Stupidly Simple Eating For Mike Godbehere

Two numbers. Still the whole game.

2,000 calories per day is a budget, not a target. You have been landing around it consistently, and your banked days at 1,400 to 1,500 are exactly the right use of it.

You asked on the call whether going over 150 is bad. It is not. As long as you are inside the calorie budget, more protein is almost always the better trade. It is the most filling place to spend calories and the least likely to end up stored. Your 200g days are a feature, not a bug.

Carbs and fats stay flexible. You have the pattern down: protein first, budget respected, the rest arranged around whatever the day holds.

This is your proven move now, not a suggestion. Jackson Hole worked because you loaded protein early and arrived at dinner with the day already won.

• Morning: shake plus a bar, or the four eggs and sausage. Either way you are at 40 to 50g before lunch.
• Lunch: a solid protein hit. Rotisserie chicken, the bison burger, boiled eggs with mustard.

Family style eating is your one genuine remaining challenge, and it will not disappear, so we play it smart instead.

• Be the bell cow. You already control the reservations. Keep steering the table toward places and dishes where the good choice is the easy choice. When you pick the restaurant, you have already won half the meal before anyone sits down.
• Decide before you sit down. Pick your protein and your pour before the passing starts, not during. A decision made at 5pm holds. A decision made mid meal with plates circulating does not.
• Load your own plate once, protein first. Take your protein serving deliberately, add what you want around it, then treat the shared plates as taste, not volume. A bite of everything is flavor. A scoop of everything is 800 calories you never chose.
• Get comfortable being the weirdo. This is the price of admission. No thanks on dessert, one pour instead of three, done eating while others graze. People will notice, and that is fine. You are not being rude, you are being deliberate. The more progress you bank, the less you will want to hand it back for a second helping you did not even want.

Nothing is banned. Everything is counted. That is the whole policy.

• Bank for the big nights. You are already doing this well. A 1,400 calorie day before a social night is you buying room in advance. Keep doing it, but know the limit: banking buys you a buffer, not a blank check. A champagne and old fashioned night can burn 700 calories on liquid alone, which is a full meal that never fed you.
• Downshift the default. Light beers over cocktails, one pour of wine slowly over the automatic top-up. The Jackson Hole and light beer nights proved you can be fully in the room at a fraction of the cost.
• Your stealth drink. Soda water with lime in hand. It gives the brain something to hold, and nobody at the table knows there is no vodka in it. Nobody is checking.
• Expect the bloat. You have seen it yourself: a drinking weekend swells you two to three pounds of water and it flushes back out within days. Do not let a post-trip scale reading tell you a story that is not true. The weekly trend is the truth. Daily readings are weather.

Jackson Hole is now your template. Every trip runs the same play.

• Pack the kit: jerky, protein bars, shakes. Your carry-on insurance policy.
• Book the tables: you choose the restaurants, you control the menu.
• Protein early: breakfast and lunch handled before the social part of the day starts.
• Decide the pour in advance: how many drinks tonight is a question you answer at breakfast.

Same plan for Tahoe, same plan for the fishing trips, same plan forever. Trips stop being exceptions and become just weeks with better scenery.

The foods doing the work for you right now. Keep them stocked in both houses.

• Boiled eggs with mustard, your wife's batch
• Fairlife, Premier or Core Power shakes, one or two a day is fine
• FitCrunch bars
• Good jerky
• Rotisserie chicken
• Fish whenever it is on the menu, quietly one of the highest protein picks you can order
• Elk and bison, lean and high protein
• Eggs and sausage for the bigger breakfasts

Fish deserves a special mention because you spotted it yourself: order fish at dinner and a high protein breakfast, and 150 basically hits itself.