Now during my maintenance phase, I’ve had the time to rediscover some food items, think more about meal frequency, and notice some other things.
Rediscovery: Wok greens
in the past, during my diet, I stuck with a frozen bag of greens (mix of carrots 37%=(21% orange, 16% yellow), cauliflower (15%), peas (30%), beans (18%)) split across lunch and dinner. Well, turns out, there are other bags of frozen greens that are less caloric than that one so with wok greens I can have get more volume and feel full for longer. So obviously, as I go back into diet mode later, I’ll be opting for this.
Meal frequency
Another thing that I have noticed is that, as I’ve been able to have bigger meals, and most notably, a more solid breakfast is that I have felt better during my workday, so I want to steal calories from later in the day and have them earlier in the day instead. I never did notice pre-bed oats making a major difference in my sleep quality and way back in August I was smart enough to have my oats post-workout: Natty on Pennies - #1275 by Voxel
Also, as my portions have grown more voluminous I find that my pre-bed snack is too close to my dinner, but I don’t want to eat that snack later and will instead significantly scale it down to the point where it can almost be disregarded (although not entirely true).
With a greater caloric allowance, I’ve been eating more oats - in particular: after my workouts, and I think that with both pre-bed oats and post-workout outs I’ve reached an intake that my digestive system is unhappy with. And so, I’ll be experimenting with quinoa as a replacement later this week.
This has all culminated in my latest design that I’m still sketching out, and which is something that will ideally be able to serve as my workday template. It’s meant to be the same regardless of my phase, so it works for a diet, maintenance, or a surplus phase.
Pre-workout
- Coffee w cacao nibs + 2g cinnamon
- 2-3 plums or 2 nectarines
- 16g whey + 3g cinnamon. 1 scoop if not on a diet.
- 1 serving of Superfood (diet only)
- 6g sea salt
Intra-workout
- 50g maltodextrin (I crash if I have more. This value can go down to 30g as a diet deepens)
- 40g BCAA (15-20 is enough when I’m not on a diet)
- 8g sea salt
Post-workout
- 50g pineapple
- 50g blueberries
- 50g quinoa (more if not on a diet)
- 1 scoop whey
- 1 scoop casein (might just run 2 scoops whey when the casein runs out)
Peri-workout: 972 calories, 113p/119.7c/6.6f
Lunch: 676 calories, 48.5p/30.8c/33.6f (+180 calories, 3.5p/40.5c/0.3f with rice) [0]
- 200g chicken
- 600g greens
- 50g avocado
- 160g tomatoes (I cook the chicken in a tomato sauce that contains tomatoes, butter, and one onion. I won’t count the onion but the half-tablespoon of butter I include: World's Easiest Tomato Sauce Is Also the Most Delicious)
- 8g fish oil
- Curcumin
- 10,000 IU D-vitamin - it’s getting dark and cold here now, we’ve already seen below freezing temperatures.
- (Fridays/Sundays: 50g jasmine rice boiled in coconut oil here if climbing/gymnastics)
Dinner: 442 calories, 33.5p/16c/24.2f (+180 calories, 3.5p/40.5c/0.3f with rice)
- 125-140g salmon (depending on which is on sale)/250g shrimp
- 300g greens
- 100g sauerkraut
- 50g Spinach, kale, etc
- Curcumin
- (Tuesdays/Thursdays: 50g jasmine rice boiled in coconut oil here if climbing)
Pre-bed snack: 205 calories, 5p/3.4c/19f
- 6g fish oil
- 25g almonds
- Curcumin
- Superfood (diet only, might pair this with gelatin and glycine. Undecided. That bumps the calories of course, and the protein)
Total: 2204 calories, +180 (rice) +80 (BCAAs) on Sun/Tue/Wed/Thu/Fri
This might be a little higher than ideal. For instance, let’s say my maintenance level is 2.7k, and I want to run a 30% deficit, then I should be at 1900 calories. But… I’m trusting here that a calorie isn’t always a calorie. I’d like to have this as my starting point at least and then if I’m not losing fat “fast enough” I’ll tweak it.
One thing I don’t have figured as of yet is exactly what I’ll do pre-bed on Tuesdays/Wednesdays/Thursdays after climbing/gymnastics. During I’ll roll with 20g BCAAs, but not sure how much extra carbs I want after the sessions. I might be fine with a quark+granola combo.
I’ll also not take fish-oil+curcumin after my climbing sessions and so on.
[0]: might end up splitting this into two meals actually, so once at 11:30, and again at 14:30 - need to experiment with hunger levels. Ideally, consumed as a single meal