I thought of as a confessional, “what makes me fat”, where I really faced what I did, how I lived.
I looked at what foods were really challenging, what foods were really contributing to me being overweight. And I also looked at what foods and habits I could KEEP because they were okay. I did not think I had to change everything. You don’t have to change everything either.
So many people are down on themselves for being fat. I never was down on myself. I do not believe people should feel guilty, or sinful, or less desirable, less loveable, less honorable or bad just because they are big. I feel it is somehow unhealthy to think of the body as ugly. I feel grateful, at any weight, to have a body. A body that moves, that can do things, that can pick up things, that can walk. Our bodies were not meant to sit all day. They were meant to move.
WHAT I DO: I exercise DAILY, never missed a day!
HOW I EAT: I ask myself "what do you need, body?" It tells me. After 2 years, I still use Tracking to guide me, but often I can key in on my body, and it tells me what foods it wants.
NOTE ABOUT LIVESTRONG FRIENDS: I welcome new friends who write something in their food diaries. That way I can learn about what's going on in your life & process, stay in touch; comment; help each other.
Congratulations Deb, keep it up you inspire us to make LIVESTRONG.COM better every day.
~Susy
Over the last few weeks, we’ve been focused on debunking some of the biggest nutrition and fitness myths. At the same time, we’re highlighting the universal truths or success secrets we’ve come to learn from our most inspirational members who’ve achieved their healthy living goals. Hundreds of you sounded off on our post about the 6 Secrets of Skinny People – leading an engaged conversation about the daily diet and fitness practices that really matter.
In the spirit of continuing that discussion, we dug through our most moving, impactful success stories – extracting the simple, honest truths that have powered our member’s real life transformations. Here are five words of wisdom from individuals who have blazed a trail and inspired us to create our own successes along the way.
1.) Set small, quantifiable goals
Jacob didn’t like what his old lifestyle meant for his future. He decided to drastically change his weight and take on a number of athletic challenges. He’s now the healthiest he’s ever been. Jacob reminds us to focus on checkpoints instead of a finish line. Small, quantifiable goals kept him from becoming discouraged. Read more about his story here.
2.) Focus on gratitude
Brian battled a major health scare and immediately decided to transform his health. Now, he’s in the best shape of his life and a regular triathlon participant. He lives each day with gratitude for his health – which he deems vital to his success. Here’s more on how Brian did it.
3.) Stick with it… even through plateaus
After a family health crisis, Bill got serious about dropping 225 pounds. He also ditched cigarettes for good. Bill plans to lose even more weight, and he’s inspiring others to make smart, daily choices. Bill’s long-term success plan involves the acknowledgement that plateaus are inevitable. Read his other three success secrets here.
4.) Make sure others are watching
Victoria lost 135 lbs in just 15 months. She made sure her friends, family and coworkers were aware of her weight loss goals and says creating accountability was tantamount to her success. Read more about Victoria’s journey here.
5.) Celebrate small successes
Angel learned a great deal on her weight loss transformation – she’s shed 60 lbs and is still on the path to lose more. Her secret to achieving big picture goals? Counting the little successes and checking her food choices against her desired outcome. Angel views her small successes as fuel for MORE success. Read more of Angel’s insights here.
This 30-day diet plan was created specifically for the UFC Personal Trainer game, Level 1, Cut Weight. Follow the guidelines, use the pre-planned meals (assuming 3 workouts per week), and then create your own menu using the meal template and shopping list.
Guidelines
Each day of eating is separated into four components: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, and Snacks. At a minimum, you will eat three meals per day. The snacks are a free allotment of foods that you can either ADD to any meal, or consume SEPARATELY at any point during the day. (note: If you’re not hungry, you don’t need to eat the snacks. Only to the point of satisfaction to prevent overeating) This puts you in charge of your diet plan. So whether you prefer 3, 4, or 5 meals per day, you can create your ideal diet plan based on your food quota.
Day 1 (workout day)
Breakfast
Strawberry-banana protein smoothie
Toast with almond butter
Lunch
Salmon with spinach salad
Vegetables
Dinner
Grilled chicken breast with salsa verde, avocado, and grilled asparagus and squash
Snacks
Apple
2 hard boiled eggs
Unlimited Vegetables
Day 2 (non-workout)
Breakfast
Greek Yogurt
Blueberries
Granola
Lunch
Seared trout topped with herbs and balsamic vinaigrette
Side of broccoli
Dinner
Sirloin steak rubbed in cajun spices
Mixed greens salad with peppers, onions, mushrooms
Snack
Banana and peanut butter
Day 3 (workout)
Breakfast
Scrambled eggs
2 slices of toast
Orange
Lunch
Dijon glazed pork chops served with sweet potato and broccoli
Dinner
Broiled salmon with slow roasted Roma tomatoes and broccolini
Snack
Greek yogurt, berries, and almonds
Day 4 (non-workout)
Breakfast
Omelet with spinach, mushrooms, onions, peppers, and cheddar cheese
1 cup strawberries
Lunch
Teriyaki roasted chicken breasts and butternut squash
Side salad
Dinner
Spike rubbed top sirloin with grilled zucchini, onion, and steamed spinach
Snack
Chocolate peanut butter smoothie (1 scoop chocolate protein powder, 1 tbsp peanut butter, flaxseed, 4 ice cubes. Blend and serve)
Day 5 (workout)
Breakfast
Bowl of cold cereal
2 links of turkey or chicken sausage
Grapefruit
Lunch
Mediterranean Hummus wrap chicken breast with spinach, peppers, black olives, and tomato (feta cheese optional)
Dinner
Chicken and black beans with avocado, tomatoes and arugula
Side of steamed asparagus
Snack
2 hardboiled eggs
Apple
Day 6 (non-workout)
Breakfast
Omelet with spinach, turkey bacon, and avocado
Mixed berries
Lunch
Sesame crusted seared Ahi tuna served over bed of mixed greens, drizzled with balsamic vinaigrette
Dinner
Spaghetti squash with scallops and shrimp, topped with marinara
Side of steamed peas and carrots
Snack
Cottage cheese
Apple
Day 7 (non-workout)
Breakfast
Mexican scrambled egg (chopped tomatoes, onions, spinach, peppers, shredded cheese, salsa)
Sliced bananas
Lunch
Chopped salad with chicken breast, spinach, red peppers, avocado, tomato, sprouts, cucumber
Dinner
Vegetable stir fry with sirloin strips and chicken breast, topped with sriracha
Snack
Vanilla protein berry smoothie
Meal Template (Cut weight, level 1, workout day)
Breakfast
2 servings starch/grains
1-2 servings protein
1 serving fruit
Lunch
2 servings protein
1 servings nuts/healthy fats
Vegetables
Dinner
2 servings protein
Vegetables
Snacks
1 serving fruit
1 servings protein
1 serving nuts/fats
Unlimited vegetables
Template (Cut weight, level 1, non-workout day)
Breakfast
1 serving dairy
1 serving fruit
1 serving protein
Lunch
2 servings protein
Veggies
Dinner
2 servings protein
Veggies
Snacks
1 serving fruit
1 nuts or healthy fat
Unlimited veggies
SHOPPING LIST
Protein Sources (serving size = 3 oz)
Fish (all types
Chicken Breast
Shrimp
Lean ground beef
Canned tuna
Eggs
Lean Turkey
Lean Pork
Dairy
Milk (2% fat or less): 1 cup
Cheese: 1 stick or slice
Plain, low-fat yogurt: 6 oz (one single serving of pre-packaged)
Cottage cheese: 6 oz
Starches and Grains
Cereal (with 3g of fiber or more): 1 cup
Oatmeal: 1/2 cup
Bread (with 3g of fiber or more): 1 slice
Corn tortillas: 1 tortilla
Flour tortillas (with 3g of fiber or more): 1 tortilla
Pita bread: 1 pita
Potatoes (regular or sweet): 1 medium sized potato (size of fist)
Beans: 1/2 cup
Pasta: ½ cup
Nuts and Fats
Almonds, pecans, cashews, pistachios, Brazil nuts, walnuts: a handful (1 oz)
Nut butters (almond, cashew, peanut): 2 tablespoons
Avocado: 1/2
Sour cream: 2 tablespoons
Vegetables (unlimited)
Leafy greens, lettuces, pepers, celery, carrots, auliflower, cabbage, broccoli, bok choi, cucumber, green beans, kale, leaks, mushrooms, onion, spinach, sprouts, zucchini, asparagus, arugula, artichoke
This 30-day diet plan was created specifically for the UFC Personal Trainer game, Level 1, Build Endurance. Follow the guidelines, use the pre-planned meals (assuming 3 workouts per week, and then create your own menu using the meal template and shopping list.
Day 1 (workout)
Breakfast
Protein-infused oatmeal (oats, 1 scoop protein powder, 1 cup berries)
Milk (dairy or almond)
Lunch
Turkey quesadillas with zucchini and jack cheese
Dinner
Shrimp and chicken spring rolls rapped in steamed rice paper
Side of sweet potatoes, roasted peppers, and steamed broccoli
Snacks
Turkey sandwich with avocado, tomato, and mixed greens
Apple
Day 2 (non-workout)
Breakfast
Cottage cheese
Granola
Banana
Lunch
Shirataki noodles with ground turkey, spinach, and mushrooms
Dinner
Roasted halibut with fava beans, yellow squat, and shallot sauce
Snack
Banana
2 tbsp peanut butter
1 stick of cheese
Day 3 (workout)
Breakfast
Breakfast burrito (scrambled eggs, 1 whole grain tortilla, shredded mozzarella cheese, sliced tomato, onions, peppers, avocado)
Side of sliced melon
Lunch
Soba noodle chicken pad thai with vegetables of choice
Fresh pineapple
Dinner
Grilled calamari and shrimp over sautéed Swiss chard and shallots
Side of brown rice
Snack
Tuna sandwich (canned tuna, high fiber bread, pesto, avocado)
Day 4 (non-workout)
Breakfast
Protein Berry smoothie (2 scoops protein powder, almond milk, strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, chia seeds, 4 ice cubes)
Lunch
Baked turkey breast, avocado, tomato, and arugula
Apple
Dinner
Chicken and black bean tacos with avocado, tomatoes, and mixed greens
Snack
2 hard boiled eggs
English muffin
Day 5 (workout)
Breakfast
Super cereal (cereal of choice w/ more than 3g of fiber, topped with flaxseed, and bananas)
2 hardboiled eggs
Lunch
Hamburger (lean ground beef) with lettuce, tomato, onion
Side salad
Dinner
Meatballs (extra lean ground beef, saltine crackers, onion, garlic cloves, tomato sauce)
Garlic roasted mashed potatoes
Grilled peppers, onions
Snack
Greek yogurt
Cantaloupe
Handful of almonds
Day 6 (non-workout)
Breakfast
Oatmeal, cinnamon, raisins
2 links of chicken sausage
Lunch
Chicken spinach parm (chicken breast, 1 tbsp olive oil, 1 tbsp parmesan cheese, 1 garlic clove, marinara sauce, spinach
Side of black beans
Dinner
Cedar plank salmon (seasoned with salt and pepper, drizzled with olive oil)
Side salad with cucumber, artichoke, broccoli, sprouts, tomatoes
Snacks
Chocolate peanut butter smoothie (1 scoop chocolate protein powder, 4 oz milk, 4 oz water, 1 tbsp peanut butter, 4 ice cubes. Blend and serve)
Day 7 (non-workout)
Breakfast
Vegetable-cheese omelet (eggs, broccoli, spinach, onions, olives, cheddar cheese)
1 slice of whole-grain toast topped with berries
Lunch
Chicken fajitas (chicken breast, onion, green and red bell peppers, jalapeno, cilantro, cumin, 1-2 whole wheat torillas
Dinner
Grilled steak with chimichurri sauce (tbsp water, 2 tbsp red wine vinegar, 2 minced garlic cloves, slat, crushed red pepper, black pepper, olive oil)
Grilled asparagus, zucchini, and squash
Snack
Banana
1 slice bread
1 tbsp peanut butter
Meal Template (Endurance, level 1, workout day)
Breakfast
2 servings of starches/grains
1-2 servings of protein
1 serving dairy
1 serving fruit
Lunch
1 serving starches/grains
2 servings protein
Vegetables
Dinner
2 servings protein
Vegetables
1 serving starches/grains
Snacks
1 serving of fruit of your choice
1 servings of protein
1 serving nuts/fat/dairy
1 serving starches/grains
Unlimited Vegetables
Template (Endurance, level 1, non-workout day)
Breakfast
1 serving dairy
1 serving fruit
1 serving protein
1 serving starch
Lunch
2 servings protein
1 serving starch
Veggies
Dinner
2 servings protein
Veggies
1 serving starch
Snacks
1 serving fruit
1 serving nuts/healthy fats
1 serving protein
1 serving starches/grains
Unlimited veggies
