What're you eating? Sample Day of Meals

If you know how many calories you burn per day (using this), then it should be simple to figure out how to set up your meals that you are going to eat throughout your day.

One great tool to use is myfitnesspal.com to find out the macronutrient (protein, fat, and carbohydrates) breakdown of the food you eat.

Use this analogy: are you a baker, cook, or a chef?

With your nutrition, if you're really into the numbers, and need all the details and step-by-step instructions, then most likely you're a baker.

If you just want general guidelines and don't need your hand to be held every step of the way, then you may be a cook.

Throughout your journey of learning and practicing how to eat better, where you might have gone from being a baker first, then developing into a cook, and now have mastered how and what you eat, and know what to do in order to cause specific changes to your performance and looks, then you may be a chef at this point.

For you cooks out there, then here is a general guideline for you for nutrition that lends well to great health and prevention of chronic disease:
Meats and Vegetables, Nuts and Seeds, Some Fruit, Little Starch, and No Sugar.

Now, if you're a baker, then you might need a little more data, and step-by-step instructions, like these, for example:

Find out your Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE) using this.
For example, a 30 year old male, weighing 150 pounds, standing 5'8" and engaging in moderate exercise (3-5 times per week), needs 2,503 calories per day to maintain.
If he were to engage in light exercise (1-2 times per week), then he would need 2,220 calories per day to maintain.

Based on this sample day of meals, then he would be either cutting (based on engaging in moderate exercise), or maintaining (based on engaging in light exercise), since the total number of calories he would take in is 2,245 calories.

This sample day is a great representation of someone who needs to maintain around 2,200 calories, based on their activity level, in addition to eating Meats and Vegetables, Nuts and Seeds, Some Fruit, Little Starch, and No Sugar.

Depending on where you're at, and based on the sample day below, then you can increase or decrease the amounts of the ingredients per meal and figuring out what the macronutrient breakdown of your final amount you want to eat per meal, and generate a total per day you're eating.

By keeping the fat intake higher, and carbohydrate intake lower (coming from vegetables and some fruit, little starch, and no sugar), and keeping protein intake moderate, then you would be able to maintain great health and start to create a buffer against chronic disease.

If you were increase your intensity levels in your movement practice, or simply start to move and train more, then your TDEE would increase, and your macronutrient intake would change as well. Your training intensity level and duration would determine which macronutrients you would have to increase/decrease.

We are here to help you with that, should you find that difficult.

Meal
Ingredient (grams of: Protein, Fat, Carbohydrates - Calories)

Meal 1
2 large chicken eggs (13, 10, 1 - 143)
1 tbsp coconut oil (0, 14, 0 - 130)
1/2 large green bell pepper (0.5, 0, 4 - 33)
3/4 cup cooked steel-cut oatmeal (5, 31, 21 - 130)
1 small avocado (3, 23, 13 - 250)
Total - (21.5, 78, 39 - 686)

Meal 2
1 grilled chicken breast (20, 6, 16 - 200)
1 tbsp olive oil (0, 12, 0 - 300)
1/2 cup steamed broccoli (1, 0, 8 - 38)
1 medium red delicious apple (0, 0, 22 - 80)
Total (21, 18, 46 - 618)

Meal 3
4 oz steak (23, 7, 0 - 160)
1 tbsp Kerrygold salted butter (0, 11, 0 - 100)
1 full sweet potato (2, 0, 24 - 105)
1 cup steamed organic kale (3, 1, 6 - 36)
Total (28, 19, 30 - 401)

Snack(s)
.25 cup (23) roasted salted almonds (28, 23, 3 - 340)

1 Epic bison bar (11, 12, 10 - 200)

Daily Totals (109.5, 150, 128 - 2245)

If you are going to attempt this, then use this an experiment over a week or two, and track your progress in your performance, both quantitatively and qualitatively. 

Play around with different amounts and what kinds of each ingredient (meats, vegetables, sources of fats, and carbohydrates, etc.), to figure out what works for you and what you prefer the most.

Again, should you need help with this, then feel free to reach out!

Because you cannot outwork poor nutrition, this is the most important piece to getting Better! Nutrition - what you put in your body - is the foundation for everything. It determines how well or how poorly you will perform in whatever you decide to pursue in your life.