From Jack in the Box to Jacked

   So as the days tick away and Europa draws closer, I've been busting my ass and am starting to see some great results. The love handles i have neeeever loved are slowly but surely melting away, my abs are flattening out and i have officially stolen the thunder from my thighs. While a lot of it came from many whiny hours in the gym, 80% of it was born in the kitchen. I always used to ask trainers how to get rid of any belly fat or slim my thighs and was always told--diet. Back then, I immediately thought they were pompous jerks with natural born six packs, laughing away at the fat girl by giving her false hopes for flat abs. I thought you're either born hot with hip bones popping out of your jeans or you're not. Plain and simple... and if this so called 'diet' didn't include sonic blasts & kit kats, i wasn't really that interested anyway. Truth be told, genetics only have about a 10% influence on your body's structure. It will determine where you store fat, how easily you store it as well as how easily it burns it. What it doesn't determine, is the food you put in your mouth. You determine that. Once I got away from the thought that i was genetically predisposed to have a fat ass, i opted to give the whole clean eating thing a shot. Prior to May, I've never seriously dieted. I would finish teaching a class and go get ice cream (ice cream calories aren't real calories anyway) and spent more money at jack in the box a month than i would have on a new car payment (soo sad, but true). Sure, i would eat good at the gym...but I'm a trainer who works with other trainers so i thought that was pretty much mandated. Once i was off the clock, even if  i had the tiniest craving for anything, I would have it. I'm not gonna lie, dieting is the harrrdddest thing i have ever done and i have been whining NON-stop. It's not even a little bit easy for me but i am thrilled with the progress.....so i may have to place a cease and desist order on my whininess. Here's a peek of what the early weeks of the Europa diet looked like:

• 1st Breakfast: 1 scoop chocolate myofusion blended w ice & instant coffee...amazing. OR Isopure- Green Tea flavored.
• 2nd Breakfast: 2 eggs, 3-4 egg whites (or egg beaters) scrambled with1/3 cup of Jimmy Dean turkey sausage crumbles OR turkey bacon, 1/2 cup of oatmeal w/ 1 packet of splenda & 2 tbsp of ground flaxseed meal.
• Meal 3: 4oz of chicken breast or some other lean protein source...ie; tilapia, ground turkey or sirloin steak, 4oz of baked sweet potato or 1/2 cup brown basmati rice ( nina turned me on to this...so much tastier than reg brown rice)
• Meal 4:  *same as meal 3
• Meal 5: *same as meal 3 except in place of sweet potatoes or rice, i'll sub in asparagus, green beans, or zucchini
• Meal 6: Cottage cheese in some form of mixture with chicken or ground turkey

  Im a big believer in breakfast. I make it a point to make it my biggest and most carbed up meal, and taper down as the day goes by and my activity level decreases. Somewhere in between meals 3 and 5 i work out and have another Myofusion shake, post-workout. At the end of the day my calorie intake is somewhere around 2400-2800...not so much a typical "diet". It is super high in protein (close to 300g a day) and is geared toward building lean body mass so, definitely not in the cards for an extreme dieter (think HCG/500 calories a day...not so good) or if you're not doing the weight training to accompany the high levels of protein. I have yet to ever eat one rice cake, piece of celery or salad and i'm NEVER hungry. Do i miss ice cream? Hell yes. I'll sit at Chili's with the menu open to the dessert offerings, staring and drooling more over the Paradise Pie than i do the hot bartender. I may or may not have had the occasional dream about totally dominating at a cupcake eating contest only to wake up in a panic clutching my abs, thankful it was just a dream. Although Europa is a short 14 days away, I have learned a lot nutritionally and I'm sure after a couple days worth of a straight pizza and cupcake diet, I'll be right back on track with this diet with a whole lot less disdain towards it. I know the meal plan is rather boring but it makes grocery shopping soooo easy!