It’s been a while between diet roadtests, but I’m back and ready to go!
This year, I’m just doing one roadtest, but it’s a biggie – I’m following a shredding diet plan, as if I were prepping for a bikini / bodybuilding comp.
I’m working with our affiliate dietitian, Elle Burnett, on a 26-week shred.
We started with bulking – which was AWESOME! Not gonna lie, I love carbs. The aim of this phase is to build muscle, so when you start to strip away the calories you’ve got a good base of muscle still there.
Muscle was achieved. So was more body fat. But that’s kind of what we expected.
So now we start the shred by stripping about about 500 calories a day to begin with. Each day my intake differs slightly depending on my training. For example:
- Non-training day (a rarity, but it happens): 1600-1700 calories
- Single-training day: 2000-2100 calories
- Double-training day: 2200-2400 calories
Needless to say, I like double training days ;).
What I’m eating
My meal plan is easy enough to follow for now. The biggest thing is getting out of the chocolate habit that had crept up on me over a few weeks of stress at work. It helps that my bestie is quitting sugar for our 8-week challenge, so we’re keeping each other accountable on that front!
A typical day for me food-wise at the moment looks like this (assuming it’s a double-training day):
- Pre-morning training: 1 banana
- Post training: Protein shake
- Breakfast: Overnight oats (1/2 cup oats, 1/2 protein, cinnamon, 1tbsp chia seeds) with yoghurt and berries
- Morning tea: 2 x rice cakes with half a slice of cheese on each and a bit of vegemite, and 1 piece of fruit (a banana or 2 small mandarins, for example)
- Lunch: Tofu or fish, with veggies and rice (or similar).
- Afternoon tea: Cucumber with hummus, cherry tomatoes, sakata rice crackers (or more rice cakes).
- Pre-evening training: 1 banana or 4 dried apricots
Post training: Protein shake - Dinner: Fish with salad and potato, or with veggies and rice.
In addition to the classes I teach, I’m also trying to find a way to fit in some more pure strength training, to continue the focus on building muscle mass.
It’s less than one week in, and already I’ve had to be careful as I’ve travelled for work. Tracking my food on My Fitness Pal is helping me work out what I can have, and keep me accountable!
Starting point
I had a body scan last = weekend to document my starting point. Here are the starting stats:
- Weight: 60.2kg
- Muscle mass: 26.2kg
- Fat mass: 12.8kg
- Percentage body fat: 21.2%
While all of these numbers are comfortably in the ‘normal’ range for someone my height (although apparently my muscle is close to ‘over’ normal range!), there’s clearly work to do to get to what’s required for competition!
Let’s see how we go.
Current status: Hangry, with a hint of sugar craving.