General Nutrition

Getting your food spot on is 80% of the process with bodybuilding – it's so important to get it right. And sticking to your eating plan is not easier, but with discipline it does get easier. You have to believe in the process.

In this section I hope to introduce you to the ideas about diet management for weightlifting, and give you a little info on the tasty and nutritious foods that I eat. I'd like to add a word of caution at this point though; working to very controlled diets is something we all have to be careful not to obsess about too much. We need our coach and training buddies to watch out for us and make sure that a strict diet doesn't become an eating disorder.

Bad Food Behaviour

I'm not going to sit here and tell you how many diets I have tried but let me just say, its been a few. Going from healthy days to total binge-out days, my body was up and down like a yoyo, effecting my whole wellbeing. But the sad thing is I got used to it, it fitted with my lifestyle and it was easy to pick up a meal-deal or a quick takeaway after a busy day at work. I didn’t see the bigger picture.

In Western nations, everyone is getting bigger. Diabetes and obesity is at an all-time high. Our health services are not coping well either; we should all be encouraged to take more care of our wellbeing and in particular, how and what we eat.

I had to change my behaviour with food and understand how it affects us and how it builds us. If I wanted to achieve my goal in building muscle and losing fat, I needed to take control of what I was fuelling my body with.

Control The Diet

So I needed to significantly improve my diet, but I didn’t know how much protein, carbohydrate or fat I was eating per day and how many calories it all was. It was time to put a meal plan together so I could properly track what I was consuming. This is where I started my journey and I soon realised I needed a coach to help me reach my goal and understand the process of bodybuilding and food. The process for me was fascinating – how your body reacts when you start to feed it in the right way.

My meal plan is set out for the whole week and it's split into training days and rest days. Every meal is broken down to proteins, carbohydrates and fats – and total calories. I have usually 3 meals and 2 snacks per day. All my food is weighed out, which does take a little getting used to doing, but it doesn’t take long to get into the habit of meal prepping a few days in advance. This makes life a lot easier when you’re on the go.

Buy and Stock Sensibly

All shopping can soon turn into a bit of an indulgence. Retail therapy I think they call it. But watch out for this when you go food shopping. For me I realised that the first part of a poor diet was actually the process of shopping – all the bright packaging, two-for-one bargains, processed food full of carbs and sugars piled high in the supermarkets. So now I make sure I stay focussed on what I want to buy and avoid all the marketing hype. And sometimes it's better to go to a good local grocery store or a farm shop – indeed you might find it better to stick to the smaller specialist stores completely and although some things might be more expensive they are probably better for you anyway.

I always know what I have in the house. I have a dedicated cupboard and separate fridge in the kitchen for my food and they are out of bounds to others (obviously my protein puddings are hidden 😄). Meal plans are different for different people because we all have different goals, so you need to know what you need personally. You may be able to work it out yourself, but I needed help which is why I went with an online coach. This also kept me honest and I think that is essential.

Going Green

Go Green, save the planet, save our oceans, save our wildlife! All of these are so important right now and I think most of us agree with that sentiment. We're all getting much better at being part of it with re-cycling, cutting down emissions, planting more trees, clean up our waters etc.

But how often do you think "I want to save me?" When was the last time you invested in you and how much do you know about what’s happening within your body? Are you carrying too much fat or not enough? Have you got issues with your health? There are lots of questions to be asked. But I've started asking myself these question now. I didn’t know when I last had an MOT ( so to speak ), had my bloods checked and so-on.

Take Control

I needed to stop procrastinating and get this job done, not only play the game but win the game! All too often I put aches and pains down to old age. I had concerns about something but thought it will go away. I would always use the excuse that I was too busy to get it checked, or even too embarrassed to go and get it checked.

Why do we do it to ourselves ?

What I’m trying to say is that YOU are the most important thing. You must take control of you and your body. It's up to you to keep it going, to keep it fit, keep it healthy – its truly the best piece of equipment you’ll ever have. And the more you find out about yourself and discover your strengths and weaknesses, the more you start to challenge yourself. You start to see things differently.

Love Pearly xx