How I Broke My Plateu

Hey everyone! A lot of people have been asking me what my "new approach" is since I posted a topic about friends dropping you like last week's fashion magazine. The short version is that I posted a message on my profile that I was trying something new, something that didn't involve calorie counting, and as such, would not be on the site very often in the coming weeks. Unfortunately, about two weeks later I logged on to find like half my friend base gone like the wind. No matter, though, I've received a lot of positive feedback from some of you and made some new (more understanding) friends :-) So thanks for that!

My new approach gave me better results in three weeks than counting calories on this site did in 8 months. Thus, I will be sticking with it and sharing it for all of you who care to know :-)

The Theory:
It's not so much "how much" you eat, as it is "what and how often" you're eating. Eat too often and your blood sugar spikes causing the body to store fat. Eat not often enough and your blood sugar drops, causing your body to store fat AND burn muscle. Thus, feeding your body every 3 to 4 hours keeps the metabolism working and allows your body to feel comfortable burning fat and keeping the muscle.

The Components:
Women should consume about 130g of protein per day. Men should consume around 180g. The nutritionist I saw just took my and my boyfriend's weight and used that as a basis for how much protein to eat, so these are rough estimates not neccessarily transferable to everyone. For every time you have protein, you must also consume carbs and fat. Easy right????

The Schedule:
6am: Breakfast: 26g of protein, 17g carbs, 7g fat
Typical breakfast is 1 cup of vanilla non-fat Greek Yogurt mixed together with half a scoop of whey protein powder and vanilla Almond Milk.
You could also eat a packet of oatmeal (flavor of your chosing) with a spoonful of peanut butter and a protein shake (or skip the pb and eat 2 to 3 eggs).

9am: Snack: (3 hours later) 26g of protein, 17g carbs, 7g fat
Typical Snack is a gala apple with pb and a protein shake. You can sub protein shake with some more greek yogurt, but the shakes are just so much easier to take to work with you.

12pm: Lunch! (again, 3 hours later): 26g of protein, 17g carbs, 7g fat
Typical lunch is a turkey sandwich on whole wheat bread with mayo and mustard and pickles. You can really eat anything you want as long as it satisfies the protein/carb/fat intake. Please don't take this to mean you can eat McDonalds everyday because you can't. The fat far outweighs everything else and it needs to be a protein heavy balance.

3pm: Snack: 26g of protein, 17g carbs, 7g fat
Typical afternoon snack is a rice cake with pb and a protein shake. You can switch it up and do oatmeal here with some greek yogurt, or maybe some cottage cheese with fruit. I would try to eat your fruits in the morning, however, so you have time to burn off the surgar/carbs.

5pm: Work out: Any type of work out you want - don't worry about how many calories you're burning, just make sure to do a mix of cardio and weight lifting for the best results.

5:30 - 6pm: After work out snack: 26g of protein, 17g carbs, 7g fat
Typical snack is just a protein shake mixed with Almond milk, but again, you can do some yogurt or whatever you want.

8:30 - 9pm: Dinner: 26g of protein, 17g carbs, 7g fat
Typical meal is chicken/steak/pork/fish with grilled or sauteed veggies. It's best to eat whatever bread or past you're going to eat earlier in the day so your body has time to burn it off. So rather than a turkey sandwich for lunch, you can have chicken and pasta or something like that.

If you go to bed at 10, you're done for the day. If you go to bed closer to 11:30 or 12pm, then you'll have a before bed snack. For this, I'd just do cottage cheese or yogurt or something and not get too crazy.

I've only been at this for three weeks, and I've lost almost 3 inches from my waist, dropped about 1% body fat, and gained 4lbs of muscle. I'm feeling leaner, and have more energy and the most important part is that my plateu is broken and I broke it in a healthy, natural way that is SUSTAINABLE. I've gotten to the point now where my stomach just starts growling 3 hours exactly after my last meal. It's also helped a lot with binge eating and portion control. eventually, you're eating often enough, that you don't feel like you need gorge yourself every time you sit down to take a bite of something. It's been a life, and game, changer.

Be sure to allow yourself at least ONE cheat meal per week. When you reach your goal, you can bump that up to TWO cheat meals. NOT CHEAT DAYS! ONLY CHEAT MEALS!

If you know you're going to have alcohol later in the evening, cut back on the carbs earlier in the day and maybe don't eat the fruits (as alcohol typically has a lot of sugar).

If you have question, please don't hesitate to ask. I probably don't have all the answers, but I'll try to help as best I can. Good luck everyone!!!

One love!