My name is Michael and welcome to my side of the blog with my girlfriend Vanessa. I first wanted to give you a history of my food life. I was a fussy eater as a child & I was fat from the age of 7 until, at 21, I decided overnight that this needed to change. The catalyst was stepping on the scales & weighing 100.8kg. I had hovered between 95-99kg for quite a while but never hit triple figures. Following this I proceeded to drop to 78.2kg in 5 months to a point where I had an extremely unhealthy relationship with food (again). Yet again I saw the need to change and one day I saw & bought Arnold Schwarzenegger’s The New Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding. This is still one of the greatest decisions of my entire life as it helped set me on a much healthier, stronger, happier & balanced lifestyle.
Over the next 10 years (to now), I have built a great physique from gaining an understanding of proper weight training & eating well. I now live by If It Fits Your Macros (IIFYM) but I ensure I get a tonne of vegetables, fruits & fibre everyday due to their importance to overall health.
The point of this post is to try & shed some light on how I go out eating 2-4 times a week without guilt, weight gain or closing yourself off from social events. I am currently training at 30% of what I would like to train at (injuries but that is for another time) & have been for around 12 months. I have a slow metabolism & combined with my injuries I am still managing to keep a 6 pack (down from an 8 pack) from being consistent with my food & exercise.
Vanessa & I set aside a few hours every weekend to food prep 10 meals for the upcoming working week with meals that are tasty while having a large amount of vegetables & adequate protein. I also prepare my post workout meal (breakfast) which is usually a chia, fruit, oat, cacao & protein pudding. We have a different dinner every night for some variety for the week which can be at home or out. Going forward I will be reviewing places that we eat out & some of the lovely recipes we make at home.
The most important thing for me is weighing food, which I consider a great life skill. Is this extreme? Some may tell you it is but it gives me peace of mind to hit my macros (protein, carbs & fats) as I need to pretty much every single day of the year. I believe anyone who struggles with unhealthy bodyweight should weigh their food at home for every single meal for about a month straight. Why? You get to a point where you can eye food & be able to fairly accurately guess the weight. You can use this skill at home or when you eat out which should lead to consistency. Consistency is king for IIFYM & training in my own experience.
If you want to eat out something that is going to be calorie dense just make smarter choices throughout the rest of the day with food. An easy meal replacement can be some protein powder, unsweetened milk of choice, spinach & frozen berries. I get this isn’t a sexy meal but just think of the meal you are having later or the one you had earlier as the reason for this. There is NOTHING wrong with going out & enjoying a burger or whatever else you fancy. I love burgers & eat them regularly.
In short, you need to learn to enjoy your food. Whatever you eat is your own choice & no one makes you eat anything once you are an adult. Stop making excuses that someone else tempted you or put it in front of you. I get tempted all the time but I just ensure to fit foods I love into my macros as often as I can. I have chocolate literally every single day because it makes me happy. I fall off the wagon sometimes but I now just make sure the very next meal I get straight back on it. For important dates (think Christmas & your birthday), I also do not measure my macros because sometimes it doesn’t matter.
Food is life.
Food is joy.
Food is social.
Food is your choice, make the right one for your best self.
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