A fat loss nutrition post by Cambridge personal trainer Callie Durbrow
A Cambridge Personal Trainer Report: How to Eat, Lose Fat and Gain Lean Muscle Tone
I had someone ask me the other day “What do you eat?” and it kind of got me thinking about how difficult it can be to sift through all of the fad diets and training tips out there to find out exactly what you should do in order to eat effectively for fat loss and gaining lean, toned muscle.
That’s the goal for most of us, right?
Lose fat and gain lean muscle. Surely none of us as women want to “bulk up” but that’s another post for a different day. Don’t worry, you won’t be packing on the muscle mass that easily ladies, it’s just not in our DNA.
Developing that lean, toned muscle not only looks good but it’s great for boosting your metabolism. The metabolism is essentially how many calories your body is burning when you’re NOT working out. Burning calories while you sleep, that’s what I always tell people. It’s awesome 🙂
So now comes the question, how do you eat enough but not TOO MUCH? It’s a fine line, you want to eat enough to fuel your workouts and support your ever rising metabolism, but you don’t want to eat too much to store those excess calories as eventual fat gain.
I want to give you a peak into my daily ritual and show you exactly what I eat, what time and I hope that you’ll use this as a bench mark for how to establish your day. This won’t be exact for you but use it as an outline….
5:00am wake up: I drink 8 ounces of water right when I wake up and then I make a blender smoothie:
8 ounces of plain almond milk
1/2 cup of plain Chobani Greek Yogurt
2 ice cubes
handful of blueberries
1 scoop of SunWarrior vegan protein (very high quality)
handful of spinach
1 packet of Starbucks instant coffee
Blend until smooth
Then I take my multi-vitamin and 2 fish oil capsules
8:00am pre workout snack: Prograde Craver snack bar or a string cheese and some grapes
9:15am post-workout recovery: 8 ounces of low fat chocolate milk
12pm lunch: this can vary but usually I’ll have an egg scramble with spinach, low fat cheese and lots of salsa plus a side of carrot sticks and hummus
3pm snack: handful of pecans and an apple
7pm dinner: some type of protein (chicken, steak or fish) and a big salad with lots of assorted veggies
9pm: optional snack if I’m hungry I’ll have a scoop of natural peanut butter or almond butter
This is a pretty typical day for me, sometimes I’ll substitute lunch and it might be left-over from dinner like chili or a stir fry. Overall I stick with high quality protein, lots of fruits and veggies and healthy fats. I try to limit my starches and once per day I’ll add a whole grain source like a wheat wrap for my egg scramble or brown rice with my stir fry. I am home during the middle of the day (all my training groups at the gym are in the morning and evening) so I have some flexibility with my lunches. The best bet for you is to prepare food ahead of time like stir frys and chili that you can just bring to work and heat up.
I’ll also have about 5 to 6 twenty-four ounce Nalgene bottles per day giving me lots of fluids.
Also notice the frequency of my meals and snacks, every 3-4 hours. I hate going long stretches without food, it kinda makes me angry.
So, follow this as a road map toward super healthy eating for fat loss and building lean, toned muscle.
Leave me a quick comment about your favorite healthy snack, I’m always looking for new ones 🙂