Since I shared my day of eating and I’m in a cut for competition, I thought I would share JP’s day of eating while he’s reversing into maintenance. It’s a different perspective than from when I was reversing because 1. he’s a man and testosterone is a very helpful hormone for weightloss and muscle development 2. his BMR is a lot higher than mine for his nutrition will reach a lot higher than mine can ever imagine too 3. he’s currently only running about 3 to 4 times a weeks and that’s it. We’ve started discussing lifting and he will need to have higher nutrition when he starts implementing it, but right now as a runner we’re slowly pulling him out of a deep cut into maintenance.
Here’s yesterday’s day of eating in photos.
Breakfast: Birchtree Bread Company Ice Coffee with a splash of skim milk and Toast Special
Toast Special
- Dark chocolate ganache cream cheese with vanilla bean custard and vanilla crumb cake on challah bread
- 1 whole egg cooked medium
Rough Macros:
Snack: protein
Muscle Pharm Combat Crunch in Birthday Cake
Macros: 7F/25C/20P
Lunch: chicken and veggies
- 4.5 ounces of chicken breast
- 6 ounces of broccoli and cauliflower
- 1T of apricot ginger teriyaki sauce
Snack: carbs
- 1 serving of Irene’s Cranberry biscotti
- a bag of mini Oreos
Macros: 5F/25C/2P
Dinner: open faced meatball sandwich
- 4 ounce ground turkey homemade meatballs + 1T of breadcrumbs
- 1/4 cup of marinara sauce
- 28g of mexican cheese blend
- 70g of rosemary ciabatta bread
- 75g of yellow summer squash
Macros: 20F/40C/37P
Dessert: homemade cookie
- 1 fudge brownie cookie from Sarah Lynn Fitness
- 1/4T of peanut butter
Macros: 8F/23C/7P
Dessert 2: ice cream sundae
- 1 serving of birthday cake Halo Top
- 10g of fat free whip cream
- sprinkles
Macros: 2F/16C/6P
Not pictured: 1 scoop of PE Science frosted chocolate cupcake protein
- Macros: 1.5F/1C/24P
- Total Macros:60F/212C/151P
- Macros not consumed: 1F/0C/4P
- Total calories consumed: 1,922
Yesterday I increased JP’s macros to 61F/212C/155P or 2,017 calories. This is up almost 300 calories from the cut he was in. After doing a simple BMR calculation it seems that it’s possible he wasn’t even hitting his basic nutritional needs before and that would explain why it was so easy for him to lose weight with macro tracking/flexible dieting and running a few times a week. He weighed 180.2 yesterday morning after a week of travel and tracking to the best of his ability. This was the third week in a row that he weighed this weight, which is why we increased his macros again. This morning he woke up and weighed 179.6. He stepped on the scale, looked at it and looked at me. I said how does it feel eating more food and maintaining like you are. He didn’t really know what to say other than now he feels a little fluffier than before, but he also feels pretty good.
Nutritionally, my goals for him are around 2,500 calories for a maintenance since he wants to run 3 to 4 times a week for a total of 9 to 15 miles a week. Once we start adding weightlifting into the plan, we’ll move into a bulk and increase his nutritional needs for muscle development and building. It’s interesting seeing how his body reacts to things, since I’ve been watching my own in both a maintenance and now as I transition into a cut. We talk about how he feels with the food and how he can create macro dense foods.One of his concerns is that he’s “small”, but like so many of us he didn’t realize that he didn’t need to keep losing weight, but maybe shifting focus to something like lifting to grow or maintenance would’ve been a way to be healthy. He kept thinking there must be fat still on my body, and yes, there is, he’s also experiencing some loose skin issues. It’s no where near as bad as me and it won’t be that way, but that’s another reason he decided to stop losing and just work on maintaining for now.
While yesterday he leaned toward liking simple carbs through Oreos, biscotti and ice cream; he does try to incorporate veggies and lean meats into his day. Similarly to me, he eats different things every days, however, unlike me – he doesn’t really plan much. Yesterday, he realized around 2 pm that he still had about 1,000 calories left to eat, which is why he went for Oreos. It’s also why he finished off with a protein shake, nothing wrong with that at all, but loose planning can help ensure that all goals are met or are close to being met.
As I continue to cut for season and he continues to add nutrition to his daily consumption, I’m excited to see how we both can grow and develop in the process. Learning how our bodies work and how we can push them.
It’s going to be an exciting fall to say the least.
<3 Cristina
