Right from the start I admit the title of the article is a mixture of truth and a little bit of marketing. Here are a few disclaimers before I dive into my actual diet:
- For me, sports are not primarily about body fat and muscle mass. While these are nice side effects, I value the consistency of progress and mental well-being more. It lays the foundation for other good habits. I basically bet and build my life on it.
- I don’t follow any strict diet. My eating habits have loose guidelines that I try to follow most of the time. And most of the time I succeed in staying in between those loose guidelines.
- The 10% body fat figure comes from my Samsung Galaxy watch, and it even reads a bit less than 10%. Judge Samsung for their accuracy, but you can also see from the photo that I’m relatively lean for a guy in his mid-30s who trains for about 30 minutes a day without a serious diet. And no supplements.
- The photo is taken with poor lighting and no photoshop or filters afterwards. Just “remastered” (Samsung function) to look a bit more professional. I know I could artificially make it to “model” quality, but that’s not the point. It’s not the final result of anything, it’s just the current state of me achieved by training routines that I share with you and poor diet that I am about to share.
OK, so if you’ve read any of my blog posts about my daily routine and with that in mind find the photo good enough, my daily eating routine might be interesting.
Monday-Friday Routine
Breakfast:
- A banana with peanut butter
- 4 hard-boiled eggs
- A slice of dark bread
I eat the banana right after my morning workout, around 06:40. Before working out, I only drink a glass of water. After showering, I eat the eggs. Hard-boiled eggs are easier for me; I put them on the stove before my shower and turn it off when I return. This makes my breakfast time-efficient, and it usually keeps me satisfied until around 10:30-11:00.
Snack Before Lunch:
- An apple
- Nuts and seeds (or a mixture)
Lunch: I don’t prepare my lunch, so my business lunch varies. It can be chicken fillet with rice and vegetables or any kind of meat with any side dish, often fries. I try not to overdo it with highly processed food. Pizza, burgers, and pasta are allowed, but I limit them to 1-2 times a week.
Snack After Lunch: Similar to my morning snack, but I sometimes indulge in a Snickers bar or something similar. This has become harder since I recently quit smoking, so sweets are now consumed almost daily.
Dinner:
- Poultry, usually chicken, rarely beef with rice/wholegrain pasta/buckwheat (60-70% of the time)
Other times, dinner can be anything as long as it’s not too processed. I follow this rule about 70-80% of the time.
Evening Snack: I eat a lot of apples, 2-3 in the evening. Sometimes protein yoghurt or canned tuna. My wife and I often have microwaved popcorn.
Weekend Routine
I wake up earlier than my family and usually have the same breakfast. After everyone wakes up, I have a little snack with them—pancakes, a sandwich, or porridge. After that, it’s anything depending on where I am. Weekends are my cheat days, but usually I don’t go crazy. 2-3 junk meals is usually where I naturally stop as I simply start to feel sick in my stomach, lazy and fat.
Summary
Positives:
- Consistent and healthy breakfast (7/7 days)
- Reasonable lunch & dinners (4/7 days)
- Healthy snacks (over 50% of the time)
Negatives:
- Daily sweets, usually a Snickers bar or two
- Sugary sports drinks, typically consumed during/after long, sweaty physical activities like padel
- Sometimes two much junk on weekend
Despite my eating habits being far from strict, I maintain a lean physique through a balance of natural and processed foods (roughly 70/30). It would be great to be at 80/20. Coupled with a 30-minute daily workout, this helps me stay around 10% body fat. I believe the results would differ significantly if either component were reduced. Also I believe it would be better if I still smoked rather than regularly overeat for the last month. But this story for another time.
It is by no means a scientific conclusion. It is purely based on my observation and experience. I am not a genetic freak who can eat whatever he wants. If I start breaking my own rules (natural/processed food balance or workout routine), my shape goes to hell surprisingly quickly. Usually, 2-3 weeks are enough to see a noticeable difference and after couple of months it seems my muscles just transform to belly fat. So keeping in mind my not ideal but broadly speaking decent diet, I would say training discipline plays the biggest part here. Strick and regular workout routine. I’ll test it see in the future, but I hope it’s true. I do enjoy junk food occasionally. Or once a couple or three days.
JG/xLongRun