Hi everyone! I've lurked here for a while, since about when I first started trying to get into better shape about a year ago. I've never been in particularly bad shape, but since I started cycling and lifting I've definitely improved a lot, and the information on here in particular and other places online has been a tremendous help.
Perhaps the most interesting thing that I've noticed about my experience (can't say if it applies to anyone else, of course) is that the hard part is fitting your life around training. Picking what to eat, I've found, is the easy part - the hard part is adjusting your life to find time to cook more often. Getting through a workout isn't hard, it's just losing that extra hour and a half at the end of an already long day that's demotivating. That's how it is for me, anyway.
One thing in particular seems to be holding back my progress right now: getting enough calories. I usually manage 3 meals a day, but sometimes miss breakfast. Finding the time to prepare more meals is very difficult and hard to maintain for any length of time. Weight gain shakes are just not very good or satisfying, but currently the best solution I've found in terms of convenience.
What have you guys done to help eat enough? Any recommendations on food that's easy to take to work and contains enough decent quality calories to make a difference?
Anectdotally, I often go through long stages of making myself eat more to try and put on muscle mass. When I go through these stages I try to make eating as convenient as possible so I both have the time to do it and get the calories in. These are some things I focus on and suggestions I offer-
1- depending on what you do during the day (work, school, or combination) try to see if you can take a cooler with you. Not a big tailgating cooler, but something small enough to fit under your desk, etc. but that can still hold things like cans of tuna, yogurt, bannanas, granola bars, bagels, etc. All of which are easy to eat quickly and don't require cooking.
If you have a fridge and microwave at work, just fill it up with that stuff, plus cottage cheese, oatmeal, etc. are things you can fix quickly.
2- cook stuff in advance. On your day(s) off, put 10 chicken breasts in the oven to cook all at once. You can have a nice big meal on your off day and have 8 left over to take 2 at a time in your cooler. Make a huge salad with ham, cheese, nuts, etc. and put a couple in tupperware containers and put 1 in your cooler each day.
3- keep drinking calories. Use your weightgainer shakes or just buy generic slim fast. I always get Kroger-brand slimfast because it's cheaper than muscle milk and stuff like that. I'll drink two of those first thing in the morning in addition to 4-5 meals a day when I'm really looking to gain which is an easy extra 500 calories.
Hope this helps, if I think of more I'll add them. The other good thing about a lot of these suggestions is they are not expensive options, which helps when you're doubling the amount of food most people eat.
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Since most of your life is already complicated, why make your training the same way? Jim Wendler
In addition to what dmw said, what I have been doing lately is buying a half gallon of skim milk, then in the morning I add like 3 scoops of chocolate protein powder straight into the milk carton and take it to work and just drink it throughout the day. Its like 1000 calories and it tastes like chocolate milk...of course some people may have a problem with that much milk but I seem to do ok with it.
Perhaps the most interesting thing that I've noticed about my experience (can't say if it applies to anyone else, of course) is that the hard part is fitting your life around training. Picking what to eat, I've found, is the easy part - the hard part is adjusting your life to find time to cook more often. Getting through a workout isn't hard, it's just losing that extra hour and a half at the end of an already long day that's demotivating. That's how it is for me, anyway.
One thing that really helped me when I first started to stop being sedentary, lose fat, and get myself fit back in March of this year is that I decided at that point that fitness was going to be my new hobby and my number one priority. See, when I have a hobby, I start arranging my life around that hobby. Since I was also making health and fitness my number one priority, it emphasized the hobby aspect even more.
So it began. I started off on the Wii Fit, and that's what I did every day for about a month. Then I added on other things. I kept adding on things. I was getting rid of all the garbage "food" in the house and learning to cook the healthy foods.
I was learning to cook the healthy foods *quick*. I can saute up a chicken breast and sauteed vegetables in about 15 minutes total. I bring a bag load of food with me to work.
Of course, I was reading books, reading forums, started martial arts after many years, and have worked to make fitness and health a natural and rewarding part of my lifestyle. I look forward to doing more each day because it my activity of choice after getting through the mandatory job obligation.
I'm not losing time for the workouts. I'm making the most of that time and indulging in my chosen hobby.
In the past, I'd put exercising in the category of another mandatory obligation like paid work. Something pretty boring but I just had to get through each day in order to survive. But this time I chose to change my paradigm and view it different, and it's worked!
After all, now I've started lifting heavy weights with the NROL4W program, and this is something I have *never* done in the past, never even really thought about doing it.
Maybe you're really losing that hour and half each day in other activities that could be cut. Then you could have both your workouts/good food and eat it too.
P.S. Cooking has not come easy for me at all. I'd struggled with it for years.
I can relate to fitting your life around training. I work 10 hour days with an hour commute each way, have a toddler at home, and a new house with a long list of house projects, so it's tough to fit in the workouts and meal preparation. I can usually fit in a lunchtime workout, so that helps.
For breakfast, you can boil an egg or two. Good protein, easy to make and transport, and you don't dirty any dishes. Also, a good high fiber or high protein cereal is pretty quick and easy. In the NROL book, Lou says that he eats Kashi Go-Lean Crunch cereal for breakfast. I can get oatmeal at the cafeteria at work (but the problem is that I don't enjoy it much without butter and sugar in it). An omelet takes a little more work and cleanup, but is still a pretty quick meal.
For snacks, some string cheese, turkey and cheese roll-ups, some nuts (cashews, pistachios, almonds, walnuts), maybe some celery with peanut butter. I also like to drink some v8 juice to help get vegetables in my diet.
Hi MS83, everyone's suggestion above are great. Regarding your workout time, maybe you can adjust it so that you can go during off-peak hours - possibly in the morning before you go to work. This can save you a lot of time because you won't be waiting for an equipment to be available. Also, you don't have to dread that 1.5 hour long workout after you get off from work because you already did it!
Regarding food, I know some people who will bake whole Turkey in the oven. It might seem like too much but sometimes you have to do what you have to do in order to reach your goals.
it's just losing that extra hour and a half at the end of an already long day that's demotivating. That's how it is for me, anyway.
Good suggestions above.
A big part of this game is mental discipline. Find the time that works for you. You shouldn't feel like it's time wasted.
The healthier and fitter you are the easier the daily grind is. You should consider your health and fitness to be the base on which everything else depends.
For me, at my age there is no way I could be doing what I'm doing day to day without the edge that my fitness brings. It's as important as anything else in my life.
Introduction & a question on diet
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