As a coach and fitness model, it is critical that I stay in shape for upcoming photoshoots.
In this article, I am going to show you how to diet like a fitness model and how many calories a day models actually eat.
There is a common misconception that fitness models starve themselves in order to maintain a low body fat percentage.
While this may hold true for some individuals, I certainly have never starved myself to maintain a low body fat percentage and I certainly would never recommend that anyone do so in order to achieve a lean physique.
Instead, I recommend that you stick with the tried and true methods of safe and effective fat loss.
These are the exact methods that I use to diet for any photoshoot and how I maintain lean body mass as a fitness model!
What I Really Eat In a Day as a Fitness Model
The way I eat every single day as a fitness model is determined by my current goals.
In other words, it all depends on how I am trying to look during that period of time.
Do I need to look really lean for a photoshoot?
Or am I trying to gain strength and put on muscle?
Or am I simply trying to maintain my body weight and cruise for a little while?
Let me show you the three steps I follow.
You can also follow these in order to truly diet like a fitness model.
Step One: Establish Your Why
In your case, you may want to look lean for summertime or simply shed off a few pounds of fat that you gained over the past few months.
Either way, it is important to ask yourself – why am I trying to diet?
Establishing your why is going to be the foundation for your motivation.
Step Two: Implement a Strategy
Then you can implement a strategy on how to get there.
For example, in the picture above I wanted to get lean enough to see my abdominal muscles because the theme of the photoshoot was about staying lean for summer.
That was ‘the why.’ The ‘how’ comes down to a simple strategy that I use every time – calorie monitoring.
Calories are the basic unit of energy.
Each macronutrient (protein, carbohydrates, and fats) contain their respective energy quantity.
In order to lose fat, you need to be in a calorie deficit (i.e. burning more calories than you take in).
Therefore, the strategy for losing body fat is to monitor calories and eat at a deficit in order to lose body fat at X rate per week by X timeframe.
Step Three: Follow the Plan
In order to get my abdominal muscles to show for the photoshoot, I knew I needed to get my body fat percentage low enough.
How low is really a matter of how your body stores fat and it will be different for everyone.
The number doesn’t really matter because ultimately, the goal is to get yourself to a lean enough body mass that you are happy with right?
That’s going to be subjective.
You absolutely don’t need to get lean enough for your abs to show.
Maybe you just want to drop some pounds and don’t have the desire to get super shredded.
Again, it comes down to your ‘why’ but the strategy remains the same – calorie deficit → fat loss.
- Structure your meal plan: this meal plan will be based on the calories you personally need to lose weight at a predetermined rate. In other words, all of the food you consume in a given day will come back to this golden number – your deficit number. You need to think of this number like the number in your bank account. You have X amount of calories to spend each day, so budget your foods accordingly. I recommend eating whole foods because these foods tend to give you the most bang for your buck in terms of volume. What’s going to fill you up more – a box of crackers or a huge piece of chicken breast with a big serving of veggies?
- Make sure you are eating enough protein: to make this calculation simple for you – eat 1.0g/lb of your goal body weight. This means that if you are 180 pounds and you want to lose 30 pounds, eat 150g of protein per day. This will keep you full while you are dieting as protein is the most satiating macronutrient. Additionally, it will help you recover from your workouts while you are dieting and help you gain lean muscle tissue.
- Stick to the plan: Now that you know how much you have to eat in a given day, it’s time to string those days of efficient action together. Because ultimately that is what is going to create a large enough deficit for you to lose weight on a weekly basis. As you lose weight on a weekly basis you will begin noticing subtle changes in your body composition. Now it’s simple, keep dieting until you feel subjectively satisfied with your appearance.
Model Diet Example
So for the above photoshoot I was talking about, I needed to lose about 10 pounds from my baseline weight of 200lb.
In order to get to 190lb in a sustainable way, I targeted only 1lb of weight loss per week to make sure that I didn’t feel too hungry or irritable which can happen if you try to diet too quickly.
I calculated my deficit calories to be 2500kcal which is 500kcal less than my usual maintenance calories of 3000kcal.
I’ve written how you can calculate your personal deficit calories in this article here.
I then calculated my protein requirement to be 190g per day.
Then I structured a meal plan that would be 2500kcal per day with 190g of protein per day.
Once again, the two key factors for a successful diet – your deficit number and your protein requirement.
Every single day I would track what I ate to make sure that I did not go over 2500kcal and made sure I ate 190g of protein.
The types of foods that I ate were mainly whole foods that had a lot of bulk because you need all of that volume to fill you up and keep you satiated!
I stayed away from processed foods that were packed with lots of calories but little bulk.
Here is an example of my day.
Model Diet Menu
Meal 1: 550kcal
- 1 cup of oatmeal
- 4 tbs of honey
Meal 2: 570kcal
- 12oz of top round steak
- 1 pepper
- 1 onion
Meal 3: 341kcal
- 2 scoops of plain whey protein
- ½ cup of frozen blueberries
- 1 banana
- 1 cup of water
Meal 4: 690kcal
- 8oz chicken breast
- 2 cups of brown rice
- 1 cup of steamed asparagus
Meal 5: 360kcal
- 1 pint of halo top ice cream
Model Diet Recap
As you can see, each meal contains lots of whole foods, fiber, and protein.
This is the key to a successful weight-loss strategy if you want to diet like a model.
I made sure I had 5 meals so that my blood sugar stayed constant throughout the day as well.
All in all, you want to follow this simple three-step approach which, to review, is:
- Establish your why
- Implement a strategy
- Follow the plan
What’s Next?
After reading this article and you want to learn more about diet, exercise, and weight loss – check out these articles!
Who is Jakob Roze?
Jakob Roze is a Strength and Conditioning Coach and founder of RozeFit. His practice centers around empathic communication and relationship building. With an emphasis on pain free, functional movement patterns and strength training, Jakob Roze assesses each individual’s needs and prescribes exercise modalities appropriately in order to facilitate long term gains in strength and health. He draws from evidence based approaches and applies the knowledge in a personalized fashion to facilitate body and lifestyle transformation amongst his clients.
