Workout and Diet Advice I’d Give You If We Were Besties

💪🏻 The fitter I get, more people slide into my DMs asking me ‘exactly what am I doing?’ I’m sharing a lot of HONEST, no-holds barred opinions. Buckle up buttercups, because it’s about to get REAL.😉

Tough Love, Brutal Honesty. Said with Care.

I wrote this post because the fitter I get, the more people ask me about “what exactly I am doing” to get this way! Readers, strangers, family, friends of 20 years, but the common theme is that lots of you out there have very Inquiring Minds so it prompted me to write down what I AM doing. Get some coffee, or better yet some water, because this is a long, juicy post.

Let me start by saying this is a very tough love, brutally-honest-but-said-out-of- love, kind of post. I’m saying the things that other people may not have the balls chutzpah to say to your face but it still needs to be said BECAUSE you’re lowkey stuck, not progressing, not moving in the right direction, or worse - things are moving in reverse and backsliding down a slippery slope. So we gotta nip that and get on track.

Do I have a perfect body? No, far from it. Am I more confident and feel better about myself at age 50 than I did at age 45, 40, 35, or 30? Absolutely YES!

Everything here comes with a heavy dose of wit and humor because your bestie would deliver it to you with a smile. When friends of mine IRL text me or message me asking with their burning questions, I wish you could hear the tone in the audios that I leave them. I am a very no-nonsense, cut the to chase, not sugar coating it type of person. I’m highly direct, I’m not trying to hurt your feelings, I am as nice as I can be, but sometimes the truth is hard to accept.

That being said, your situation is not mine, I am not you, we don’t have the same bodies, lives, GOALS, dietary needs, caloric expenditure, metabolism, age, muscle mass, visceral fat, we are not the same people. However, there are various truths and cold hard facts when it comes to diet and exercise that you’re going to have to accept if you want to get unstuck

At the beginning of 2026 I could not do 1 pullup. So I will happily spam pullups where ever I can and for whomever will watch me.

Please follow me on Instagram where I share updates about my workouts, videos, and my unfiltered real life!

My Credentials: The School of BTDT

I’m not a coach, doctor, dietician, or trainer. I have been a certified yoga instructor since 1999 (mostly irrelevant to this conversation because I’ve never wanted to teach), I have a B.A. in Psychology (maybe somewhat relevant).

I’m a graduate of the School of BTDT (been there, done that; highly relevant to this conversation).

I’ve been dabbling around with various advice on the internet, trial and erroring “things I’ve heard” or seen on the internet for the last 25+ years, and cross-referencing and juxtaposing all this ‘information’ against my own intuition, and repeating, for the last couple of decades. Some of it has worked, most of it didn’t…

…Until finally in just the last year, I’ve cracked the CODE, for me.

What I’m sharing has worked for me AND for many thousands of others. My general concepts are borrowed from doctors, trainers, dietitians, and coaches; I just put my own spin on things and am telling it to you straight like your bestie would.

Your Goals. This Will Not Be Easy & May Not Look Balanced.

Group 1: I am going to assume for the rest of this article that your goals are: to either lose weight, “get toned”, look like you work out, or recomp the body you do have to look like a better, fitter, leaner, more toned version of yourself.

In the process, you’re also going to feel better, have more energy, sleep better, and everyday life is just going to be easier because your body is healthier. If so, this post is for you.

Group 2: If you are trying to get bigger and look like you’re getting noticeably bigger, if you’re trying to bulk, get thicker, beefier, and like a bigger (dare I say ‘more manly’) version of what you’ve got now, while some of my advice may work, you’re not the intended audience. Consult Google or Instagram about ‘how to bulk’, I’m serious. Those are your people and advice.

This is not going to be easy. Anything worth having is worth working for.

If you keep doing ordinary things, you’re going to have ordinary results. If you want to look and feel extraordinary, you’re going to have to step out of your comfort zone, stop doing all the shit that hasn’t been working for you anyway, and try something that may look extraordinary. Change is scary.

This may not look ‘balanced’ to you. It may seem ‘extreme’. That’s okay. The best reel I’ve ever seen on why being extreme and not moderate can work.

Your Diet. Uh-Oh.

Protein. 1g protein per pound of bodyweight is what you should be eating. Therefore if you’re 135 pounds, you need 135g protein. If you’re currently 200 pounds, but want to be 150, I’d eat closer to your goal weight of 150-ish grams a day of protein. At the bare minimum, you’re never to eat under 100g day protein. In this post I break down what I eat, how to eat according to my plan and not on your husband’s, my protein sources and how it’s very easily possible for me to eat 135g protein daily.

Spaghetti squash, chicken, salads, veggies, more chicken. Get used to it.

Figure out your macros. If you’re eating 100+ grams protein daily, you’ve also got to eat fat and carbs. I do not recommend more than 55-60g fat daily for fat loss or body recomping. Therefore, your carbs are going to almost fall into line after you’ve established your lets say 140g protein day, you’re not eating over 60g fat, so your carbs are probably going to come in between 150-230 but I am not figuring out your macros. YOU are. Use a tool.

Weighing your food. You will put EVERY BITE of food that is going to enter your mouth on a scale before you eat it. This will take you no more than 10 minutes out of a 24 hour period. You’re not too busy. It’s not too complicated. You will then track it. I use this white/glass scale because it looks nice on my countertop. Here’s a nice stainless steel one that’s inexpensive with 124k reviews. I use this compact scale when I travel.

Portion sizes. Now that you know what your food weighs, you will quickly see you’re eating way more than the serving size on the package. Make a mental note what you thought was a portion size is probably 2-3x what the actual portion size is.

Tracking. Now you’re going to put an app on your phone and you’re going to log every bite of food that went into your mouth and you’re going to track it. Again, this takes no more than 10 minutes out of your day, you’re not too busy, it’s not too complicated, and you have no idea what you’re actually eating unless you weigh it, track it, and follow the macros that you’ve established for yourself. MyFitnessPal is extremely popular. I personally use LoseIt because I just like the interface better, you can scan meals with a photo of it into the app although I enter manually for the most accurate tracking.

Behind the paywall you’ll find 25+ more useful pieces of practical, no-nonsense advice. I get more even more real and more direct about diet + workouts, where you’re probably doing wrong IMO, and what you can do to fix it. Thanks for becoming a paid subscriber!