4 Weeks Challenge Nutrition Plan & Strategy

Nutrition strategy 

During my years as an active competitor and overall athlete, I’ve tried many different types of meal outlines and nutrition strategies to try and find what works best for me. Keep in mind that what works well for me won’t necessarily work best for you. It’s about trial and error. 

The first thing in the morning for me is black coffee and it keeps me “full” up until lunch.

After trying intermittent fasting, I found that I feel much better skipping breakfast and saving the calories for later meals. Even though currently I am NOT doing intermittent fasting, I still prefer to skip eating in the morning during weekdays. So my first true meal is lunch. If you do like intermittent fasting, then you can incorporate it. 

With this in mind, using these concepts will help you keep an active life while being focused during your day and not hungry

Concepts to keep in mind:

• Eat until your a satisfied instead of feeling full (avoid crushing )
• Incorporate protein with most meals 
• Eat quality carbs (complex and natural as you can)
• Earned meal X 2 per week

I will spread my meals like this

Morning – coffee 

Lunch – protein complex carbs, vegetable fats

Snack – protein, carbs

Snack– protein

Dinner– protein, carbs, fats vegetable 

Late-night treat – vary 

Here’s a list of options from each food group that I like to incorporate into my meal plan:

Protein: 

• Chicken breast (around 200 gr)
• Lean steak (around 150-200 gr)
• Eggs (2 whole 2 white only)
• Salmon (150 gr)
• Lean turkey (100 gr)
• Tuna ( a whole can)
• Protein shake (1 scoop)

Carbs

• Fruits (banana, tomato, blueberries, dates, strawberries)
• Rice
• Pasta
• Sweet potato 
• Whole wheat bread
• Oats 

Vegetables:

• Cucumber 
• Zucchini 
• Green beans 
• Broccoli 
• Spinach 

Fats

• Peanuts 
• Peanut butter
• Bacon
• Tahini 
• Avocado 
• Olives

Condiments:

• Sirach (as spicy as it can)
• Sauteed vegetables 
• Tahini mix 

A sample day of eating and training schedule: 

• Morning: black coffee 
• Mid-afternoon: weight lifting 
• Post-workout: protein shake
• Lunch a cup of rice (100 grams), 200 gr chicken breast sautéed with onions, half avocado 
• Snack: protein bar 
• Snack (pre-evening training): 2 slices of whole wheat bread with tsp of honey and tsp of peanut butter
• Evening training
• Dinner: 200 gr salmon, 150 gr sweet potato, medium vegetables salad with tahini
• Late night snack: 2 cups mix of berries and strawberries with a bit of low-fat Greek yogurt 

It’s important to note that this is just a SAMPLE. I do like to mix things a bit. If I am not that hungry at lunch then I’ll save some of my carbs for later, or if I know I want a bit more carbs for a better late-night snack I will take some of my carbs and add them to my late-night snack (for example – a protein pancake). On the same note, if I don’t feel like I need a late-night snack, I won’t eat one. This is mostly to prevent any crazy binging.

I didn’t have the exact times of the meals because they vary from day today. But my first big meal is around 14:00 if do my weight lifting before that. If so, I will eat a small fruit or one of the snacks before weight lifting. If I do my BJJ training in the morning then I will only have my coffee.

Basically, I’m eating 2 big satisfying meals with some snacks in between. I am a huge believer in earned meals. I have 2 of these during the weekend.

The first one is usually whatever I feel like eating on that evening (mostly a good burger and fries) and the second one is at the family dinner on Fridays, but it’s more of eating more of what I usually eat on my dinners.

That’s it! I hope you find it helpful, and if you have any questions feel free to contact me and let me know!