From Food Anxiety to Freedom: Jessi Smith’s CBG Journey
When it came to nutrition, Jessi Smith tried what all the athletes around her were doing.
She turned to virtual nutrition coaching through RP Strength at one point, and, of course, she used MyFitnessPal to keep track of everything she ate at another point.
Everything she tried had one thing in common: it was “restrictive” and “rigid” and it started negatively affecting her relationship with food.
When she was in high school, she became so consumed that she even tracked condiments in MyFitnessPal, and then she would stress out.
“I really developed a tough relationship with food, because you see those numbers. I ate 2,500 calories today. Well, did I burn that many calories at the gym?” Did I burn that many?” said Smith, a two-time team Games athlete, who has been big into fitness for the last 13 years.
And because tracking wasn’t fun, Smith started to eat the same thing every single day so she wouldn’t have to track.
“I would eat the same thing all the time because I didn’t want to track it. It was so boring, eating eggs in the morning, and then chicken for lunch and ground beef for dinner,” she said. This repetition did not add to the enjoyment of eating.
Further, she would get “panic-stricken” if she was out for dinner with friends, as she wasn’t sure how many grams of carbohydrates, protein and fat was in the steak and salad she was about to order.
It got to the point where she didn’t even want to go out with friends anymore. And when she did, she was often “that girl” who brought along her food scale, or her own food, to her friend’s house.
“It made me feel like I couldn’t have as much of an enjoyable relationship with food,” she said.
Enter CBG
Several years ago, CBG founder Justin Romaire reached out to Smith, and she felt a connection to how he spoke about nutrition.
Best of all, he was offering a less rigid approach to nutrition!
“I want to help people not track macros,” she remembered Romaire saying, which was “the exact opposite of what everyone in the nutrition space was doing.”
At the time, she “had not really heard of somebody in the space that was doing nutrition [coaching] that wasn’t tracking macros,” Smith said of how this surprised her.
Romaire explained to her CBG’s Blueprint has a less restrictive approach The CBG Blueprint would teach her about meal timing, habit building and intuitive eating. All the while, this blueprint would still be able to give her a tailored plan specific to her needs and goals.
To this day, Smith is still working with Romaire, as is her husband, four-time individual Games athlete, Chandler Smith, because the method works.
Today, thanks to CBG, Smith is lean and fitter than she has ever been!
Three Key Takeaways for Smith
1. Timing
Prior to working with Romaire, Smith often didn’t eat before she trained as she trains early in the morning. Romaire helped her see the importance of eating first thing in the morning.
“He has done a really good job of explaining to me, especially for women, you can’t do that. You have to have some sort of fuel source going into [training].”
“One of the best things I get from the blueprint is timing of my meals, what I’m supposed to be eating at certain times [around my training].” She also mentioned that a really helpful addition for her has been having a protein shake right after she trains, as well as adding a creatine supplement to her diet.
2. Sometimes More is More
Prior to CBG, Smith generally consumed between 1,800 calories and 2,000 calories a day.
Today, she’s upwards of 3,000 calories and Romaire helped her understand that because of how much she trains, she needs this fuel to function optimally.
“As women, we have been subject to thinking we need to decrease our calories as much as we can and just do cardio for a really long time…No, you actually need to eat more than you think… If you restrict a lot, your body literally thinks it’s in starvation mode all the time, so your body is just like freaking out all the time that it doesn’t have enough fuel.”
“So I think, especially for women, there’s a really really cool thing that can happen from working with someone like Justin.”
3. The Mental Side
Maybe most important for Smith is how much more enjoyable food is today than before working with Romaire, and how much better her relationship with food has become.
Today, Smith enjoys her freedom with food and feels comfortable going on vacation, and going out to eat with her friends.She feels more relaxed about nutrition in general.
“I’m the fittest I have ever been and I enjoy food more than I ever did before!”