To be completely honest, the diet is necessary because of a recent condition I was diagnosed with. The good news is that it's only necessary for three weeks. The doctor gave me a terrifying list of what I can and cannot eat. After reading through it (and maybe shedding a few tears), I realized that a lot of stars eat the same foods. Unsurprisingly, to keep up her fit bod and flawless skin, Jennifer Lopez eats as if she's always on the same diet. Here's what Day One looks like.
For breakfast, I made the mistake of eating a protein bar and a chocolate almond bar, which are both big no-no's. After reading through my new food bible, it became apparent that dairy, chocolate, stevia, and all sugar-filled fruits are all completely off the table. This leaves nuts and seeds, right? Wrong. You can have raw, uncooked pumpkin seeds and a very specific brand of peanut butter. That's it when it comes to anything like nuts or seeds.
After running to sprouts and picking up the most bland foods I could find (green apples, tuna, sweet potatoes, cabbage, and pea protein), I was starving. For lunch I ate:
Unflavored pea protein and unflavored gelatin protein, pumpkin seeds, raw vegetables, a sweet potato with butter (which is apparently not considered dairy since it doesn't contain any natural sugars), and chicken.
With less variety and a limited amount of carbohydrate-heavy foods to choose from, I felt pretty hungry, but the vegetables did make me feel somewhat full for a few minutes. I attributed this to the high water content. On top of eating only whole-foods, I decided to try to train like Jennifer Lopez. I don't usually go to the gym, so I used 25-50 pound dumbbells while doing weighted squats, lunges, and then body-weight Pilates exercises to shape my lower body. Obviously, Jennifer's training is pretty lower-body focused. To stay motivated, I followed an "intense" workout video from Fitnessblender, using booty bands when the body-weight exercises weren't challenging enough.
As a snack, I made Matcha green tea and had a pack of Skipjack tuna, which contains 22g of protein.
That still left me lacking in the carbs department, so I made some quinoa and brown rice to go with more chicken for dinner. Thankfully, my energy levels felt fine after I ate, but cooking so much was a huge inconvenience. As these three weeks progress, I'll definitely be cooking in bulk so I can just heat everything up in the microwave before work.
After doing a little more research on J-Lo's diet, I realized that she doesn't consume any caffeine, and she's sure to get plenty of rest for her recovery periods after workouts. Feeling inspired, I decided to take a long nap before work.
After waking up, I reheated some more chicken and brown rice for dinner. The only big difference between J-Lo's diet and mine is that she's allowed to have cheat days. Trying the next best thing, I was able to make "pancakes" (or really sad excuses for them) out of coconut flour and cage-free, organic eggs.
It's going to be a long three weeks.
