For our Americans: Superbowl Sunday is coming up this week. What are your plans to stay successful?
I sweet talked the Mrs into baking a turkey for that day. So if you’re looking for a solid strategy, start with “marrying up”.
But beyond that, how about what YOU can bring to a party to keep you on plan? One of the easiest ways to know if there will be anything there for you to eat is to bring it yourself.
If you wanna be tame, you can do something like a fruit and veggie platter.
If you wanna make sure there is protein, you can bring deviled eggs (I use grassfed sour cream in place of mayo, and you can mix that with some salsa and taco seasoning to make them “south of the border” eggs), or meatballs, a meat and cheese platter (charcuterie for you refined types), wings (bake them if you wanna avoid fried, or air fry them), shrimp, etc.
Desserts? Why not look into the millions of wonderful options that @Dani_Shugart and @Chris_Shugart have posted regarding cooking with protein powder.
And don’t forget the value of pre-eating. Going along the “protein first” strategy, a Metabolic Drive shake before you head out, or a whole bunch of eggs whits or some lean meat, etc, something that’s protein heavy without a bunch carbs or fat to trigger more of a hunger response. A good way to show up NOT starving and, therefore, not binge.
Set yourself up for success.
…or just go have fun and get back on it the next day.
This is exactly why I volunteer to cook meat for events! Usually I’ll get a lot of a cheap cut (maybe not the most nutritious) and make it so I know exactly what’s in it and don’t feel bad about eating a lot of it!
Also, for some reason vegetables on veggie trays at parties always taste amazing compared to vegetables on any other day.
I love all of your ideas and am honored to be mentioned here! Your post comes at a great time too because Chris and I are responsible for the food at a game night later this month and we wanted to include savory food along with some of our protein MD snacks. So the deviled egg and charcuterie ideas are brilliant!
To our surprise, we’ve been finding that people are actually excited about healthier options at parties these days. Yay!
I love this… setting conditions/ prepping the battlefield is the key.
One more to throw out: save yourself some calories for it (or even create a huge deficit).
If you eat light/ fast the day prior and morning of, then do some horrific glycogen-depleting workout, then roll into the event… maybe you actually use some of those calories.
Combine that with a pre-eating protein strategy (MD or egg whites) and you’re off!
That’s a slightly different thing. The number I was suggesting is the amount of calories you need to eat to produce a consistent 1-2lb weight loss.
Your BMR is just what your body burns to stay alive. If you laid around in bed all day every day you would still need to eat at your BMR level to maintain your weight (and not die haha)
But we don’t lay around in bed all day. We work, parent, go to the store etc… all of which adds calorie usage on top of BMR
There’s lots of calculators out there that factor in BMR and activity and food intake even, which can be useful but ultimately you need to eat food and lose weight. The highest amount of calories you can do that at without needing extra cardio is the number I like to start dieting at
Don’t let the thoughts and actions of others hold you back. I’ve gotten used to these sorts of comments over time, but people also expect Me to eat more, be picky with my food and to prioritize meat and generally clean eating. It’s unfortunate that “fit shaming” Is so common and eating healthy and living a fit lifestyle is the uncommon thing.
There’s nothing wrong with being different and maybe you can inspire others around you. If they see you and think “I’m the one who should be dieting”, they probably should be and this introspection is a good thing!
We’re going to just a couple’s house, and not a full on party, and they serve higher quality foods than typical Superbowl fair. That said, I will eat all the fancy cheese and crackers I want, go crazy on the fruit/veggie/nut plate, and eat my fill of grilled tri tip. As a safe guard, I’ll probably consume a protein shake before I go and not have any beers (maybe an NA beer or two, but not a real one).
Figure I should answer this before others jump in with a myriad of speculative NSFW activities I do for my forearms.
It’s really just pull ups, rows, swings, carries, etc… and not any fancy curls. Yet, a common question I’d get is “What’s your arm routine like?” Yet I don’t do a lot of curls or isolation work in general, so maybe it’s at least partially genetics since they’ve always been kinda big.
I did play baseball my entire youth through high school, and during that time did a ton of wrist curls and reverse curls so maybe that’s a big part of it. Funny how the building blocks of our youth stick with us.
I’ve got a big Saturday night family dinner the night before the Super Bowl (relatives coming in from out of town). I’m afraid they’re serving lasagna (!).
Not my favorite meal under any circumstances - but even more so this weekend! Fortunately, I’ve got QC over the Super Bowl meal, which is looking increasingly carnivorous …
It’s on a Monday morning here in Australia (930am ish kickoff), and I catchup with a mate each year to watch it. There’ll be a few quiet bevvies and tasty snackage, but yep a shake prior, and meat high on the agenda!
I’m still weighing in at ~175lbs. Kinda fell off the eating big wagon and reduced training down to the minimums because I was going through a rough patch for a couple weeks (brother passed). I have seen some progress from this transformation challenge but not a lot so far. I did notice a shit ton of growth from this time LAST YEAR. I squatted what was my old squat PR (295 but 315 was my true max. Pretty sure I could have hit 315 based off the bar speed), beltless and 10lb lighter yesterday. More importantly I look way more jacked than I did last year. It’s not crazy progress compared to some animals on here but I’m proud of it!
It’s always hard to track the day to day and sometimes the month to month progress but this is a long term game. I often forget that and need to remind myself of it.
Also I did eat a large dominoes pizza in 7 minutes tonight.
