What I Ate in Day, Analyzed by a Healthy and Nutrition Expert, Andrea Marcellus

I have been on a mission to not only get more physically fit and healthy, but also to get healthy from the inside-out, focusing on my eating habits. So, I called in professional fitness expert and author, Andrea Marcellus, the founder and CEO of a lifestyle brand with a mission to help busy, driven people maximize their lives. Not only is Andrea a fitness expert, she is also a life strategist that has guided clients in New York and Los Angeles for 25 years.

Over the past decade, Andrea honed and codified her unique, real-world fitness lifestyle into “5 Life Strategies,” a learnable, actionable set of principles to help clients ramp every area of their lives. These principles have become the foundational underpinning of the Andrea Marcellus brand and its offerings. Andrea’s signature “in-the-moment” workouts are known for motivating busy, aspirational clients to unlock personal formulas to be their fittest, strongest selves – both physically, and mentally. Andrea spends much of her time with clients focused on mentality, as she believes the ability to harness mental focus and energy is the #1 contributor to developing strength and flexibility, as physical power generates confidence and emotional stability. To make her highly-personalized, mind-based approach to fitness accessible to everyone, Andrea has created three resources: her ultra-customizable AND/lifeTM fitness app, her book The Way In: 5 Winning Strategies to Lose Weight, Get Strong and Lift Your Life and her MindBodyLift live events.

Here is what she had to say about what I ate in a day:

The flax seeds in Mary’s breakfast are the superstar. Oats are fine, but grains can make you sluggish in the morning. Protein powders are ok in a pinch, but for every day we should stick to foods straight from nature for better absorption of nutrients. Bananas are fine, but blueberries are antioxidant powerhouses. Fast Breakfast options that might be even more energizing could be nutritionally optimized by going for any make-ahead chia seed pudding with blueberries; (Chia and flax instead of oats and flax = higher omega 3’s and overall nutrition, blueberries offer more than a banana). Alternatively, an egg-based breakfast is great too, specifically, a veggie omelet in a mug with broccoli (highest in antioxidants and fiber like blueberries), or an egg and avocado slices (b vitamins , omega-3s antioxidants). The idea is to get protein, fiber, beneficial fats, antioxidants and energizing b vitamins first thing every day - and from natural sources rather than something made in a lab.

Mary might consider a small mid-morning snack if she’s going more than four hours without eating between breakfast and lunch which can confuse the metabolic conversation between your stomach and your brain that signals hunger and satiety, and also can slow your metabolism. Apple Sandwiches are a great option (apple slices with a little nut butter).

Mary’s lunch is fine as long as she loves it . If you don’t love your food, you are at a metabolic disadvantage to stop eating when you’re satisfied and more likely to keep picking even when you’ve gotten enough energy to get you to the next meal. (Believe it or not, portions and eating on a schedule are the key to feeling energized, lean and maintaining ideal body fat even more so than choices for each individual meal.) Salads shouldn’t contain artificial substances in the dressing - only pure olive oil and lemon or vinegar is ideal. Also, it is important to avoid fried add-ons and save those less beneficial calories for meals you are sharing with others, that might invite French fries. For a nutritional boost, salads are a great way to try to get more red, orange and yellow foods into your regular eating plan. Also, if you plate a store bought salad, it’s almost always 2-3 servings . So best to eat half and then eat more as an afternoon snack.

Note: It’s always better to eat real food than a bar - even high quality ones like Sakara. Real foods contain fiber and water that can be missing from bars, and bars are often based with concentrated dates or fruits - giving us far more fructose in one meal than if we ate a whole piece of fruit and some nut better instead. Our bodies are horrible at digesting fructose (more about this is my book. the Way In,) and our capacity to metabolize and get energy from fructose is very individual. What isn’t used is stored as fat. My 6 week Shape Up course helps you figure out what works best for you in terms of fruit portions, and also grains and dairy foods (if you eat them).

Mary’s dinner is great because she loves it. Even though white rice in sushi isn’t ideal, if she eats optimally throughout the day on her “habit food meals” - the go-to’s she plans for meals, she doesn’t share or eats on the run, then she can feel really free to eat what we’re she wants at dinner, just keeping to an energy appropriate portion. Mary’s sushi dinner could of course, be optimized even more with a few bites of side veggie! Instead of counting calories which is no fun and can make us crazy, I suggest using hands. One full hand, including your fingers, is a snack and two hands is about the size of a meal. The AND/life app, my book and my online course Shape Up: Body & Mind all use this strategy and results are amazing, both physically and mentally.

As for the wine, red wine has legit nutrition benefits, but only one glass per night. I recommend seeing what 5 to 6 ounces of wine looks like with your regular wine glass at home. Start with that and see if it’s enough. If you end up having a second glass, you’ll still be weighing less than what you would’ve had with a full pour for both. I need an ounce glass of wine that is about 200 cal. Just by switching to 6 ounces of wine per glass, you can lose five unwanted pounds of stored fat per year for one glass of wine a night, and up to 10 pounds per year if you have two glasses per night, regularly. That said, sticking to just one glass of wine per night is the better option for your overall health and well-being as wine disrupts sleep, in addition to adding energy to your day that you don’t need at night (which will be stored as fat).

The ultimate bottom line is that every time we judge a Food as good or bad, we also essentially judge ourselves as good or bad whenever we eat them. This kind of negative self-talk is really destructive and not a fun way to live. Food is to be enjoyed and shared, it can be accessed by other people, and is a princess pleasure. It’s really important not to make a math question out of it or to judge it, I’d rather develop a true friendship with it.