Athletes and clients come to us at Garage Strength all the time wanting to know what they can do to get their nutrition dialed in. People ask what they can do to lose a little bit of weight. We have people coming to us about losing some weight for an upcoming wedding. We have people who come to us about how to best cut some weight to make weight at weigh-ins because they participate in a bodyweight sport. A lot of times we have people coming to us about nutrition because they just want to be healthier, have a more active lifestyle and feel energized when they’re chasing their kids around. 

We get these questions all the time. These are struggles everyone can relate to. Looking in the mirror and being happy with what is reflecting back is key. Happiness means different things to different people. When it comes to the body, size, and shape, people differ. Some think they’re too skinny. Others want more muscles. Some are happy the way they are. We deal with clients of all ilks. The fact that we operate a sports and performance gym with some of the best athletes in the country, we often get individuals coming to us who want to get lean, look swole, and drop the number on the scale.

We want to give some simple tips that help people jumpstart and make the first step into proper nutrition to transition into a lifestyle of proper nutrition. Let’s dive in and take a look at the tips we are offering!

Planning out the week helps a lot. We are big fans of planning out all seven days of the week on a Sunday or Saturday. A way to tackle what needs to be done at work, done at home, and done during one’s own time is effective when planning out the nutrition schedule. 

Sitting down and figuring out from the weekly perspective how many calories will be consumed over the course of the next seven days is a start. From there we can break down that week of calories into specific days and meals. We also want to plan a day within the week that provides a day of refeeding, where we let ourselves eat an extra 400-600 calories.

To plan the refeed day we need to first divide the total calories over the course of the seven days. Once that is done we need to figure out which day will be the refeed day. To get those extra calories for the refeed day we need to subtract a few from the other six days. We can make it easy and take away 100 calories from every day except the refeed day and problem solved. We can be more creative and maybe take 200 calories from two days and 100 calories from two days and end up with her are refeed excess available. It’s probably a good day to plan the refeed day out around a Friday or Saturday.

Planning out the full week allows for meal prepping to occur. Meal prepping makes life a lot less stressful. Go ahead and meal prep as a family bonding experience. Make sure to socialize during this time. Combine the decrease in stress due to meal prepping and planning out the week and next thing the rate of success is drastically improving.

People fail with diets. They put themselves in starvation mode or they follow just the keto diet and as soon as carbs reenter the diet they blow up or they go on a high carb, low-fat diet and then start eating bacon and just blow up. People just swing back and forth and have no success.

One of the keys to having a successful diet and having a successful lifestyle change comes from embracing other cuisines that add excellent flavor to a portion of food. Go and eat Indian food. Go and order Jamaican food. Go and order Mexican food. We still have meals where we can eat chicken, rice, low calories, and really, really good flavor.

Think about Tandoori Chicken when ordering Indian food. It comes with rice and is very healthy. Not only is it healthy, but it is also tasty. Tasty food makes it easier to stick to a meal plan. Oftentimes when people eat bland food over and over again they get sick of it and fall off the wagon.

Make sure to engage with different cuisines. Make sure to engage with different cultures. Go ahead and pick out a different culture week to week to engage with to be able to eat food in a healthy way, help stick to the goal of a dietary lifestyle change, and make sure that new and interesting flavors are constantly combating the blandness traditionally associated with dieting.

Accountability occurs in a bunch of various ways. We need to face it that everyone will fall off the wagon. Regardless, we need to have that sense of accountability to not let it snowball out of control. We can weigh ourselves every single day. We can take pictures of ourselves every single day. These are things that can be done to be held accountable.

We understand that people don’t want to obsess over the scale. We understand that people don’t want to take pictures every single day. That is perfectly fine. Instead, maybe change the focus. For instance, weighing oneself every day doesn’t mean needing to obsess over the number. Maybe instead, focus on the correlations and trends that can be noticed. Maybe the number is lightest in the morning or right after working out. Maybe the number is heaviest on a Saturday morning and the lowest on a Thursday afternoon. Noticing the trends gives a person a sense of the fluctuations that daily occur.

This logical approach of checking trends in one’s weight is we can see large drop-offs and occur. Two or three pounds might drop early in the week. Then we hold steady. Then comes the refeed and a little weight is put on. But then after the refeed, the days that follow one can notice even more weight coming off. Start tying this to specific foods being eaten and the brain quickly sees and realizes things are working and how to maintain the progress.

Pictures can work in a similar way. Stepping on the scale day one and the number reports what it reports. Step on the scale day forty and it says the same thing. Ugh. Whatever, look at the picture from day one and compare it to the picture on day forty and notice the differences. Are the glutes popping a little more? We think so! Is that a teardrop shedding from the quad? We think so! Picture taking as accountability goes a long way to show the progress that has been made.

Another key item behind accountability is setting a goal. We recommend setting a weight goal to reach and then holding that number over six months once there. Don’t be in a rush to get to that goal, but stay the course. Also feel free to have a friend, partner, or spouse to help with accountability. Support helps in all adventures in life so utilize supports where and when available. Finally, don’t be scared to wager some money on the goals to create some oddball styles of accountability.

These are really simple tricks that can be utilized to improve nutrition and get leaner over a long period of time. Make sure to plan for the entire week, engage with other cultures that serve up great tasting, healthy food, and make sure to have some sense of accountability. No matter what, stay the course, stay diligent, and keep trying until success is achieved.