I have an appetite issue. I’m always hungry. So when I agreed to join a gym effort to take fitness profile photos in 2.5 months time I knew it would be a lofty endeavor. I need to cut down from 26.9% body fat to 18%.
My brilliant and insane solution is mushrooms.
It wasn’t 100% because I ate an ungodly amount of mushrooms that I lost all that weight. I’m a frequent gym goer and I like to hike, but the mushrooms did play a large role in keeping my calories down as I’m doing this big cut. I don’t recommend my brand of crazy and I’m not a nutritionist. But I personally have found significant value in incorporating more mushrooms into my diet – especially in Korea where the price of mushrooms is so low.
While no two mushrooms are created equal, about 100g of mushrooms can run you between 15-25 calories. That’s relatively nothing. You could eat 1kg of mushrooms and it would only be 250 calories! Thats so much food, and its the reason I’ve been eating between 600-800g of mushrooms everyday.
Here’s what 700g of mushrooms looks like.
But I’m not an animal, I’m not consuming them like an apple, raw one bite at a time.
Inner thoughts of a person hoping that this doesn’t make me seem too crazy
Ive just have a month of breakfastes twice a day with various combinations of scrambled eggs with mushrooms, chicken breast, carrots peppers, onions, tomatoes, cabbage and beansprouts. In addition, I’m eating salads, cucumbers, apples, an occasional salmon rice dishes and ice americanos.
In addition to my egg based meals- I was cooking mushrooms with other veggies for my lunches to keep me fueled even when miserably studying. This diet allowed me to get my protein in through eggs, was easy to prepare and took the stress out of having to make too many decisions.
This isn’t a sexy diet, none of my friends are hitting me up in the DMs about recipes nor jealous of my food lifestyle, but it works.
Though when I go hiking the carbs are plentiful with snack bars and kimbab, but those are exceptional days (10km + hikes) and require different fueling.
I also cheated (a fair bit). My ‘Aurora, don’t drink your calories like an idiot’ philosophy has been abandoned a number of times for cappuccinos and vanilla lattes.
But I hike and go to the gym often so having small cheating moments can be managed with consistent effort- and it sucks. I’ve turned into that person that wakes up at 6:15am and goes to the gym before 7am. I now talk to myself on the walk to the gym about how much I hate all of this and I regret all my choices. It doesn’t help that there isn’t a single coffee shop open before 8:30am anywhere near campus, and only Paris Baguette opens before class starts.
Let me repeat
There are no coffee shops open before 8:30am near my university. I hate Korean coffee culture.
A truly desperate student
I still have a lot more work to do. At the time of me writing this I’m at 22.8% body fat, and I still need to lose another 4-5% to reach my goal looks for the photos. With a month and a half left, I worried for the world’s supply of mushrooms by the time I’m done.
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