Asylum Nutrition Plan

My 30 day Insanity Asylum Results:

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This is my version of the Insanity Asylum Nutrition Plan

Read below for the guidelines I did follow as well as the modifications I made to reduce my body fat from 10.3% to 7.5% in 30 days while actually gaining some muscle!

The foundation of my nutrition plan is based on the P90X nutrition and Master Your Metabolism but there were a few things that I learned from the Insanity Asylum nutrition guide that I’ve incorporated into my diet.

10 Steps in the Insanity Asylum “Get Shredded” Guide

1. Eat Frequently – I eat 6 meals a day (one being my post workout recovery drink & protein), basically every 3 hours
2. Go Light at Night – this was one of the changes I incorporated into my diet, basically I made my dinners smaller and shifted more calories to the first half of the day. I also removed carbs (except veggies) from my last 2 meals of the day.
3. Limit your portions – With eating 6 meals a day, this goes hand-in-hand but on average I ate about 400 calories per meal, 6x a day
4. Eat Lean - this includes lean meats, fruits, veggies, healthy fats. I was already doing this pretty well but I added more healthy fats through out the day to more meals. Things such as almonds, avocados, peanut butter, etc.
5. Carbs are cool – Chose whole gain carbs instead of white carbs – this is something I follow very strictly and but as I mentioned above, I removed carbs from my last 2 meals (with the exception of veggies and recovery drink).
6. Avoid Dairy – The plan says to avoid dairy and I was very strict about reducing my dairy to 1 serving a day (which was a Greek Yogurt).
7. Hydrate – The plan recommends a minimum of 8 cups of 8 ounces of water and avoiding all juices and sodas! I drink about 14 cups of water and avoid all juices/sodas.
8. No Alcohol – no problem!
9. Don’t fear Fat - it says to avoid butter and cheese (which I did) but it says to eat more healthy fats. I was already eating about 2 servings of healthy fats so I increased this to about 4, while staying within the ratio of 40/40/20. I eat almonds, peanut butter, whole eggs and avocados daily.
10. Supplements – it recommends recovery drink for post workout recovery and Shakeology, which  I take religiously.

So of the 10 steps, I followed them pretty closely and was doing so previous to Asylum, which set up my body to start shredding fat. The big changes I incorporated Asylum were #2 and #9.

How many calories should I eat during Insanity Asylum?

This is where I really disagreed with the Asylum nutrition guide for my body and goals: How many calories to eat. First, I like how the Asylum nutrition guide makes it very simple to calculate calories:

• 150 pounds or less – for those trying to lose weight, eat 1,500 calories a day
• 150-200 pounds – for those trying to lose weight, eat 1800 calories a day
• 200 pounds or more – for those trying to lose weight, eat ~2100 calories a day

If someone wanted a simple way and was planning to stick with this nutrition plan for only 30 days then they could use these recommendations.

How I modified the Asylum Nutrition plan

I ate 2400 calories on days with a workout and about 1800 on the rest day, which is well above what the Insanity nutrition guide recommends. Why? Because at 182 lbs, I knew that 1800 calories would create too large of a deficit to eat every day. My #1 goal was to lose body fat while maintaining muscle. At 1800 calories, my concern was that I would enter a catabolic state and start burning muscle. It also wouldn’t give me enough energy for intense workouts.

Based on my weight and using the Insanity diet calorie formula, I determined that I would need to eat 2,400 calories while doing Asylum to lose roughly 1 lb of body fat per week. Sure enough, at the end of 30 days, I lost 5 lbs of body fat and based on my body fat calculations, I maintained all the muscle:

182.5 lbs x 10.3% = 18.8 lbs of fat

177.5 lbs x 7.5% = 13.3 lbs of fat

A total loss of 5.5 lbs of fat. I actually gained +.5 lbs of muscle while losing 5.5 lbs of body fat while my overall weight dropped 5 lbs.

What ratio of protein / carbs / fat should I eat for my Insanity Asylum Diet?

The “Get Shredded” nutrition guide does NOT recommend a ratio of p/c/f.  So I targeted a goal of 45/35/20 but came in around 40/40/20 on some days. I picked this up during my P90X days and found it to be the best.

How can I easily track my calories and calculate my ratios on a daily basis?

I use loseit.com (free) and the iphone app (free). There are many other alternatives but this one is very simple and easy to use. It’s also the easiest for seeing the % of protein, carbs and fat you’ve eaten that day.

Example of the foods I ate during Insanity Asylum

Check out my Insanity Asylum 2400 Calorie low dairy diet

Also check out our approved foods list with a lot of different foods to choose from.

We’ve also recorded a youtube video that shows healthy foods to buy from CostCo that are both Insanity Asylum and P90X approved.

Watch Kate’s Insanity Asylum Nutrition from CostCo video.

Supplements I took during Insanity Asylum to lose the body fat

Shakeology - The fastest and healthiest way to transform your body is with Shakeology. This is the foundation of my nutrition plan and has really improved my overall health. I was skeptical of the price at first so I decided to try it out using the 30 day-money back guarantee. I’ve been on it every day since.  In fact, it’s now one of only 2 Beachbody supplements that I recommend. To me, it’s WORTH IT but you’ll have to decide that for you. It’s basically a high quality meal replacement unlike anything else. It will help you lose that body fat and give you energy. Why? Because it contains 70 of the healthiest nutrients in the world. It improves your digestive system, removes toxins, lowers cholesterol, helps you to lose fat and improve energy levels, hair, nails and skin. I have this every day for breakfast. It comes out to $4/day but if you order Shakeology from this site, I’ll coach you for free.

Morning:

• Shakeology meal replacement
• Krill Oil from Mercola
• Calcium
• OxyElite Pro

Lunch:

• Oxy Elite Pro

Pre-workout:

• MHP No Bomb
• Cellucor C4

Post Workout:

• P90X Recovery Drink
• Optimum Nutrition creatine
• Whey Protein

Still have questions or just want help with your nutrition plan?

Thanks for visiting! Make sure to sign up for a FREE Team Beachbody Account to get support with your nutrition plan. I’ll send you an email after you sign-up.

Already have a Team Beachbody Account?

You can initiate a coach switch by sending an email to coachrelations@teambeachbody.com and asking them to switch you to David Ingram, Coach ID 153372. Make sure to CC: me on the email so I am aware of the switch. You can CC: me at david@symbioticfitness.com
 
This is the Whey Protein I use:

This is vital for reaching the daily goal of 40%-50% protein. There are many other great alternatives. This is one of the brands I use the most. CostCo also has Cytosport in a 6lb bag.

Optimum Nutrition 100% Whey Gold Standard, Double Rich Chocolate, 5 Pound

Price: $53.99

(1 customer reviews)

63 used & new available from $42.98

Need some protein on the go? These are the Protein bars I eat:

Pure Protein High Protein Bar, Chocolate Peanut Butter, 2.75-Ounce Bars (Pack of 12)

Price: $26.83

(142 customer reviews)

12 used & new available from $18.00

I use Shaker cups quite a bit to mix-up my protein drinks and Shakeology.

BlenderBottle® Classic 28-ounce Blue

Price: $5.75

(2 customer reviews)

55 used & new available from $3.25

This is the food scale we use to measure our meats to more accurately track our protein and calorie intake.

EatSmart Precision Pro Digital Kitchen Scale, Silver

Price: $34.95

(5 customer reviews)

18 used & new available from $21.78