Working on my Fitness: An Interview with Lauren McCurdy

I first took an interest in fitness my freshmen year of college. I had played several sports growing up and settled on volleyball in 7th grade. Junior year of high school I decided I didn’t want to play in college. I felt somewhat burnt out from being a student athlete and I wanted to focus on school and finding my career path in college. Going into college I had already gained some weight from the lack of playing a sport, but I had gotten some experience in basic resistance training from going to the gym with my mom. The whole “beware of the freshmen 15” hit home with me because I was already struggling with my body image and I didn’t want to find myself gaining even more weight. I started going to the gym 5-6 days a week, doing mainly cardio, abs, and using a few machines that I had used before. Certain free weight exercises seemed intimidating and I didn’t feel like I knew enough about form to perform them in public. The lifting floor was dominated by males and for many females it can be intimidating to be surrounded by guys who are throwing around a lot of weight and seem to know what they’re doing (not all of them do, by the way). Towards the end of my freshman year, I made a friend, Rickey, who is extremely knowledgeable about lifting/nutrition and let me tag along with him. I felt more at ease having a partner to teach me about form and I didn’t feel alone or that the other guys were critiquing me. I quickly fell in love with lifting and getting stronger. I wanted to be lifting just as much or more than the guys around me, but my main competition was myself; I wanted to change my body and turn it into something I was proud of. Lifting and fitness made me feel good about myself, it gave me energy and confidence. Although my weight wasn’t going down, I was building muscle and changing the shape of my body which would provide me a solid foundation to make weight loss easier and leave me with a physique that displayed the work I had put in.

For a strength day, my main lift, leg day for example, is focused on using heavier weights for less reps and with longer rest times in between so my body can prepare for the next set. I do 4-5 accessory lifts that hit different areas of my legs with challenging weight but that I can successfully achieve 8-12 reps. On a hypertrophy day, my main lift will be using lighter weight with more reps to work on muscle endurance and growing muscle (12-20 reps). My accessory lifts for that day will also have higher reps.

What does an average day’s menu look like for you?

When it comes to nutrition, I follow the principles of flexible dieting which operates on the undeniable truth of caloric balance. If you are eating more calories than you are expending, you will gain weight. If you’re eating less than you expend, you lose weight. And if they are equal, you maintain weight. I track my calories for the day (I try to eat a certain amount of carbs, fat, and protein everyday) in order to achieve my goals (weight loss, muscle gain, or maintenance) BUT I can use whatever foods I want to hit those carb/fat/protein goals. Most of my diet is whole, minimally processed foods, but flexible dieting allows me to enjoy foods that are more calorically dense but satisfy cravings that I have. Denying yourself foods that are “bad” can eventually lead to binging behaviors and developing a really bad relationship with food. There are no bad foods; overeating is bad because it puts you in a caloric surplus which leads to weight gain. Foods labeled as “bad” are very easy to overeat because they are less filling, and people associate them with weight gain. I have the biggest sweet tooth known to man. Brownies, cookies, muffins, ice cream, you name it. I find ways to enjoy those things without over-indulging to the point of hindering my process. It’s OK to have a pop tart or go enjoy drinks with friends. Moderation and balance is key to living a healthy, satisfying life.

I am a creature of habit and if you track your macros, you start to just know what meals/snacks can fit into your day and you tend to rotate the same, or similar, foods. Every morning I have an omelet (1-2 whole eggs + 150g egg whites) with canadian bacon and cheese, and oatmeal. I love eggs and oatmeal and I could eat them for every meal of the day (and I have, several times). For lunch I typically have a salad and either chicken breast or some lunch meat for protein. For dinner, I vary my protein source and rotate between ground turkey, chicken, or fish. I usually have some kind of vegetable (brussels sprouts and asparagus are my favorites) and a carb source such as rice or sweet potatoes. In between meals, I have snacks – usually yogurt with granola and fruit, more oatmeal, a protein shake with rice cakes and peanut butter, or a smoothie made with berries and yogurt. The best thing about flexible dieting and IIFYM (If It Fits Your Macros) is that I can use whatever carb/protein/fat sources I want to hit my daily intake goals.

Discuss the relationship between diet and exercise for your personal fitness.

I didn’t understand the importance of diet when it comes to achieving fitness goals until my senior year of college. I was introduced to tracking macros and flexible dieting before the start of my senior year, and from just logging what I ate every day and being more aware of the food choices I was making, I lost 5lbs. A lot of people would be surprised to see what real portions look like or see everything they eat in a day laid out before them. For the past few years, I had been getting stronger/gaining muscle, but I wasn’t that much leaner. Yes, I looked more muscular but it was still hidden under unnecessary fat. That’s because I wasn’t in a caloric deficit and I was eating to maintain weight. I began cutting weight by being in a caloric deficit and I was able to reap the rewards of all the work I had put in at the gym. Diet is not only crucial to fueling yourself for workouts and just daily life, but it is what is key for attaining your physique goals. People will start working out to lose weight but then they get in the mindset that, “I just worked super hard in the gym, I can totally have 4 slices of pizza.” Their hunger might increase because they’re expending more calories, so they eat more to compensate for that deficit they created, which just eliminates the whole point of creating the deficit in the first place. Having a diet filled with nutrient dense, whole, minimally processed foods gives you energy and helps your immune system. Abs are definitely made in the kitchen. You can do 500 crunches a day, but they won’t “show up” unless you have lower body fat in that area which is the combination of genetics (where your body likes to store fat) and being lean. I eat to fuel my goals in the gym and life while also enjoying what I’m putting in my body.

One of my favorite things to do (which I don’t do as often as I used to because my focus and goals changed), is deadlift. There is something that feels so good about pulling a really heavy object off the ground. It puts you in touch with your primal side and makes you feel powerful. It requires the use of your entire body and a lot of mind-muscle connection to keep good form. Form can make or break a lift, especially for extremely technical lifts such as the deadlift. I’ve not been able to hit a lift that I had previously hit for several reps because my form was off. It really requires focus and that forces you to be very in touch with what your body is doing; it’s a really good feeling.

My least favorite thing to do is cardio. Or at least running. I find it monotonous and I can never truly zone out. If I do run, I do sprints during HIIT (high intensity interval training) where I sprint for 20-30 seconds and rest for 30-60 seconds. It gets the job done quicker. If I feel like doing LISS (low intensity steady state), I typically do the stair master and things to make it less boring like skipping a step, kickbacks, going up sideways, etc. LISS is good for when I want to watch some YouTube videos and don’t have the energy to sprint.