As you’ve hopefully heard or read somewhere at Derby City, we endorse a nutrition program for our members that’s sponsored by Eat to Perform. We like it above all others because a) it isn’t a “diet” so it doesn’t have any of the stigma attached with the word “diet”, b) it’s focused on optimizing your athletic performance, and c) it can change the way you look at eating, giving you a healthier relationship with food.
A little background… our DCCF/ETP Nutrition Program costs a mere $10/month, includes monthly body-fat testing, and 24/7 access to PhD-level nutritionists who can guide you on your search to better nutrition. Its goal is to properly fuel your body, maximizing muscle growth, encouraging strength and endurance, and leading to fat loss. Not necessarily “weight loss”, but definitely fat loss. The basic principle is that you keep carbs low during the day, then eat them around your workouts, before consuming the rest of your daily carbs at night. The goal is making your daily eating habits intuitive and sustainable.
Basic Outline
When you sign up for ETP, they will give you a basic template similar to what we’ve written below. As you continue to communicate with them, giving them updated body-fat/muscle-mass numbers each month, they’ll revise this template based on how you respond.
Protein: Set to 1g per pound of bodyweight.
Fat: Set to 75g for women, 125g for men.
Carbohydrates: Solve for this.
The calculator will tell you how much to eat on a workout day. Chances are, this is higher than what you are doing now! On a rest day, eat 50-100g less carbs. You can download an app on your phone, called MyFitnessPal, to track your food and macronutrients until you get a good idea of how much you should be eating daily. After that, you might not need to track anymore… just track it for a week when you need to go back to ETP to ask for more guidance, or to make sure you’ve been eating enough.
Meal Template – Workout Day
Breakfast: Protein, fat, and veggies
Lunch: Protein, fat, and veggies
Pre-Workout: 1:2 ratio protein and slow-digesting carbs (ex: 25g protein, 50g carbs)
Post-Workout: 1:2 ratio protein and fast-digesting carbs
Dinner: Protein and carbs
Post-Dinner: Make up whatever macros you need to. Ours is usually just more carbs!
Meal Template – Rest Day
Breakfast: Protein, fat, and veggies
Lunch: Protein, fat, and veggies
Dinner: Protein and carbs
Post-Dinner: Make up whatever macros you need to. Ours is usually more protein and carbs.
Carbs Are Your Friend
Fruits are not necessarily the best choice as an energy source – they’re just not dense enough – but, fruits are packed with vitamins and minerals and are absolutely a part of a great nutrition plan. Starches are your best friend: rice, potatoes, ripe bananas and oats. Liquid nutrition in the form of pureed foods and supplements (like dextrose or maltodextrin powder) can be consumed before, during, and after training.
When recovering from chronic underfeeding, seeing the scale go up can be frightening. Sure, it was easy to keep the scale down when you starved yourself, but that way of life wasn’t getting you where you wanted to go or you wouldn’t be here. It’s hard to do new things out of fear, but there’s really no reason to be afraid if you approach this program gradually. Hopefully, you’ll see that the fear of eating carbohydrates is unjustified. If you go overboard, you can always control whatever minor mistakes you’ve made. As an athlete (and yes, you are an athlete) you need to take the reins and do some self-experimentation.