What I Ate Wednesday: Eat To Perform

As I scrolled through my Feedly reader this afternoon, I discovered that one of my very first blogging “friends” has decided to take a leap away from the social media world. While it made me quite a bit sad, it also made me take a step back and look at her points about the “healthy living blogger” community. How we show-off our workouts and regurgitate our meals on camera. That we seek attention and reassurance, or we want to prove something to the world. Or sometimes we do it, as she says, because it is one big marketing scheme of subliminal advertising. Maybe it is. Maybe it isn’t. But I won’t say I haven’t enjoyed the perks that have come from growing my blog..

But whatever your reason for blogging, you have to embrace it. Love what you are doing. And despite starting to write a comment on her blog about how I, too, can only handle so many “What I Ate Wednesday” posts, I had already drafted this one. So enjoy. 😉

~

I have been pretty shoddy at following Eat To Perform for quite a few months now, but with a goal of straight “gainz” and improved progress, I wanted to dig a little deeper into it and how it can affect my performance. I am still really having a hard time keeping myself focused on rest days and weekends, since targets are slightly different on workouts days vs. “control days.”  MyFitnessPal has been a good tool to get an idea of where I am at in relation to ETP guidelines, and I found I’m probably eating slightly too much on workout days, highly undereating on non-workout days, and never end up timing my meals properly on weekends. Simple planning can resolve this, but it is just a matter of doing it.

But for those of you who have some irrational fear of calories or if you are ever lacking any energy in your workouts, I suggest you look into Eat To Perform. The most basic foundation is basing your food intake to fuel your performance, and any aesthetic goals will naturally happen as a result. Eat protein, veggies, and fats during the day, protein and carbs pre- and post- workout, and then fulfill the remaining calorie requirements in dinner or before bedtime. And eat plenty of carbs. Yup. Carbs. Like rice. I love rice.

Eating this way has helped me to get over a lot of the anxiety and food fear that eating paleo had given me, and has helped me tremendously as far as fueling my workouts. With this simple template, I have fallen into what some would consider a trap of eating the same thing everyday, but I like to keep it simple and it sure makes meal prep much easier! Here’s a sampling of what I have been eating lately.

Breakfast:

Eggs, eggs, eggs, everyday. Except for the weekends where sometimes I make amazing paleo crepes..

Lunch

Lunch is never pretty, so apparently I never take any pictures of it? A typical lunch is leftover meat (see dinner choices), some form of raw veggies (green peppers, spinach, or mixed greens mostly), the other half of my breakfast avocado, and an apple.

Pre-Workout

Always a heaping gob of egg whites. Usually 1/3 – 2/3 cups, depending how hungry I am feeling. Plus a healthy side of oatmeal or sweet potatoes and sometimes a dollop of peanut butter.

Post-Workout

Protein shake and banana or two. Every day. Lately, I have been adding an extra carb-mix into the shake on high volume or heavy lifting days. (Code “w2w” at checkout will score you a discount if you order any custom protein here!)

Dinner

I think I may never eat on a plate again, or any other bowl. I am obsessed with this bowl I snagged at Target on the clearance end cap!

Basic dinner template: Start with gobs of rice, add chicken thighs/bison or ground beef/pulled pork, then zucchini/broccoli/spinach/veggie-less because I sometimes just don’t feel like veggies..

Post-Dinner

You know that whole theory on not eating after a certain time of night, or not to consume anything heavy before bedtime? Yeah, I do not follow that. If I am short on calories for the day or if I am just plain hungry after dinner, I will eat some cereal. Yes, CEREAL. Nom, nom, nom. Or sometimes, I’ll just eat another bowl of oatmeal. Man, did I miss oatmeal when I was eating strict paleo.

I have also recently started to have a nighttime shake on days I am short on protein that tastes just like drinking cake batter, combining 1/2 cup full-fat coconut milk, 1/2 cup almond milk, and TrueNutrition Casein protein in Vanilla Birthday Cake. Delicious.

~

Although there are a million things I can probably do better, like eat more vegetables, drink more bone broth (major slacking here), add more fermented foods to my diet (though I’ve been digging Kimchi lately), and avoid those Girl Scout cookies that I somehow managed to buy four boxes of; I am loving the way that I have been feeling lately. I have been gaining a little bit of weight but also hitting some PRs. I am more than excited to keep this up and see how I continue to improve!

Your turn..
Do you follow strict paleo?
Have you ever tried cab loading?
Do you prefer eating the same thing every day or mixing it up?
Is oatmeal one of your favorite things in life like it is for me?
Any questions about my food?

Disclaimer: I am not at all sponsored or endorsed by ETP, I just have been a huge fan. Some of the links above may be affiliate links in which I earn a small commission if you make a purchase using them. I only recommend products I love, so if you love them too, please purchase with my link!