Hi Hayley,
I've been working out regularly for over a year now and have gotten into a solid routine of going to the gym for about an hour 4-5 days a week. It's been awesome and I've managed to lose a bit over 15 pounds, not to mention being able to fit better in my clothes and feeling so much healthier! My only problem is figuring out what to eat for dinner. I work 10-6 all week and usually will be at the gym from 6:30 to 7:30 or 8. I live close to the gym, so it only takes me about 10 minutes to walk home, but it still means that dinner isn't ready until 8:30 or 9. What can I have that is going to satisfy my post workout hunger, but not hurt my weight loss? I've been making an effort to only eat fish or chicken, and some form of veggie but the simpler the better.
Thanks so much for passing that along if you can!
Sophia
Sophia,
I understand the difficulties in making the right dinner choices so late at night. I myself arrive home very late from work as well and find it tough to figure out what to have for dinner because you do not want to eat too much since you are going to be going to bed soon but you are starving because you just finished a tough workout and a long day at work.
Here is how you should structure your day: you need to load your calories earlier in the day, eat a large and healthy breakfast and then have a snack about two or three hours after your breakfast, almost like eating a second breakfast. Your lunch should be one of your bigger meals of the day because you do not have time to eat a large dinner, being that you arrive home so late. If you were to workout around 3 or 4 in the afternoon then a bigger dinner would be fine and you would opt for a smaller lunch but because your workout is so late you need to make sure that you have enough energy to get through your workout later in the day. After your lunch have a smaller snack, about an hour or two before you hit the gym. Your snacks can also be looked at like as “mini meals”. There is nothing stopping you from having a small portion of leftovers from your dinner the night before or from your lunch that day as your snack. For dinner, what you have been preparing sounds perfect but I am a big fan of cooking big batches of vegetarian chilli or vegetable soups in my slow cooker that I freeze and are ready to go when I arrive home late. These types of meals will fill you up without needing to intake too many calories.
Here are two examples of what your day could look like.
Breakfast 1
Steel cut oats with frozen blueberries and hemp hearts (or chia seeds for added fibre and omega- 3: this helps slow down how quickly your body will burn through your breakfast which will prolong your hunger as well as increase your daily omega-3 intake)
1 cup of coffee
1 glass of lemon water
Snack (or breakfast number 2)
1 hard boiled egg
1 small apple (or other piece of fruit or serving of berries)
Lunch
4 oz of fish or chicken (or any other type of protein)
2 - 3 cups of steamed vegetables
½ - 1 cup complex carbohydrate (quinoa is my favourite)
Or
1 sushi roll (preferably one that is not deep fried), spinach gomae or green salad, 1 serving of sashimi
Snack
1 - 2 cups of chopped vegetables
2 tablespoons of humus
¼ cup almonds
Dinner
Small portion of vegetarian chilli or vegetable soup
Breakfast 2
Protein smoothie (1/2 banana, frozen blueberries, 1 scoop Vega Protein powder, hemp hearts, ¼ cup non fat plain Liberte Greek Yoghurt and water)
1 cup coffee
1 glass of lemon water
Snack (or breakfast number 2)
1 piece of squirrely bread with almond butter and the other half of the banana with a drizzle of raw honey
Lunch
Chicken (or tofu) stir fry with lots of vegetables served over quinoa
Or
Vegetarian thin crust (homemade) pizza with low fat cheese and lots of vegetables and a side salad
Snack 2
1 larabar and 2 cups of chopped vegetables
Dinner
Egg white Omelette with your vegetables of choice (I like mushrooms, onions, pepper and tomatoes)
These are just ideas but you can see how you need to load the calories in the earlier part of your day and then eat less later on. A lot of the late night cravings and hunger is your body telling you that you have not eaten enough throughout the day so if you are still finding that you cannot satisfy your late night hunger try increasing your portion sizes a bit more throughout the day. Or, see if it might be that you are just thirsty and try a nice big mug of herbal tea.
Attached - Miley Cyrus leaving Pilates.
