Carb Cycling - the beginning

Week #10 of the LIVE FIT Program involves "carb cycling" and being that this is brand new to me, I woke up Sunday morning, grabbed the laptop, my notebook and my morning cup of "joe" (i.e. for many that may be a cup of coffee, for me is used to be a Dr. Pepper....but now it is 12 ounces of water mixed with Mango Strawberry Spark and Mango Pineapple Rehydrate - YUMMO)...ready to do some meal planning. 

 

 

"Carb Cycling" involves days of low carb/high protein vs. high carb/low protein.  This week I have 6 days of low carb/high protein and 1 day of high carb/low protein to plan for.  The type of day coincides with the workout of the day too.  Thankfully, the LIVE FIT Program has an easy calculator to determine the total calories, carbs, protein and fat you need.  Once I determined these numbers, I sat down with the My Fitness Pal app. and customized my nutrition plan accordingly (under settings).

 

 

The first thing that I added to my food diary was my Advocare products because that is something that is the foundation of every day for me.  Then I began adding in all the foods that I typically like to eat for the various meals/snacks throughout the day.  Once I had all my foods in the diary, I was able to start subtracting out food items and formulating a menu (using the LIVE FIT suggested foods as a guide too).

 

 

Below is what I came up with for day #1 (keep in mind I am learning as I go).  You will see that some of the items listed are what many would consider "normal" when I could have chosen a "low carb" or even "low fat" option - examples:  Laughing Cow Creamy Swiss vs. Laughing Cow Light or Mission Regular Fajita Flour Tortilla vs. Mission Carb Balance Fajita Flour Tortilla.  My reasoning is simple - I am using items I already had in my house and not wasting them - so on a future shopping trip, I have already made notes to buy the other version.  Additionally, you will see that I am eating egg whites for breakfast and again at dinner - today that works for my schedule as I will be shuttling between soccer practices and the dance studio - so I can whip up that meal easily and take it on the road with me while I play taxi driver.

 

 

YES - this took me about 2 hours to come up with, however now that I have a starting point, I can modify each day going forward.  I have my list of all the items that I originally started with and I can quickly swap foods each day going forward.  As I do so, I hope to get my numbers a little closer to my daily goal - but for today I think I did a fairly decent job.

 

P.S.  I am using my new Easy Lunchboxes & have my salad prepped for the week in Mason Jars (as seen on PINTEREST) and will update later on how I like them.