Dialing in the Nutrition

My diet growing up was trash. I ate sugary cereals or pop-tarts for breakfast, which shifted to ramen when I entered high school; sandwiches on white bread for lunch; and a whole slew of fatty dinners from over-cooked steak to fried chicken to boiled hot dogs to frozen pizzas and more. Oh, but let's not forget dessert. We kept a shelf in our pantry dedicated to fudge rounds and cosmic brownies and oatmeal cream pies, and we had boxes of Mt. Dew cans sitting on the floor. Technically speaking, I was allowed...one Little Debbie cake a day? Usually I snuck 2...3...4....maybe alongside a couple cans of Mt. Dew. My family loved sugar, and I had a vicious sweet tooth, what can I say?

College in the US really sets people up to fail with their diet, too, from fast food chains located right inside the campus to cafeterias full of buffet meals. "Freshman 15"? More like "Freshman 50+." I put on so much weight during that time and knew jack about nutrition and cooking, which persisted up until my second year or so in Japan when I was the heaviest I think I'd ever been, close to ~200 lbs (~91 kg). In many ways, Japan made it easy to eat healthier, but once I returned to the States in 2021, the struggle began anew.

I believe I was ~143 lbs (~65 kg) when I returned to the States. Within a year or two, my weight increased to 153 lbs (~69 kg) and has remained stuck there no matter how many calories I've slashed or how much activity I've put in daily. In fact, I was still at 153 when I began my second "bulk" phase just a couple days ago.

But...why would I start another bulk phase if I'm considered overweight?

Well, during my first attempt at bulking, I crowed at the allotted calorie intake. You're telling me I could consume over two thousand calories to gain a modest half pound a week for both muscle alongside some inevitable fat? Well how-dy! Wiggle room for desserts! As long as I hit the bare minimum range of my protein intake each day, I allowed myself the luxury of eating that wonderful, sugary goodness, which meant I was hitting the upper end of my fat intake regularly to upwards of 85 grams. You see the problem here with this mindset, right?

It was difficult to work in vegetables and fruits and healthy starches into my meals because I was so focused on meeting bare minimum protein goals. How could I stuff my face full of other healthy foods if I was struggling just to hit the bottom range of the "most important" macro for building muscle? I was having to drink protein shakes daily just to reach the mid-80 grams! And usually the protein sources I consumed included a healthy amount of fat, too. So, I was meeting and over consuming on my fat values while barely passing on my protein.

The bulk phase still worked, but I did not partake of the full benefits because I was much more loose with what I was eating as long as I landed in all of the ranges across calories and macros.

This isn't a problem with my genetics. This is a problem with perspective. I was eating overnight oats, whole eggs, tuna, turkey sandwiches on whole-grain bread with cheese and mayo...all good sources of protein but with extra baggage. I avoided cooking whenever I could because I find the entire process tedious. Well, actually, I find the chopping tedious. As well as the time required to cook. The rest is fine, but my avoidance, severely limited my options.

For this second attempt, I asked myself, "How can I approach this differently? How can I set myself up for an easier time when I inevitably try to cut? It's easier to eat, eat, and eat than it is to cut and dream of better food." Fairly certain that my weight-lifting routine is fine, I really wanted to pick apart what I suspected to be the true culprit of my overall mediocre progress: nutrition.

For someone of my size and desired activity levels, I should be eating somewhere closer to 120 grams of protein daily, not 85, and, after looking into it further, I should really be aiming for the lower end of the fat range, ~50 grams of fat instead of loosening the leash and eating over 75 grams. So, I decided to design an experiment centered around these more solid numbers.

Having just begun Day 3 of this current bulk phase, lemme tell ya, it has not been easy so far. Tuesday evening, it took me a solid hour of maneuvering my Wednesday meals around to decrease my fat intake to 53 grams and bolster my protein intake to 135 grams, all while trying to work in more vegetables, fruit, and healthy starches.

I've been hypothesizing that cooking oil has been contributing significantly to my grief of fat intake. The last time we used cooking spray, it destroyed some of our pans, so we returned to poured oil. Thankfully, we invested in a massive ceramic skillet that we can now use the spray on, and I was surprised to discover how much a difference the spray oil has on texture compared with poured oil. For example, when I cooked Canadian bacon with the former method, it didn't acquire the same wet sheen as it otherwise does. There wasn't even any excess oil to pat from it.

Another hurdle for Wednesday was our choice of lunch: CostCo croissants. These huge croissants pack a whopping 18 grams of fat just by themselves. By the time you add the turkey and ham deli meat, the cheese, and the mayonnaise? Yeah, it's excessive. It took me far longer than I care to admit to realize that I could cut the croissant in half and save the second half for another day. Mind blown.

By the time I fit all the pieces of my meal puzzles together, I was floored by how much I would actually need to eat to hit those 2,000 calories. It was so much food for each and every meal, overwhelming even, but I think it'll be easier to process what I mean if I share the breakdown.

Wednesday's Meal	Total Calories	Protein	Carbs	Fat
Guac toast: 15 g of homemade guac 6 tbsp Kirkland egg whites 2 slices of Jones Canadian Bacon 1 slice of Brownberry whole grain bread Rice cakes: 1 Lundberg rice cake 7 g of PB2 Peanut Butter Powder 5 g of Kirkland maple syrup 1 large banana Coffee: 1.5 tbsp of Kirkland honey 7.2 oz of 2% reduced fat milk	695 kcal	35g	109g	16g
Croissant: 1/2 Kirkland Croissant 1 slice of Private Selection ham 2 slices of Kirkland sliced turkey breast 7g of Smart & Simple mayo 1/2 a slice of Adams Reserve sharp cheddar Salad: 47g of baby spinach 1 mini cucumber 6 cherry tomatoes 20g President feta crumbles 1.75 tsp Kenko goma dressing	490 kcal	27g	29g	29g
Spicy chicken & sides: 100g baked chicken tossed with 1 tsp Cajun seasoning 110g of oven roasted sweet potato 100g oven roasted brussels sprouts	327 kcal	37g	34g	4g
Snacks: 150g frozen cotton candy grapes Protein shake: 8 fl oz Tazo Chai Latte 7 fl oz 2% reduced fat milk 35g of Ascent vanilla whey protein	483 kcal	36g	71g	6g

I was terrified by how much food that was for just Wednesday, because while I was on my maintenance phase just before this, I might have had guac toast for breakfast, a whole croissant for lunch, maybe 2 rice cakes with mixed nut butter and banana for dinner, and a protein shake to boost my protein intake. My maintenance intake was only 150-200 calories below this! All this extra nonsense with the salad and grapes and sweet potato and brussels sprouts.... I didn't think it possible to eat that much food without gaining at least 3-5 lbs, and while it did bump me up from 153 to 155, that number hasn't increased at all over the course of the last couple of days.

Yesterday's meal plan, too, was just as packed, though in a slightly different way.

Thursday's Meal	Total Calories	Protein	Carbs	Fat
Roasted Broccoli & Kimchi Rice Bowl: I won't list all the amounts for the ingredients, but it includes tofu, sesame seeds, canola oil, broccoli, kimchi, nonfat Greek yogurt, mayo, toasted sesame oil, ginger, garlic, edamame, scallions, & rice Coffee (same as before)	946 kcal	39g	115g	40g
Sandwich: 2 slices whole grain Brownberry bread 4 slices of Kirkland sliced turkey breast All the mustard Spinach Tomato slice Side of cotton candy grapes (100g)	443 kcal	30g	62g	8g
Spicy chicken & sides: 200g baked chicken tossed with 1 tsp Cajun seasoning 80g roasted yellow potatoes 100g oven roasted brussels sprouts	484 kcal	67g	29g	9g
Rice cakes: 1 Lundberg rice cake 1 large banana 13g pb2 peanut butter powder (I went over on accident) 5g Kirkland maple syrup	249 kcal	8g	50g	2g

I didn't realize until just now that I had put down Quaker in my tracking app for the rice cake, which is easily half of the Lundberg in terms of calories. So, I was actually over my caloric allotment altogether yesterday, oops.

Wednesday and yesterday were also weird days because my partner and I had rescheduled our usual Sunday TTRPG session to Wednesday, but because he was feeling out of it Wednesday, we then rescheduled it instead to yesterday (hence the wonkiness with being late for this week's post, too). I didn't end up eating my spicy chicken dinner until after 20:00. I try to avoid eating that late at all costs, but it couldn't be helped. I was hungry after our 4-5 hour session, and I didn't want to under-eat that day, since I did Pilates on top of quite a bit of walking.

Today looks very much the same as the previous two, and so I won't bore you with the details unless you really want me to break it down in a future post. How well I'll be able to keep this up for the next 5-6 months or so, I have no idea, but what I can say is that the increase and readjustments of my macros has made me more energetic and eager to fidget and get my body moving.

My hope is that when I decide to enter my next fat loss phase, I'll have built up enough of a habit with choosing a healthy balance of foods during my excessive eating to make the inclusion of said foods during my cut that much easier. Yet only time will tell.

Summary of Notable Accomplishments (7.22 - 7.28):

• Transcribing: Only 14 hours remain for Session 0, but this next week I'll have 2 campaign sessions to transcribe, since we had Session 138 yesterday and will have the next, 139, on Monday

  • Still, I'm beyond stoked to be approaching the finish line~

• Began walking again, small amounts here and there during this one-week period

  • I fell off of it because of how much transcribing I had to do and how desperately I wanted to get that finished ASAP

  • Got one day to 8k steps!

• BWS:

  • Quads & Core x2

  • Upper A & Lower Foundation

• Meal prep:

  • Yogurt bark

  • Pumpkin protein bars!

  • Pumpkin overnight oats, which is to die for

Real Talk:

• Have you ever taken the time to really think about how much your body does for you? It's not something I myself realize sometimes until I sit and meditate on it, but every time I do, I inevitably find myself asking, "What does it mean to truly, truly love one's own body?"

  • The idea of loving your body seems simple on the surface, but the idea is naturally much more complex the longer you think about it. Maybe you love your body for how it looks right now, which is fine, but is that really loving your body or just your own image?

  • Or is it an excuse to avoid the difficult task of providing it all the nourishment and exercise and sleep you can feasibly give it?

  • Or is it an act of some sort of rebellion? For me, I actively avoided exercising and whatnot partly as a form of rebellion against my mother's comments ("Why don't you go outside and play? You're going to regret not being more active later in your life," etc, etc.).

  • Maybe you love how it looks right now, but you're also trying to follow a healthier lifestyle because you believe that love goes deeper than looks.

  • There are all manner of motivations and logic. Whatever the reason is, I'm not here to judge, but I am here for the conversation. What does it mean to love your body?

This Week's Obligatory Cat Pic: Salad