The First Week of Dieting

There was a pretty sharp learning curve at the beginning. I went from eating whatever I wanted whenever I wanted to having specific nutrient numbers to hit and a somewhat more limited selection of foods to chose from.
To start I was aiming at 192g protein, 247g carbs (3 servings starch), and 48g fat for each day every day. There were no weekends off, all days were to look the same. Everything I ate had to be weighed, measured and recorded in a food journal. I quickly realized that it was better to keep things simple. Calculating and recording the nutritional content of 5 oz of baked chicken, cup of veggies and a tablespoon of balsamic dressing was much easier than trying to figure out what a restaurant was putting in their dishes.
This is what a typical day of eating looked like.

11/5/08

7am:1C oatmeal

3/4C berries

1 whole egg

4 egg whites

9:15am: 6oz grilled chicken

1 apple

11:30am 4oz chicken

1C brown rice

2C broccoli

1:30pm 2 scoops protein shake

1 Banana

5:00pm 1 can tuna

2C lettuce

2 tbs olive oil

1C strawberries

8:00pm (post workout)

1 scoop protien shake

1 banana

1 apple

10:20pm 2oz steak

1 tortilla

fish oil
(I was a little over on fruit for the day)

I was very disciplined through the first week knowing that I would get a glorious "cheat meal" on Friday night. Finally the week ended and my girlfriend and I (who was also training at the time) headed to Upper Crust in Boston to split a large pizza (I can't recall the toppings, but it was undoubtedly greasy and delicious). If we were smart we would have stopped with the pizza. But we had been good for a whole week, it was time to do some damage! Not yet having our fill of refined carbs, we headed to Legal Seafood for dinner rolls with butter (oh how I miss those) and some dessert.
Upon ingesting several rolls we each ordered a dessert. I ordered some kind of super rich layered chocolate cake. It was about halfway through this that I started to realize the mistake I was digesting. I began to feel full and bloated and sick to my stomach from the carb and sugar overload. We paid the tab, took the rest of the dessert to go (no way I was gonna waste that precious chocolate) and headed back to my apartment where we spent the rest of the night in the fetal position on the couch.
Lesson learned: once you start eating clean be careful with the cheat meals. Your purified system can't process junk like it use to.