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When most of us sit down to eat we eat off of a plate.
Many of us never learned that a plate is an ideal measurement tool for the ratio of foods we consume.
This is because a plate is effectively a real life pie chart.
An important component of your diet is the ratio of foods you eat.
If you are like many people you eat too many carbs, and not enough of most other nutrients.
You can easily see (and adjust) the ratio by simply looking at your plate and the amount of space each food takes up.
But you don’t just have to adjust just one thing, you can build a complete diet plan by preplanning how much space certain things deserve on your plate.
You can adjust the amount of food you eat by adjusting the size of your plate.
In fact, a study published in 2017 named “How does plate size affect estimated satiation and intake for individuals in normal‐weight and overweight groups?” demonstrated that using smaller plates causes people to feel fuller and eat less.
And if you want to know what amounts of food you should put on your plate, I have put together the following image to give you some guidance.
While there are obviously exceptions, these are good general rules to follow.
What I will say is that this only works if you're eating the right number of Calories for your goal, and enough protein to support your goal.
On top of this, you need to be doing some form of resistance-based exercises on a regular basis.
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But if you're someone who DOES weight train, eats the proper amount of calories then you're in for a treat.
This is image below is basically your meal timing cheat sheet.
Everything here is pretty self-explanatory except the bottom two images.
Pre-workout, to sustain your training and to kick-start your muscle recovery, you want to make sure you consume protein, carbs, and fats.
A great suggestion here would be to eat a bowl of oatmeal with some nut butter (or crushed nuts or protein powder) and coconut oil.
This would give you a mix of 40g protein. 30g carbs. 10g fat.
Before bed, carbs are your friend. They'll help you transform from an angry Wookie to a peaceful Ewok, allowing you to feel relaxed before bed, and load your muscles with glycogen for training the next day.
You don't need to eat them right before bed, but 2-3 hours before you go to bed is fine.