Category: bro swaps

IIFYM 101: HOW TO GET 35 DIFFERENT FOODS A WEEK.

On By Bikini Competitor TracyHIn bikini competition secrets, bikini team, bro swaps, food prep, Health and fitness information, HOW TO, IIFYM, macros, meal prep, Motivation, Prepping not starving

Are you a creature of habit? Do you eat the exact same thing every day?  Did your coach give you a plan with a total of 6 items on it?  Are you struggling to incorporate variety into your meals because you “just don’t know what to eat?”

This blog will help you.

Sports nutrition 101 tells us that we need to eat 35 different foods a week.  Our team of athletes and lifestyle clients follows this goal.
This is important simply because, variety allows us to get micro nutrients from lots of different sources.

I have spoken openly about my Bro diet plan  and how it made me very sick. You can read more about that here.  I was eating a ‘totally clean’ competition diet of
turkey
chicken
fish.
egg whites
oats
ezekial bread
brown rice
sweet pot
spinach

I had 12 cups of spinach on my plan each day.
I hated my meal plan.  As I got closer to my show, my calories were very low and I had 6-7 meals a day of tilapia and spinach.

That is about 9 different foods and entire food groups are missing from this plan.
There is zero nutrition coming from beautiful fruits and other veggies.  I could have had other options and still reached my goal. I would have felt better and had more energy.  I certainly didn’t look better on this plan than I do on a variety of food.  That’s a fact.

If you are on a “bro plan” but want to learn how to get variety.. click here

bread
Nutrition should be a priority no matter what plan you are on.
It astounds me that intelligent people accept this style of eating when “dieting”. If you were told to give your kiddo this food 6x a day, you wouldn’t.  Kids need better nutrition. They need their calcium and fruits and veggies. How dare someone recommend this.
When did we lose our sensibilities!! Let’s eat some beautiful food! Stop removing total food groups! You don’t need to!!

How can I increase my variety to get to 35 different foods a week?

DON’T OVERTHINK IT.
Eat simply. If you are in the mood for black berries, eat them.  Have an apple on another day.  Eating the rainbow is a perfect way to increase your variety easily.


DON’T SHOP FOR 35 DIFFERENT FOODS
You don’t need to do that!!  Just start with what you like, and add to it.
We use challenges like “Taco Tuesday” and “Waffle Wednesday” to help our clients get creative and increase their variety.  Both of those meals can be created with lots of variety!  It’s easy to find yourself with 15-20 different foods a day on those days!!
Think of the toppings, the ingredients.  If you want fish tacos, great?  Do you want a taco salad?  Or waffles with Halo top and chocolate sauce.. Or perhaps you just want  Waffles with blueberries!


Hack: My Net Diary tracks your food amounts!!
35foods
You can see the number of foods you have eaten each day!  Cool.  MyNetDiary Pro is bomb!

If you need a macro plan or want to learn more about IIFYM you can work with us at LEARNIIFYM.COM

Prepping Not Starving: Quik Trip Egg bowl hack

On By Bikini Competitor TracyHIn bikini competition secrets, Bikini competitor secrets, Bikini Contest Prep, bikini team, bro swaps, Clean Recipes, Competitor secrets, Flexible Dieting, food prep, IIFYM, macro counting, macros, meal prep, Prepping not starving, weight loss

breakfast-bowl
If Quik Trip is local to you, you might have seen this egg bowl in their stores. I had the chance to taste it last fall and it was insane.  I know a lot of restaurants serve this as well.

Last night, we recreated this masterpiece for my  prep macros. I have no pic, because I ate it up. But it looked much like the above one so go with that.

bowl

1/2 cup Jimmy Dean Turkey sausage Crumbles
1 whole egg
1/2 cup whites
1 slice Kraft Fat Free Singles
onions

In the pan with cooking spray, heat your onions first.
Next add the crumbles until they are hot.
Eggs go next
Put the cheese on top and put a lid on it so it melts.

You can modify anything here just adjust your macros.
If you take out the whole egg  you can take off  5g Fat. I use an omega egg so
that’s a good way to get my EFAs. If you have the fat, get some real cheddar!
It’s so good!

BRO ALERT:  If your coach has locked you down to Bro-city, you can still rock this meal.
Use cooked ground turkey and seasonings instead of your sausage.

Wish I’d saved room for Buttered Toast!

Hey.. do you need help with IIFYM? Check us out at LearnIIFYM.com

Prep 101: Summer time grill

On By Bikini Competitor TracyHIn bikini competition secrets, bro swaps, fat loss, flex, Flexible Dieting, food prep, Health and fitness information, IIFYM, macro counting, macros, meal prep, Prepping not starving, weight loss

omg

So this week a competitor was on a board talking about how she was going back to her Bro plan because she tried that “iifym thing” and it didn’t work. I asked her what was it that didn’t work and really had no answer. She said she ” just needed to eat clean.”

Some people get overwhelmed by too many choices. I can understand that, especially when you are used to being a strict meal plan kind of girl. It’s all you know, right?

Refresher:  
IIFYM is not a diet. You count macro nutrients :Protein, Carbs and Fats.
You must eat at least 20 g of fiber each day.
You must hit your numbers +5/-5 grams daily.
You can eat any way you want but in a fat loss plan, your ratios are 95 percent nutrient dense foods and 5 percent discretionary.
You could eat paleo, diabetic, vegan, bro, whatever you like. You just have to hit those numbers!

This girl was confused. She missed an opportunity to eat well and have choices which is exactly what IIFYM is about. Choices!!

Ideas!
My prep is starting up and we decided that this summer is going to be about the grill.
I want to show you some things we did for my prep.

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Bison burgers are lean.
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This is shark! mmmmmmm
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This is Cajun shrimp. He didn’t even flip them. Just closed the lid on the grill.
sf1
Butter Ball Turkey breast , thawed and cut into steaks on the grill.

Protein:  I get about 190 g protein per day. Rob grilled bison burgers, Shark Steaks, Cajun shrimp and turkey.  So the turkey.. he took a Butterball breast and thawed it. He cut it into steaks and grilled it, 20 min per side. It was insane.  There is no added fat in anything here.
I added avocado to my turkey for my fats and fiber and it was amazing.

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Bison and cabbage
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Grilled purple cabbage from the farmer’s market.
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The zucchini was the best. It’s so flavorful! Asparagus was great! So much better grilled.
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Yellow peppers and poblanos! There’s zuc in there too. This bowl was gone fast! YUM.

All our food came from the farmer’s market next door to my studio.
There is no additional fats on these at all. The squash is my favorite. The flavors burst. We used poblanos and yellow peppers. I hate regular green peppers but you could try.  The yellow ones are so sweet when you grill them.

Roasted cabbage is very good. We have made that into a salad for lunch tomorrow. With this grilling, Rob really just chopped and grilled. He likes to use seasonings so you can too.
I’m sure you have your own flavors you dig.

You can do it
If you are a person who thinks you have to choose the restricted non scientific BRO plan because IIFYM means all you eat is crap.. I am so sorry that you have misunderstood.
I want you to learn so you can have peace in your plan. If you are happy with ‘clean’ food then by all means, enjoy the food you eat.  Dousing things with mustard because you don’t believe you can sub out anything for egg whites is just foolish. It doesn’t make you a better athlete. It doesn’t make you  more HAM or beast mode.  Here’s what makes you a better athlete. Listening to your body. Eating well for your gains. Choosing things that YOU like for consistency and to not feel restricted.

Remember as athletes we need 300-500g of fruits and veggies per day. All my clients, in fact eat this. That’s about 300 calories and 40g carbs or so.  We need 35 different foods per week and we need to focus on our micro nutrients too. Different foods provide micros! Don’t be stuck with the same 6 food items! Investigate!!  Let me know if you have questions!!

I wish you luck with your competition!!
t

Brownie Nice Cream Sundae

On By Bikini Competitor TracyHIn Bikini Contest Prep, bro swaps, Clean Recipes, Competitor secrets, flex, Flexible Dieting, food prep, IIFYM, macro counting, Prepping not starving, sugar
So this happened
So this happened!

This is a fantastic recipe I found on Rippedrecipes.com
Before you fall out and say “OMG, she’s prepping and eating that..!”
It is a very clean treat!! I’m posting the recipe here for you!
I had a fantastic dinner and had this on the couch with the mister.

Brownie Nice Cream Sundae
Serves 2:
Ingredients
1 whole egg
2 Tablespoons pumpkin from the can. (you know you have it, it’s fall)
1.5 medium bananas (about 7 inches)
1 Tbsp baking cocoa
1/4 cup Unsweetened Almond milk
1 scoop of protein powder (I used birthday cake from Muscle Pharm)
1/2 scoop chocolate protein powder

Directions:
Brownie mug cake (makes 2 minis or 1 large )
*I made one mug cake and cut it in half

Mix:
1 egg
1 tbsp. baking cocoa
1/2 scoop chocolate protein powder
2 tablespoon pumpkin puree from can
Put it in a mug and microwave 2-3 min.
Pop it onto a plate and let that cool down!

NiceCream
1 frozen banana
1 scoop of vanilla or your fav flavor protein
1/2 cup ice
1/4 cup almond milk
to make it thick I added a PINCH of xantham gum

In your Ninja, put all the Nice cream ingredients and blend it!
Once your mug cake is cool, you can make some chocolate
syrup with cocoa powder and water. I added a tiny bit of stevia to that.
Honestly, it’s better if it’s not super sweet.
The cocoa syrup can be drizzled into your glass.
Cut your brownie mug cake into pieces and fold it into your
Nice cream.

OMG.
brownie1
My photo of my own sundae was not good!  But trust me.. It was amazing. I had to eat it all up.
The nicecream is crazy! Who knew!!

How I made this work. I added these macros to my tracker in the morning and fulfilled my
day of macros/micros around the entry.  Everything on this plan could be fit into a clean plan.
If you don’t know how to swap out your bro plan check out this link

xoxo

Poverty macros: window pane zucchini

On By Bikini Competitor TracyHIn Bikini Contest Prep, bro swaps, Clean Recipes, Flexible Dieting, food prep, IIFYM, macro counting, meal prep, Prepping not starving2 Comments

zuc2
I‘m a huge fan of zucchini! I have used it during my prep quite a bit.
This weird recipe is actually so good, I want to eat it 3x a day.

I call it “Window Pane Zucchini”

2 medium zucchini. (about 99g when it’s baked)
3/4 cup liquid egg whites
Salt/pepper or spices of your choice
Slice your green or yellow zuccchini really thin.
Spray a cookie sheet or baking pan with non stick butter spray
Sprinkle salt and pepper (or Mrs. Dash) over the squash.
Pour a cup of liquid egg whites over the squash.

Bake 375 degrees for about 30 min.

It comes out with the egg whites all crispy and brown.
I used a spatula to loosen it up.

Macros are for 
117 calories
4 Carbs
21 Protein
0 Fat
1 fiber

If you aren’t brave, here is the non protein Zuc Chips I live on.
zuc1

Slice them so thin and bake them the same as above, just skip the egg whites.
That’s 99g and it’s about  4 carbs.
I like mine burned into oblivion.

I love salt on mine!

Smart girls guide to Bro-Prep Swaps: Caribbean

On By Bikini Competitor TracyHIn Bikini Contest Prep, bro swaps, Clean Recipes, fiber, flex, Flexible Dieting, food prep, IIFYM, macro counting, meal prep1 Comment

greens1

This is a fun one!  I saw a post on a competitor board asking if it was ok to have black eye peas
and greens in prep.  I thought it was interesting because you can really get some nice flavors in
this combination.
Let’s see how we can make that work.

The Standard Bro plan
We are looking at our ACTUAL menu from our coach.
Meal 3 is
5 oz Chicken (Chix) or Turkey
1/2 cup rice or 3 rice cakes or 5 oz potato
Veggies.
broplan

Reboot on this meal: 
Black eye peas 1/2 cup
Collard Greens 1/2 cup
Chicken breast 5 oz
peas.
Let’s see how we did
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The fiber is higher on meal 2.

Note: The Bro-plan had “Veggies” in Meal 3 as well. We can assume veggies are “FREE”.
Collard greens, Kale have more carbs than asparagus and spinach. My instinct is to track everything
I eat. We don’t know how much our Coach needed this client to eat on this plan.  The collard greens
were a nice choice.

I’m assuming that the Island dish was prepared, prep style with no extra fats, oils. Of course.
If you prep this one Island Style,  you can use these flavors
Nutmeg
Cloves
Cinnamon
AllSpice
Ginger

hmmm
Southern style.. I see bacon grease….. not today Satan.. not today!!

Remember: IIFYM/Flex/Macro counting isn’t so you can sit around and eat crap all day. It was originally
used by competitors to offer ‘options’ because of “Bro-Fatigue”.

If you look at your entire day as a whole and have met your nutritional goals, you can have some nice
options.

Keep your food tight! Success!

Smart girls guide to competition success: Bro-prep swaps

On By Bikini Competitor TracyHIn Bikini Contest Prep, bro swaps, Clean Recipes, Competitor secrets, flex, Flexible Dieting, food prep, Health and fitness information, IIFYM, macro counting, meal prep, Prepping not starving2 Comments

STOP GAGGING ON FOOD YOU DON’T LIKE.

ok…
Here’s how I coach: IIFYM
Jax top 10 in her first show, NPC.
jax2
And Brittany.. IIFYM.. BTW.. She won 1st place in two NPC shows.
brobrit

ok.. here’s another one for you. Karina is IIFYM. She took 2 NPC first place in 2016.

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This is one week into prep for Ashley. IIFYM. She had waffles, fries, ice cream and some pretty bad ass tacos this week!16996018_1275000182567322_761176547744141291_n
Then there is this.. Wah wah

bro

Ok..  I’ll skip the sarcasm. Let’s look at your situation. You are on a bro prep and you hate your  breakfast. I have been there.  So get comfortable and let’s figure out how you are going to be successful on your prep and not piss off your coach.

Many smart girls get into coaching agreements with coaches who have only 1 way to look at things. Many women do not ask the right questions before they commit and one of them should be about your meal plan.  If your meal plan looks identical to the ones I’ve had since 1986, you’re in for a long 12 weeks.   The truth of the matter is, in prep, you do have to keep your food tight but the beauty of macro counting is NOT to eat a bunch of crap, it’s to give you options. So stay with your bro coach who you LOVE LOVE LOVE and eat some food that keeps you happy, and not running to facebook asking for advice because you “are gagging on egg whites”. Smart girls.. never do that!

If you want to get right to the swaps, scroll on down, otherwise start here.

All Food has macros. Even clean food like Magic Tilapia, Magic sweet potatoes  Magic egg whites, Magic oatmeal, Magic chicken! Magic Almonds! (dry of course).

Smart baby. All foods have macros.
Smart baby. All foods have macros.

Macro nutrients are
Carbs 4 calories per gram
Proteins: 4 calories per gram
Fats: 9 calories per gram
Alcohol: 7 calories per gram. Don’t even try..  you’re on prep.

Let’s get to work
b
This is a very basic (actual) bro plan that we are going to work with today.
M1: Be sure to eat that at eggsactly 8am!!! (eyeroll)

1 whole egg (omega)
5 egg whites
1/2 cup oatmeal
The macros on this are:
brobrek

The vodoo of this breakfast escapes me, but I’ll be honest. I’m pretty used to using these ingredients in my prep I just remember my first coach telling me that I had to have egg/whites cooked and oat meal separate.
I covered them with mustard. I hated them. HATED THEM!


 This is my IIFYM treatment of these macros.
.5 cups egg whites
20g oat bran (or 1/2 cup dry oats: 40g)
.5 scoop whey
12g chia seeds.
Blend it then make a pancake in your non stick pan

Top with 
90g light and fit greek yogurt
1/2 cup (60ml) of Ihop Sugar Free Syrup
trace

The results
macros

Mine is 2 carbs over but has 3g more fiber. If you are so inclined, remove the SF syrup but mine still tastes better.
The idea is to keep your food tight but using macro counting gives you options.
I actually like the macros better on mine because I space my fats out during the day.
If you really can’t fathom going against your Bro-sciencecoach, then throw your ingredients into a Ninja and make a pancake with the ingredients.  I do that too.  Gagging egg whites is not what smart girls do. They find solutions.

This is one of my other options.
The peach version Peach birthday cake crepe. Guess what’s in it…
peach1 peach3

OMG.. someone ate a banana in prep!  OMG OMGOMGOMG..

pancake

What?  Birthday Cake? This one is for my last few weeks when the carbs are sad sad sad…
crepe

Smart girls do this!
You can head over to RippedRecipes.com
I added the exact macros of Bro-coach’s breakfast and got 273  of just BREAKFAST recipes that
fit those macros. If you want savory, then eat savory. If you don’t want sugar or Questies, you can
find recipes that include the EXACT foods YOU want to eat and still give you the same macros.

panc

How do I figure out my food so I know what my macros are?
Option 1: FatSecret.com will give you the macros on any foods.

Option 2: Add your coach’s menu items to a tracker like MyNetDiary, or any macro tracker.
You will have totals for each macro nutrient you need either for each meal or for the day.
If he says.. meal timing is critical eat the exact macros of each meal when he says.

Me.. I eat what I want when I want. I always preload my workouts and post workout food for recovery but
I’m super flexible with my day.  You do what you need to.

If you want to convert  your whole day over check out this blog post: