Yeah, But What do you Really Eat?
You know when you read those articles or blog posts where some Instagram fitspo chick tells you what she eats in a day? And it’s like a kale smoothie for brekkie, some lettuce leaves and a small portion of poached fish for lunch and half a tub of yoghurt and 4 almonds for a snack? When I read things like this I generally wonder how they are not completely starving.
If you want to train well (regardless of whether your goal is weight loss, muscle gain or maintenance) you need to eat enough to sustain your body through training.
I’ve asked some of our best athletes to honestly tell me what an average day of food looks like for them.
/ / KHADA DOUGLAS / /
Age: 24
Average training hours per week: 14-19hrs
Khada is the top male athlete in our gym. He also trains harder and with more volume than almost anyone else in the gym. His diet reflects this.
For Khada food is fuel. He trains a lot. He eats to ensure he has enough energy to train hard. He also has a very fast metabolism so has to eat enough to ensure he doesn’t waste away into nothing. Eighty to ninety per cent of his diet is real food and plant based. But he still allows himself some soul nourishing foods throughout the day.
Breakfast:
2 packs of Chobani and oats
Shake (1 scoop of true protein powder, handful of spinach, half a cup of oats, half a cup of blueberries or other fruit, massive scoop of Nutella or peanut butter, cup of milk and water)
Overnight oats (70g oats, 10g honey, cinnamon, 250ml milk, half cup blueberries)
1x Apple
1x regular flat white coffee.
Training:
1.5 scoops of true cluster dextrin (pure carbohydrates) – works out to be 80g of carbs
1x electrolytes + creative + glutamine
Lunch: Leftover dinner from night before
100g rice/pasta/quinoa (one of them.
120g beans/legumes or vegetarian protein source
2 cups of vegetables
Lots of cheese
AND
1x baby bell cheese
1x thick cut slice of fresh bread or home made biscuits
1x block of peak chocolate.
Afternoon Tea:
2x scoops of true protein powder (60g of protein) mixed with 1-2 scoops of instant oats – 60g of carbs
1 scoop of maltodextrin (50-60g carbs)
Mixed with BCAAS
Choc milk, iced coffee, camel milk. (One of those)
Dinner: Very similar to lunch.
100g rice/pasta/quinoa (one of them.
120g beans/legumes or vegetarian protein source
2 cups of vegetables
Lots of cheese
Dessert:
1x true protein mug cake
1/3 to 1/2 a tub of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream.
Some chocolate.
Here’s what Khada says about his eating:
“I pretty much eat whatever I want but I also eat a lot of veggies.”
/ / TASH SMITH / /
Age: 39
Average training hours per week: 11-13hrs per week
Tashy is a weapon. Five foot nothing but with a six pack and a power to body weight ratio that would put kids half her age to shame. She is the actual definition of a pocket rocket. The biggest thing about Tash’s training is it is consistent. Super consistent. And, the biggest thing about her diet is it is balanced. Mostly she eats well but if she feels like two drumsticks she gonna eat two drumsticks! Can also do 15 bar muscle-ups unbroken if you don’t mind.
Upon waking: black coffee
Breakfast: Smoothie with spinach, avocado, apple, banana, mixed berries, lemon, ginger, apple cider vinegar, chia seeds, water.
(changes it up depending on what is in the fridge)
Lunch: Generally some kind of protein and veggies cooked. Sometimes last night’s leftovers. Also has a kobucha.
Afternoon tea: Nuts and half a block of chocolate.
Dinner: Similar to lunch (meat and veggies).
Dessert: Ice-cream if it’s in the house.
What Tash says about her eating:
Everything I do is based on how I’m feeling. I listen to my body. If I feel like I need more carbs I will eat more carbs. If I feel my eating has been a bit crappy I’ll get in some extra veggies. If I feel chocolate I have chocolate. I don’t measure anything, I don’t weight anything. Lunch and dinner tend to be meat and veg but some days it’s just whatever is going. Like today lunch is Singapore noodles!”
/ / CLAIRE O’KEEFE / /
Age: 26
Average training hours per week: 17hrs
There aren’t many girls that have a flawless 100kg split jerk but also have the ability to do big sets of gymnastics movements consistently, while also having excellent stamina and lung capacity that would make you think she regularly trains at altitude. That’s Keefey in a nut shell.
Site Day
AM Training: 2.30am-3.45am
*Start work at 5am
Breakfast: (6am)
40g rolled oats cooked
10g honey
20g salted caramel protein powder
P:22 C:40 F:5
Mid morning snack: (9am)
2 hardboiled eggs (smashed with 20g mayo, salt and pepper)
2 Ryvita crackers
50g cottage cheese on top
P:18 C:20 F:14
Lunch: (12pm)
150g Roast chicken
125g cooked brown rice
Veggies (broccoli, grated carrot, spinach)
150g Cottage Cheese
P:57 C: 67 F: 23
Afternoon snack: (1.30pm)
6x Corn thins with 30g peanut butter
P:10 C:34 F:17
Pre-training snack: (3.30pm)
Protein porridge(50g rolled oats, 30g protein – either choc or salted caramel, cooked into porridge)
12g 85% dark choc mixed in (because yum!)
P:32 C:36 F:11
*Finish work 5pm
PM Training: 5.30pm – 7.00pm
Dinner:
200g Grilled chicken
100g Rice (uncooked weight)
Mixed veggies
40g BBQ Sauce
P: 67 C: 85 F: 8
Throughout day: 2x serves BCAAs
P:31 C:2 F:0
TOTALS:
P:237 C: 305 F:78
Calories: 2922
Perth Day
AM Training: 9.00am – 10.30am
Post Training
40g (uncooked weight) rice overcooked
150g choc almond milk
30g choc protein powder
P:29 C:42 F:3
Lunch (12.30pm)
*Sweet soy chicken stir fry
200g chicken breast
5g coconut oil
Mixed veggies LOTS (carrots, zucchini, snow peas, broccolini)
2 tablespoon sweet soy sauce
P:97 C:91 F:22
PM Training (approx. 1-2 hours whenever I make it back to the gym in the afternoon)
Post Training
1x packet tangy BBQ rice crackers. 100g
P:6 C:79 F:10
Dinner
200g basil pesto chicken
5g coconut oil
100g raw weight rice – cooked
Fresh steamed veggies
100g cottage cheese
30g BBQ sauce
P: 79 C:89 F:19
Post dinner (quantities/foods will vary depending on what macros I still need to make up)
55g nutrigrain
100g frozen raspberries
120g greek yoghurt
P:18 C:59 F:12
Throughout day: 2x serves BCAAs
P:31 C:2 F:0
TOTALS:
P:239 C:393 F:57
Calories: 3102
What Keefey says about her eating:
“ONSITE: Currently, I try to sit around 2900cals when I’m onsite and just maintain around that everyday no matter what my training sessions are like. Whether they’re higher or lower intensity I’m still getting up at 2am, I’m still working at 12 hour day and I’m still training twice a day. I want to ensure I’m giving my body enough fuel not only to train and recover properly but to get through the long day with sufficient energy levels too.
In saying that, I have a very sedentary job sitting or mainly standing at my desk for the 12 hours so it’s not like I need a lot of extra cals for that. During those times I’m eating for the body recovery and to maintain sufficient energy levels physically/mentally for my job.
PERTH: Currently, I try to sit around 3100cals when I’m on my R&R in Perth. However this can vary by up to/down to a couple hundred cals depending mainly on training. If I have 2 massive training sessions that day or lots of heavy lifting etc. where I feel I need extra food for fuel or recovery then I’ll add it in. If training is a bit more chilled that day, I may reduce. I really try to just listen to my body because I know it’ll tell me what I needs by how it feels. But most of the time I’ll sit around the 3100.
WHY THESE CALS?: I’ve experimented a lot over time with increasing/reducing total calorie intake and how it affects training, me and my body. For example, at one point I wondered if I really needed as much as I was eating onsite, so I reduced my total calorie intake to approx. 2700 and only lasted a week doing that. I was getting so sore because my body wasn’t recovering properly at all. I know it was only 200cals difference, but it made a big difference! As soon as I added the extra 200cals back in I fully recovered within days and was no longer getting sore anymore. So this is what currently works for me, and it’s highly likely to change again in the future as life/training/my body changes too.
I like having flexibility in my macros, which is why I don’t have set numbers i.e having to have exactly 200g protein, 75g fat and 300g carbs everyday. I’ve done this before when I first started learning to track macros and it was great and worked well, it’s just my personal preference now to be more flexible with it and it’s what works for me.
My main focus for my macros is ensuring I hit a good amount of protein. The rest I don’t worry about so much however I know I feel better when I have higher carbs than fats so I do focus on hitting higher carb numbers and keeping my fats lower (but if I have days where my fats are high and carbs lower, it doesn’t matter). I think some people would say my protein macro is very high. Thing is I know I don’t NEED that much but I just find it SO easy to get protein and so hard to keep it lower haha. I’m wanting to start experimenting with dropping my protein a bit though and filling that calorie loss with extra carbs/fats instead. My protein will still be at least 150g (which is around 2x my body weight, still more than enough) but I’m interested to see it I feel any different with training, recovery, energy etc. in doing so.
One other thing I LOVE about tracking macros is that I’m not limited in what I can eat. I can eat whatever I want!! I don’t like to restrict myself in things I “should or shouldn’t” eat. I just log it in to myfitnesspal (which I use to track) and wham bam happy days. Feel like chocolate? Add it in. Want some ice cream? Add it in. Going to grill’d for lunch to get a delicious burger and fries? Add it in. Yes sometimes it means you reduce your cals somewhere else in the day to account for it but that’s all about the balance. In addition to that, do I track my macros every single day of the year? No way! Sometimes you have days when you’re out all day or eating out at restaurants or you’re celebrating your birthday on holiday etc. Those days I enjoy myself and I don’t worry about tracking. I can generally gauge a rough idea of how much I should/shouldn’t be having – if I want to. However sometimes you also have those days when you just think fuck it, and you enjoy yourself =P **Especially when on holiday back home in NZ because the food there is amazing!! But to me that’s all the balance of life.
Nutrition for me is an ever evolving process and I like trialing new things, playing around with my macros, finding out what works best for me at the time. I’m someone who can pretty much eat the same thing every day for quite a while because it’ll be foods/meals/snacks that I love eating. Then after a while I’ll change it up slightly for something new. I do try to cover a range of different sources for your proteins/carbs/fats over time so I’m hitting different micronutrients too.”
