Haven’t written anything about diet for a while, so here goes.
My current diet is too high in protein, on training days I come in at 40% protein, 30% carbs, 30% fat. Whenever I switch things around to 40-45% carbs, 25-30% protein, 30-35% fat I tend to get what I call mind ghosts.
Since I’ve tried, repeatedly, to change my diet around wholesale and failed every single time this time I’ll try a more modest approach and replace some protein with some carbs every week/every other week (whatever cadence necessary to not regress) until I reach my “goal” diet.
I’ll start by amending my training days, and then have a look over my off-days.
Here is my current diet on a training day,
Breakfast: 65p, 18.9c, 30.9f (633 kcal)
4g Omega-3
15g Coconut Flakes
15g Peanut Butter
10g Chia Seeds
6g Cacao (powder/nibs)
30g Whey
35g Casein
30g Wheat Germs
Maddingly convenient, can be prepped the night before. I just roll out of bed, go the fridge, and pick out the bowl I made the night before. The chia seeds, and the wheat germs will have absorbed the water making this into a nice pudding type thing.
Honestly, pretty okay with this one, but it’d be nice to alternate with say, hardboiled eggs, a bowl of oatmeal, and a piece of fruit. My only gripe with this meal is that it’s a lot of powdered stuff and it doesn’t have enough carbs in relation to my “goal” diet.
Aiming to get 15% of my carb intake here eventually. My carb intake, at my current weight should be at 275-330g, and the goal is to portion those out across the day as follows,
Breakfast: 41.5-49.5 (15%)
Pre-workout: 96.25-115.5 (35%)
Intra-workout: 55-66 (20%)
Post-workout: 68.75-82.5 (25%)
so this meal needs some work before reaching that number.
Pre-workout: 42.8p, 54.8c, 14.1f (485 kcal)
10g fat (olive- or avocado-oil. Sometimes ghee)
100g sprouted rye bread
140-150g tuna/cod
Semi-convenient. Normally, I cook filets of tuna or cod and bring that in a lunch box but for weekends that eat into my prep time (no pun intended) it’s an option to just use canned tuna instead and get the same meal albeit somewhat less enjoyable.
Immediate improvement would be to add some greens and replace the 100g sprouted rye bread by a cheaper alternative. And go for “servings” there rather than grams. There’s another rye bread that comes in slices of 70 grams, so two of those could fit. This is also one of the “meals” that I’d be most inclined to up the carbohydrate intake in.
Intra-workout: 10.3p, 38.8c, 0f (192 kcal)
10g EAA
40g HBCD (sometimes 60g if I feel under-recovered and am having a LB-session)
+ creatine and stuff I don’t count
Works, no gripes here.
Post-workout: 50.1p, 4.4c, 3.7f (252 kcal)
65 g whey
This is probably something I could discard all together eventually
Lunch: 43.2p, 80c, 7f (558 kcal)
100g jasmine rice (dry weight)
170g beef/chicken breast
Easy to batch prep, I buy slabs of beef (1+ kg) and slow-cook it. Chicken breast, and the cut of beef I get, have about the same amount of fat so I count it as equivalent. I want this meal to go down rather easily, hence there isn’t really anything fibrous going on here.
Dinner: 28.4p, 13.1c, 26.9f (403 kcal)
30g avocado
4 eggs
150g strawberries
+ assorted vegetables
The only meal I cook daily, strawberries + chili is a flavour combo I don’t think I’ll ever get sick of. I don’t count my vegetables toward my calorie total. I reckon I consume about 2 cups, as I get plenty of fiber and antioxidants from other sources.
Pre-bed snack: 40.4p, 15.6c, 27.5f (460 kcal)
30g walnuts
170g ground beef
100g pineapple
Digests easily, and is yummy. I sometimes add sauerkraut with ACV here. If kimchi had an acceptable price tag here I’d opt for that but it doesn’t. And, more often than not I’ve had my ACV on waking.
This tallies in at 280.1p (38%), 215.7c (29%), and 110f (33%) and a total of 2983 kcal.
Since I’m just 170 lbs, that’s a lot of protein. This entire diet is overall the Mountain Dog Diet for a 190lbs male looking to add muscle with minor alterations (it doesn’t include cocoa, etc) and has a different meal order but given when I train this is what works for me. Also, since my weight is stagnant on this, I wonder what that says about my activity levels. But then again, my off-days have less calories (and “off” means climbing for 2 hrs)
First amendment,
Breakfast: 45.9p, 27.2c, 34.7f (625 kcal)
4g Omega-3
15g Coconut Flakes
15g Peanut Butter
10g Chia Seeds
6g Cacao (powder/nibs)
15g Whey
15g Casein
200g Kefir
30g Wheat Germs
Slightly less powdered stuff, and I get some kefir which I genuinely enjoy.
