A good buddy from the Zumba community reached out to me about her nutrition. Not knowing anything about what she was eating I asked her to log it for a week and get that to me. I looked it over and it was pretty apparent I was going to have to sit down and write.

My response:

Hey there,

You’ve read books on nutrition and I know that Jillian and Bob [she had mentioned them already], if they’re anything like they are on Biggest Loser, are always talking about the effect that carbs have on your system. Insulin response and all that. The pint of fried rice, the lasagna, the french fries, Doritos, and Pringles are loaded with two things you ought to be eating sparingly – carbs & sodium.

You’re doing something that I used to do all the time. It’s as though your memory of what you ate recently only lasts 1-2 meals. If you ate an apple, then a few hours later you feel like you’ve been good so it’s a bag of Doritos you grab. If you’ve had a pot pie, then the next thing you choose is sugar-free Jello and a couple pieces of fruit. Bouncing back and forth between ultra healthy and unhealthy isn’t healthy when it all boils down.

The times are crazy here, too. On Tuesday you went from 1:30 to 8pm without eating anything. Thursday, the same thing – 2 until 9:15pm without eating anything. Your body needs fuel every 3 hours. Cramming a bunch of calories in your mouth and expecting to be able to hang until dinner time is a recipe for storing fat. In fact, if you were trying to put on weight, that’s the way to do it. Big meals with nice long stretches with no calories so your body thinks you’re starving and occasionally happening upon a dead animal that you eat in one sitting.

Starting tomorrow morning I want you to eat every 3 hours. Whatever you want to eat, but make sure you don’t go more than 3 hours without eating the next time. I’ve added another page to the document you started. I want you to write down the fat, sodium, carbs, fiber, and protein in everything you eat. If you eat something and you can’t work it out, just write some notes about roughly how much you think it was and we’ll figure it out.