As Chris Perrin puts it, “I live a double life.” You may know him as a local Nike personal trainer, but from 9 to 5 he crunches numbers at a desk as an accountant. “These jobs are completely different,” he says. “One I’m up and about, the other I’m sitting on my tail.” That said, his diet has to be efficient and match his activity level. “Very little energy is wasted,” he says. He’s also a vegetarian. Read on to see what food keeps him fueled throughout the day.
Breakfast (5:30 AM): “My first client is at 6 AM. My go-to most mornings is three eggs on half of a OneBun topped with salsa. I spread chipotle barbecue sauce on each OneBun. I also have a coffee, black. I take the coffee with me and sip it throughout the morning.”
Fresh off training 800 runners for Sunday’s Nike Women’s Half Marathon, Jen Walls is already training for her own big race come September: the Ironman Wisconsin. That means a 2.4-mile swim, 112 miles on the bike, and a 26.2-mile run. On top of two-a-day workouts, she’s the corporate and community development manager for Team in Training, a fundraising organization for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.
Just before Sunday’s race, we had Walls keep a food diary for us so we could get a look at how the busy athlete and manager—with a 5:30 AM wakeup call—stays fueled while juggling so many responsibilities.
Breakfast: “A Stinger waffle with peanut butter before my morning workout (a long run). After making an eight-ounce cup of coffee, I put the Stinger waffle and peanut butter on top of the mug—it makes the peanut butter melt and the waffle soft. Delicious!”
Jummy Olabanji has a seriously early wake-up call for her job as a reporter/anchor at ABC7 News, but her day doesn’t end once the show ends. During her free time, the adjunct professor of communication at Marymount University can be found at Lava Barre and Revolve DC, and manages to squeeze in some Pilates, yoga, or Dance Trance sessions at various fitness studios in Washington. Despite all that, she says, “I’m usually in bed by 8 PM.” We don’t blame her!
Read on to see how her diet of several small meals and snacks helps her wake up at 2:45 AM and stay fueled through her workouts. (Shockingly, copious amounts of coffee are not involved.)
By day, Allison Godfrey works in fundraising for the historic site and Masonic headquarters building, the House of the Temple. By night, she discovers new ways to stay in shape and eat healthy, from walking everywhere (“I try not to pay for public transportation”) to exercising five to six times a week with boot camp, cycling classes, yoga, and running. She documents her healthy lifestyle over at the blog Wicked Healthy Washingtonian.
See how Godfrey keeps her diet in check with the one-day food diary she kept for us.
Breakfast: “My day always begins with a giant bowl of overnight oats. I try to make a different combination each day to keep things interesting. Before bed, I mix together oats, plain Greek yogurt, unsweetened vanilla almond milk, flax, mashed banana, and a small serving of some other type of fruit. In the morning, I grab the bowl out of the fridge in stir in either nut butter or raw nuts. Today my bowl included apples and almond butter.”
Michael Sapienza is the executive director of the Chris4Life Colon Cancer Foundation, which funds research to find a cure for colon cancer, the second leading cause of cancer deaths for men and women combined.
To show how one’s diet can promote digestive health and therefore prevent colon cancer, Sapienza kept a one-day food diary for us. Find out what he ate for breakfast, lunch, and dinner below.
Breakfast: “My morning always starts with fiber. Fiber is one of the most important foods we can eat to help promote digestive health. My breakfast this day was Kashi’s oat cereal with almond milk, sprinkled with flaxseed. There is evidence that flaxseed helps prevent heart disease, cancer, and diabetes.”
Exercise instructors like Katie Fouts aren’t always naturally fit. Fouts, a co-owner of Biker Barre in Capitol Hill, says she lost 50 pounds by “having a lot of healthy fun.” These days, she teaches barre and cycling classes multiple times a week at her studio, runs, practices yoga, and plays Frisbee. The secret, she says, is sticking with things she truly enjoys—which include heading to the Nationals’ home opener on Monday. Read on to see how she “had a blast and stayed healthy.”
Breakfast: “I had a quick pre-run nibble of a banana and caffeine before running five miles on the Mall. Whenever my brain could drift away from the complex maze created by the cherry blossom tourists, I was thinking of one thing: sausages. More specifically, big, juicy Italian sausages that you can get at the Senator’s Sausages stands at the ballpark. They’re one of my favorite things about Nationals games, and today I planned to bite into one!”
Alice Bender is a registered dietitian with the DC-based American Institute for Cancer Research. As part of her job, through food she helps Americans take “simple steps to lower cancer risk, based on the latest science.” Bender says she practices what she preaches, by following the institute’s New American Plate, which requires filling at least two-thirds of your plate with plant-based foods and one-third or less with animal foods. Two to three times a week she also exercises at the gym with vigorous cardio and strength training, on top of walking every day for at least 45 minutes.
Breakfast: “I start my day with routine: whole-grain toast with a little jam, plain yogurt, fruit, and coffee with milk. Lately I’ve been dressing up my coffee with frothed milk. I love my little frother.”
You might have come across Rachel Morris at the Whole Foods Market in Foggy Bottom, where each month she puts on cooking demonstrations and teaches vegetarian cooking classes. While she cooks vegan and healthy at home, she admits she likes to splurge on a cookie or pizza when she’s out and about. She also works out four times a week, including kickboxing and indoor cycling classes. Find out how the vegan-friendly cook eats for a day.
Breakfast: “I usually go light at breakfast, starting with coffee and my staple oatmeal (rolled oats, almond milk, blueberries, almonds and cinnamon) or sometimes a banana. I don’t eat breakfast until I’m hungry. I like to think my body will tell me when it’s awake and needs food.”
Recent DC transplant Christy Martin caught the running bug in 2010. Just three years later, she’s training for her sixth marathon and averages 40 to 50 miles a week with a couple of yoga and strength-training sessions thrown in. Needless to say, she needs to stay on top of her diet to make sure she’s fueling and replenishing her body with important nutrients after those long runs. How does she do it? By planning her meals at the start of every week. “I’m a big fan of meal planning,” she says. “I sit down on Sundays and plan out my meals for the week and post them on my fridge. It’s definitely a time saver so I don’t sit in front of an open fridge for 20 minutes deciding what to eat for every meal!”
Breakfast: “My go-to breakfast is whole-grain toasted waffles with almond butter and either apples or bananas with honey and cinnamon. It’s the perfect blend of carbs, protein, and sweetness to kick start my day. It’s filling and is easy to grab and go if I’m running late to catch the Metro, which almost always happens when I run before work.”
Jennifer Altoff, whom Well+Being readers recently named a top fitness blogger in Washington, just turned in her sneakers for heels when she left her gig as a personal trainer for an office job. But that doesn’t mean she’s given up exercising—she still tries to get in at least four workouts per week. “I enjoy circuit training and running around DC,” Altoff says. “The rest of my time is spent sneaking in exercise whenever and wherever possible—while enjoying all the fine dining the District has to offer. It’s all about balance.”
Read on to see how Altoff’s diet fits into her typical 9-to-5 routine.
Breakfast: “My day starts with a big glass of water followed by a serving of Greek yogurt with honey, raw oats, and a banana. If I’m feeling feisty I will add in a handful of whatever cereal snuck into my grocery cart that week at the store. I make a point to have the first meal of the day balanced, and my yogurt mess has a healthy amount of fat, protein, and carbohydrates to fuel me through a long commute and a busy morning at work.”
