My New Diet Plan

My current diet consists of eating around 6-8 times a day with the caloric goal of 3400 calories per day. The reason why I eat so much is because I am looking to gain weight. I weigh 175 pounds currently and I want to get back to 185 pounds. Being in the military makes it almost impossible for me to stay on track with my meal plans and eating healthy the way I want to when I am not away on a mission/deployment. By using the following helpful tool to get an idea of how many calories I should be eating, I was able to get more of a specific number to shoot towards instead of just eating to eat.

https://www.lifespanfitness.com/fitness/resources/calories-calculator

The main things that affect my caloric intake are:

1.       High basal metabolic rate (I burn over 1850 calories just by doing nothing)

2.       I do PT with the Army Monday through Friday and I also hit the gym on my own 4 times a week. (I am burning more calories than your average active person) This causes my body to need much more calories than normal suggested calories. 

I desire to weigh more because up until I was 24 years old, I never weighed any more than 135 pounds. When I joined the Army, I fell in love with the fitness industry while deployed to Iraq in 2015. I soaked up all the knowledge and techniques I could and because of my hard work and dedication, I came home weighing 165 pounds and was stronger and healthier than I had ever been. Since then, I have continued my journey and it has been a long, slow road, but I want to keep growing in this journey. I am currently 175 pounds and in the next three months want to be a solid 185-190 pounds. 

My diet consists of:

-Breakfast is pretty robotic for me as I usually eat the same thing each morning. 3-4 Eggs, two slices of Ezekiel bread toasted, Greek yogurt, and a banana. I wash this down with either milk or orange juice. 

-Lunch is mostly meal prepped containers of either 8 oz of chicken with brown rice, 4-6 oz of broccoli or whole grain pasta with sauce and nut mix or various fruit for the snack.

-I always eat fruit and a protein bar when I am having cravings.

-Dinner is usually turkey meat, fish, or more chicken. I hardly let myself consume red meat unless it is a special occasion, or I have no other option. The reasoning behind this is my family has a lengthy history of kidney stones and consuming red meat in excess is a big contributing factor. 

-Before bed I have a casein shake with almond or 1% milk, as it is slower dissolving than Whey followed by an orange or apple.

*When I have room to play with my calorie intake, I usually eat some random snack food like a slice of pizza, or my guilty pleasure being donuts and cereal.

The biggest changes I need to make to my current diet is bringing more food with me in my lunch box to work. Lately, I have been eating what was supposed to be for lunch way before that time and when lunch comes around I fall into temptation and eat out with coworkers or my wife. Often it is fast food or processed food which I know I should not be eating. On top of bringing more food with me to work, the other huge change I need to make is to eat more carbs for the “gains” that I want so badly. I have fallen victim for the longest time of believing that carbs were holding me back from looking more “shredded” and I was completely wrong. I must get back to the basics and counting my macros daily, instead of just thinking whatever meals I have planned will be sufficient enough.
According to the Nutritional Guidelines I now know, I will be eating much more carbs, and getting back to eating 3-4 servings a day of fruits and vegetables. I have been guilty of only eating them when I am trying to curb my cravings and not eat junk food. I also want to include more legumes or beans into my weekly rotation so I can mix up and get an aspect of the food pyramid I haven't had much of in a while.

For anyone wanting a beginners example video of meal prepping, I am attaching a YouTube video link for you to take notes from.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=690&v=91TkjzbEg7U

Also another big tip I will suggest for meal prepping is to order a food scale/Tupperware combo from amazon to aid in the simplicity of getting meals to the proper preparation.