Crash course on nutrition! NO DIETS! It's a lifestyle change! :D

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Official Disclaimer: I'm no doctor, nutritionist, or personal trainer. Just a regular bride-to-BEE wanting to look smokin' hot for her wedding day. ;) So what I'm basically trying to say is you should consult your physician before starting any diet or exercise program. I'm just sharing what's worked for me because it would be selfish not to. It is certainly not to be taken too literally, as my goals and fitness level are a lot different from the average person. Anal leakage may occur. Okay, I'm joking about that last part.

Don't worry if you feel overwhelmed after reading this post. It's normal. Getting in shape is like the training portion of a new job. It just takes some time to get used to it and figure out how to do everything right, but after awhile, it's all second nature! And like any job that's worth doing, it's going to be hard and push you to fulfill all of your potential.

First things first, nutrition! In my personal experience, I've found that about 90% of my fitness success comes from my diet. Oh yeah, I should clarify the use of "diet" here. My idea of "diets" is someone's daily eating habits. Not the newest fad the celebrities are following.

Glad to get that out of the way. Back to what I was saying: I try to eat enough calories based on my lifting schedule. I use www.fitday.com to keep track of the macros (aka grams of fat, carbs, and protein). Let me take a moment to clarify something again. Checking your calories is meant to give you an idea of what you're currently eating, what you should be eating, and how much you're eating. It's amazing how much you eat in a day if it's not out all laid out in front of your eyes. Once you start learning what foods have certain proteins, carbs, and fats, you'll get to the point where you won't need to track them anymore. You'll know if you're eating too much without relying so heavily on counting up the total calories. So please please please don't get obsessive with calorie counting!

Miss Lab's Sample Macros:

• Lifting days: 1800 calories: 45g Fat, 160g Carbs, 190g Protein
• Non-lifting days: 1600 cal: 45g F, 110g C, and 190g P

Based on Miss Lab's Current Body Specs:

• Height: 5'5
• Weight: 140 lbs
• Fitness Level: Active & Experienced

I can't reiterate enough about not obsessing over calorie totals. As you will see in my sample meals at the end of this post, I regularly stray from my outlined macros. It's no big deal! As long as you're close, you'll be aiiiight!

Since most of you are not going to be lifting as heavy at first as I do, you won't need to eat as much protein as I do (since you won't need that extra amount to rebuild torn muscle). A good rule of thumb is 1 gram of protein for every pound you weigh. I would suggest (if your body specs are similar to mine) that you start out by eating about 1600-1700 calories a day with around 50 g of fat, 150 g of carbs, and 150 g of protein.

The average woman should be eating about 2000 calories a day to maintain their weight. If you cut 500 calories out a day, you would lose 1 lb a week (3500 calories = 1lb of fat). BUT, you don't want to rely solely on cutting calories to lose weight. If you start starving yourself, your body will begin storing food as fat quicker as a basic survival mechanism. You'll also be setting yourself up for failure by doing that. So, in order to avoid this, we'll use weight-lifting and cardio to account for the other 400-500 (or more) calories you'll need to burn a week in order to safely and effectively lose a 1-2 pounds a week.

Keep your meals about 2-3 hours apart with small portions to keep your metabolism running as high as possible throughout the entire day. You should be eating 5-6 meals per day. This will keep you feeling full all day and you won't be as likely to binge on a very large meal. Your meals should be a proportional balance of all three macros (again, that's carbs, fats, and proteins). I'll give sample foods and meals later.

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When you first start out, you'll drop pounds quick due to water weight followed by a slight weight gain (during weightlifting you'll be replacing fat with lean muscle which will weigh more), then plateau (this is the REALLY hard part), then start leaning out (where you see the REAL results that LAST). Start learning to judge your success based on the way your clothes fit and using tape measures to keep track of inches lost rather than hopping on a scale. Scales LIE. The sooner you learn that, the less you'll beat yourself up later for thinking you're failing! Seriously! :)

Clean Eating = The Secret to Success

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No fitness goal can be reached without "cleaning" up your diet. Most of us are used to overly processed foods. Our reliance on these types of food is an addiction. Think addiction is too strong of a word to describe our eating habits? Consider this:

A person that eats clean generally practices the following:

• Eliminates refined sugar
• Cooks healthy meals
• Packs healthy meals
• Makes healthy choices when dining out
• Drinks a lot of water
• Eats 5-6 small meals per day
• Eliminates alcoholic beverages (or significantly limits it)
• Always eats breakfast

Do you follow that regularly? Is it hard for you to give up your daily Mickey D run? When you've tried "diets" in the past, did you eventually give up on them? Still think it's not an addiction? Didn't think so. ;)

An easy way to remember if a food is clean is: “if man made it, don’t eat it.”

Eating clean will give you the optimum chance of getting to your goals as quickly as possible. They rev up your metabolism, help you cut fat, and build lean muscle. Basically, the less processed a food is, the "cleaner" it is. Don't get caught up with "low fat, reduced fat, healthy" blah blah blobbity blah crap on packages like Lean Cuisine, Healthy Choice or Cheeze Its, etc. Do some research and check the nutrition info. That's what it's there for!

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Red arrows: Macros
Blue arrows: Other details you should be aware of!

Anything with more than 6g of sugar per serving size or that has saturated fat or has a billion ingredients you can't pronounce is probably a bad idea. Remember: a clean diet is about 90% of what's needed to be successful. As they say, "Abs are made in the kitchen." That's no joke and is 100% accurate.

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Now with all that said, just like with the counting calories warning, don't go too overboard with clean eating when you're just starting out. It takes a long time for your body to get rid of its addiction to processed food. If you jump in the deep end before learning to swim, you just might drown. ;) Even at the height of my training I never ate 100% clean. Besides, it can be hard on a busy schedule to cut out ALL processed foods. So just start with a few simple changes and work your way to a cleaner diet. For example: didn't have time to make a bagged lunch to take to work? Well stop by Chick-Fil-A and grab a grilled chicken sandwhich made on whole wheat buns instead of a McDonald's Big Mac. The grilled chicken only 270 calories of mostly protein and good carbs whereas the Big Mac has 270 calories from fat ALONE (and 560 calories total). See? It's about compromising when you're first learning!

Have this:

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Not this:

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I hope this gives you a good idea of where to start and a better understanding of how to be successful with nutrition. There's no short-term dieting your way to your goals. You have to change your lifestyle to have real and lasting results.

Here are some suggested sites and readings:

Miss Lab's Sample Meals
Miss Lab's Clean Eating Grocery List

The Eat-Clean Cookbook

Oxygen Magazine
Bodybuilding.com

Still need some more motivation? Here's one of my favorite examples of what being fit can do for you. I can only hope I'm half as talented and in shape as this woman at her age!



Next up: Crash course on cardio and weightlifting: the perfect fitness marriage! Plus, "cheat meals"!