Newer blog post
more in Blog
Older blog post
Newer blog post by Mrs. Labrador
more by Mrs. Labrador (oldest)
Older blog post by Mrs. Labrador
Mrs. Labrador's Picture
Mrs. Labrador Retriever, Athens/Savannah Age and Occupation: 24, Student/Sports Reporter Fiance's Age and Occupation: 29, Physical Therapy Assistant Student/Future Dr. of PT Engagement Date: December 31, 2008 Wedding Date: November 2009 Venue: Whitfield Square/Savannah Station About Me: I'm working on my second degree from UGA (Go Dawgs!). I'm a self-proclaimed attention-w****. If it involves a camera, I'm in front of it! You'll never meet a girlier tomboy than me. I can go toe to toe with any guy on the subject of college football, and lift more than any girl in my gym, all without chipping a nail. I hope to someday be the only person you want delivering your sports news. My FI and I are the loving parents of three Labrador Retrievers (one of each color) and are planning a "Southern Romantic Charm" wedding in the beautiful, historic city of Savannah. I'm not extreme in anything except moderation... and wedding planning.
About Mrs. Labrador

Crash Course on Nutrition! NO DIETS! It's a Lifestyle Change! :  wedding diet fitness Warning  Source

Official disclaimer: I’m no doctor, nutritionist, or personal trainer. Just a regular bride-to-BEE wanting to look smokin’ hot for her wedding day. ;) So what I’m basically trying to say is you should consult your physician before starting any diet or exercise program. I’m just sharing what’s worked for me because it would be selfish not to. It is certainly not to be taken too literally, as my goals are a lot different from the average person. Anal leakage may occur. Okay, I’m joking about that last part.

Don’t worry if you feel overwhelmed after reading this post. It’s normal. Getting in shape is like the training portion of a new job. It just takes some time to get used to it and figure out how to do everything right, but after a while, it’s all second nature! And like any job that’s worth doing, it’s going to be hard and push you to fulfill all of your potential.

First things first: nutrition! In my personal experience, I’ve found that about 90% of my fitness success comes from my diet. Oh yeah, I should clarify the use of “diet” here. My idea of “diets” is someone’s daily eating habits, not the newest fad the celebrities are following.

Glad to get that out of the way. Back to what I was saying: I try to eat enough calories based on my lifting schedule. I use www.fitday.com to keep track of the macros (aka grams of fat, carbs, and protein). Let me take a moment to clarify something again. Checking your calories is meant to give you an idea of what you’re currently eating, what you should be eating, and how much you’re eating. It’s amazing how much you eat in a day if it’s not out all laid out in front of your eyes. Once you start learning what foods have certain proteins, carbs, and fats, you’ll get to the point where you won’t need to track them anymore. You’ll know if you’re eating too much without relying so heavily on counting up the total calories. So, I don’t think it’s necessary to get obsessive with calorie counting!

Miss Lab’s Sample Macros:

  • Lifting days: 1800 calories: 45g Fat, 160g Carbs, 190g Protein
  • Non-lifting days: 1600 cal: 45g F, 110g C, and 190g P

Based on Miss Lab’s Current Body Specs:

  • Height: 5’5
  • Weight: 140 lbs
  • Fitness Level: Active & Experienced

I can’t reiterate enough about not obsessing over calorie totals. As you will see in my sample meals at the end of this post, I regularly stray from my outlined macros. It’s no big deal! As long as you’re close, you’ll be aiiiight!

Since most of you are not going to be lifting as heavily at first as I do, you won’t need to eat as much protein as I do (since you won’t need that extra amount to rebuild torn muscle). A good rule of thumb is 1 gram of protein for every pound you weigh. I would suggest (if your body specs are similar to mine) that you start out by eating about 1600-1700 calories a day with around 50 g of fat, 150 g of carbs, and 150 g of protein.

The average woman should be eating about 2000 calories a day to maintain their weight. If you cut 500 calories out a day, you would lose 1 lb a week (3500 calories = 1lb of fat). BUT, you don’t want to rely solely on cutting calories to lose weight. If you start starving yourself, your body will begin storing food as fat quicker as a basic survival mechanism. You’ll also be setting yourself up for failure by doing that. So, in order to avoid this, I’l use weight-lifting and cardio to account for the other 400-500 (or more) calories I’ll need to burn a week in order to safely and effectively lose a 1-2 pounds a week.

Keep your meals about 2-3 hours apart with small portions to keep your metabolism running as high as possible throughout the entire day. You should be eating 5-6 meals per day. This will keep you feeling full all day and you won’t be as likely to binge on a very large meal. Your meals should be a proportional balance of all three macros (again, that’s carbs, fats, and proteins). I’ll give sample foods and meals later.

Crash Course on Nutrition! NO DIETS! It's a Lifestyle Change! :  wedding diet fitness Picture0154
Source

When you first start out, you’ll drop pounds quick due to water weight followed by a slight weight gain (during weightlifting you’ll be replacing fat with lean muscle, which will weigh more), then plateau (this is the REALLY hard part), then start leaning out (where you see the REAL results that LAST). Start learning to judge your success based on the way your clothes fit and using tape measures to keep track of inches lost rather than hopping on a scale. Scales LIE. The sooner you learn that, the less you’ll beat yourself up later for thinking you’re failing! Seriously! :)

Clean Eating = The Secret to Success

Crash Course on Nutrition! NO DIETS! It's a Lifestyle Change! :  wedding diet fitness Soy Whe
Source

No fitness goal can be reached without “cleaning” up your diet. Most of us are used to overly processed foods. Our reliance on these types of food is an addiction. Think addiction is too strong of a word to describe our eating habits? Consider this:

A person that eats clean generally practices the following:

  • Eliminates refined sugar
  • Cooks healthy meals
  • Packs healthy meals
  • Makes healthy choices when dining out
  • Drinks a lot of water
  • Eats 5-6 small meals per day
  • Eliminates alcoholic beverages (or significantly limits it)
  • Always eats breakfast

Do you follow that regularly? Is it hard for you to give up your daily Mickey D run? When you’ve tried “diets” in the past, did you eventually give up on them? Still think it’s not an addiction? Didn’t think so. ;)

An easy way to remember if a food is clean is: “if man made it, don’t eat it.”

Eating clean will give you the optimum chance of getting to your goals as quickly as possible. They rev up your metabolism, help you cut fat, and build lean muscle. Basically, the less processed a food is, the “cleaner” it is. Don’t get caught up with “low fat, reduced fat, healthy” blah blah blobbity blah crap on packages like Lean Cuisine, Healthy Choice or Cheeze Its, etc. Do some research and check the nutrition info. That’s what it’s there for!

Crash Course on Nutrition! NO DIETS! It's a Lifestyle Change! :  wedding diet fitness Nutriti
Source

Red arrows: Macros
Blue arrows: Other details you should be aware of!

Anything with more than 6g of sugar per serving size or that has saturated fat or has a billion ingredients you can’t pronounce is probably a bad idea. Remember: a clean diet is about 90% of what’s needed to be successful. As they say, “Abs are made in the kitchen.” That’s no joke and is 100% accurate.

Crash Course on Nutrition! NO DIETS! It's a Lifestyle Change! :  wedding diet fitness Woman 6

Source

Now with all that said, just like with the counting calories warning, don’t go too overboard with clean eating when you’re just starting out. It takes a long time for your body to get rid of its addiction to processed food. If you jump in the deep end before learning to swim, you just might drown. ;) Even at the height of my training I never ate 100% clean. Besides, it can be hard on a busy schedule to cut out ALL processed foods. So just start with a few simple changes and work your way to a cleaner diet. For example: didn’t have time to make a bagged lunch to take to work? Well, stop by Chick-Fil-A and grab a grilled chicken sandwich made on whole wheat buns instead of a McDonald’s Big Mac. The grilled chicken has only 270 calories of mostly protein and good carbs, whereas the Big Mac has 270 calories from fat ALONE (and 560 calories total). See? It’s about compromising when you’re first learning!

Have this:

Crash Course on Nutrition! NO DIETS! It's a Lifestyle Change! :  wedding diet fitness Chickfi  Source

Not this:

Crash Course on Nutrition! NO DIETS! It's a Lifestyle Change! :  wedding diet fitness Bigmac
Source

I hope this gives you a good idea of where to start and a better understanding of how to be successful with nutrition. There’s no short-term dieting your way to your goals. You have to change your lifestyle to have real and lasting results.

Here are some suggested sites and readings:

Miss Lab’s Sample Meals
Miss Lab’s Clean Eating Grocery List
The Eat-Clean Cookbook
Oxygen Magazine
Bodybuilding.com

Still need some more motivation? Here’s one of my favorite examples of what being fit can do for you.

I can only hope I’m half as talented and in shape as this woman at her age!

Next up: Crash course on cardio and weightlifting: the perfect fitness marriage! Plus, “cheat meals”!

Tags: diet, fitness |
advertisement below
Newer blog post
more in Blog
Older blog post
Newer blog post by Mrs. Labrador
more by Mrs. Labrador (oldest)
Older blog post by Mrs. Labrador

43 Responses to “Crash Course on Nutrition! NO DIETS! It’s a Lifestyle Change!”

1 2 3 

1.
august15bride
Hostess
august15bride (message)  1,667 posts, Bumble bee

Oh man. I needed this today. I have been trying to eat “clean” and have been combining cardio and weight lifting, but am frustrated that I’m not seeing results on the scale. I can’t wait to hear more!

 
2.
Bee Icon
Bee
Miss Snapdragon (message)  717 posts, Busy bee

I must second on the processed food. I limit myself in that area, and there really is no going back. Now, when I eat processed food… it tastes bad to me and my body gets really mad at me, too. Natural foods are so much better!

 
3.
Member Icon
Member
sarsk624 (message)  361 posts, Helper bee

This is why I love weight watchers. It is a philosophy and way of life not a diet. two years ago I quit smoking and gained 20 pounds. When I was ready to lose it I revamped my lifestyle and never went back. I ate Wendy’s the other day for the first time in a year, due to an extreme hangover =). It makes a huge difference in how you feel. I can’t wait to read the rest of your tips since your “weak ab” pics are something I’d be very happy with =)

 
4.
Bee Icon
Bee
Mrs. Quiche (message)  3,157 posts, Sugar bee

great tips!! This is THE best way to get healthy and get into shape - I agree with you 100%. People who take pills or crash diet or whatever are NOT DOING THE RIGHT THING. Sorry, just had to get that out. I am with ya, sista!

 
5.
Champagne Wishes
Member
Champagne Wishes (message)  1,187 posts, Bumble bee

I am starting Weight Watchers on Monday but I want to eat as clean as possible. I hope I can incorporate this into WW. Thanks for posting!!

 
6.
Member Icon
Member
Kalibali (message)  272 posts, Helper bee

excellent post again miss lab! keep em coming! i actually just started keeping track of my macros again this week, and feel so much better already. now on to the gym….

 
7.
Guest Icon
Guest
Sarah

Probably the shortest diet plan is Michael Pollan’s mantra: “Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.” If you can remember that, you’re well on your way.

 
8.
Gerbera
Member
Gerbera (message)  4,481 posts, Honey bee

EXACTLY! Trying to loose weight is a Lifestyle Change. Not a two week diet. Not a month diet. A lifestyle change. If you don’t change the way you eat & live you’ll gain the weight right back.

 
9.
Member Icon
Member
mimi55 (message)  6 posts, Newbee

This is probably hands-down one of the best, most informative, most needed posts on this site. Thanks for sharing!

 
10.
Member Icon
Member
DC Anna (message)  514 posts, Busy bee

Can’t wait for more! Seriously Ms. Lab, if you lived in the area I would pay you (in dollars, beef jerky, whatever) to chase me around the gym. This food post is fantastic too — it’s interesting how icky the food you used to eat becomes when you start reading labels…

 
11.
Mrs. Woody-to-be
Member
Mrs. Woody-to-be (message)  91 posts, Worker bee

A lot of this falls in line with Jillian Michaels’ advice in “Master Your Metabolism” - It’s going to be so hard to wean myself off of things I thought were good. I was shocked to find high fructose corn syrup in my Special K cereal!

 
12.
mdarrah
Member
mdarrah (message)  1,205 posts, Bumble bee

Not only do you rock in general but your timing is perfect! I toned up for my wedding and then fell off the bandwagon back into pudge-blah. Today was my first day back working out and this post timing was perfect! Keep it up!! (Love the eat this,not that especially!)

 
13.
Bee Icon
Bee
Miss Snapdragon (message)  717 posts, Busy bee

@Champagne Wishes: Yes, you totally can do WW without eating processed foods at all. You are just going to have to cook or eat simple, fresh foods. I love the new cookbook “The Ultimate Flex and Core Cookbook.” That might help you plan your menus.

 
14.
365
Member
365 (message)  238 posts, Helper bee

I lost 40 lbs by changing a lot of this stuff. Don’t get me wrong, I still eat my ice cream, Wendy’s, processed cheese, but I eat a lot less of it. I wasn’t doing anything else either, just changing what I ate made all that come off in about 6 months! I’m right with ya girl! Especially since I just started working out.

 
15.
Miss Burgundy
Hostess
Miss Burgundy (message)  1,426 posts, Bumble bee

i love you for this post, lab!

 
16.
Vic004
Member
Vic004 (message)  804 posts, Busy bee

oooh I love this post!! I was doing really well before my wedding and now um not so much! I realize by reading your post I was doing a lot right and the new tips you posted today would totally help me out, I just have to get my butt off the couch already!! I can’t wait to read more!

 
17.
Member Icon
Member
soon2beebride (message)  59 posts, Worker bee

You are so AWESOME for sharing this! Your post makes me really want start eating cleaner again. Thank you!

 
18.
Bee Icon
Bee
Mrs. Perfume (message)  2,253 posts, Buzzing bee

This is a really great post, thank you!

 
19.
Guest Icon
Guest
Rachelandviktor

This is a great article. I love love love Tosca Reno who wrote all the Clean Eating books. I follow these principles and lift heavy and love it! Lifting is the only way to change your figure & metabolism and women don’t need to worry about ‘getting big’ — we don’t have enough testosterone to make that happen!

Check out the Figure Athlete website as well for more tips & motivation!

 
20.
Member Icon
Member
phruphru (message)  184 posts, Blushing bee

Great post, Lab! I can almost hear you saying this stuff and you sound like one of those pumped-up infomercial ladies. You’ve gotten me pumped up, girl!

 
1 2 3 

Leave a Reply


You can also just...

Newer blog post
more in Blog
Older blog post
Newer blog post by Mrs. Labrador
more by Mrs. Labrador (oldest)
Older blog post by Mrs. Labrador

Visit our sister sites eHarmony
Online Dating
eHarmony Advice
Dating Advice
Project Wedding
Wedding Songs
JustMommies
Pregnancy Calendar

Copyright 2004-2012, Weddingbee.com
 

Find your vendors on Weddingbee

Real reviews from brides in your area!

Favors by Weddingbee

  • Favors by season

Shop Now »

Mrs. Labrador
Mrs. Labrador

Mrs. Labrador Retriever, Athens/Savannah Age and Occupation: 24, Student/Sports Reporter Fiance's Age and Occupation: 29, Physical Therapy Assistant Student/Future Dr. of PT Engagement Date: December 31, 2008 Wedding Date: November 2009 Venue: Whitfield Square/Savannah Station About Me: I'm working on my second degree from UGA (Go Dawgs!). I'm a self-proclaimed attention-w****. If it involves a camera, I'm in front of it! You'll never meet a girlier tomboy than me. I can go toe to toe with any guy on the subject of college football, and lift more than any girl in my gym, all without chipping a nail. I hope to someday be the only person you want delivering your sports news. My FI and I are the loving parents of three Labrador Retrievers (one of each color) and are planning a "Southern Romantic Charm" wedding in the beautiful, historic city of Savannah. I'm not extreme in anything except moderation... and wedding planning.

Boards
Classifieds

Blog Calendar
February 2012
SunMonTueWedThuFriSat
2930311234
567891011
12131415161718
19202122232425
26272829

Weddingbee Bios
Wiki
More