As a gym-loving GP and dad, Dr Mezher’s diet consists of eggs and espressos to power him through the day. Photo / 123rf
As a gym-loving GP and dad, Dr Mezher’s diet consists of eggs and espressos to power him through the day. Photo / 123rf
Opinion by Sermed Mezher
Dr Sermed Mezher is a GP, influencer and dad who shares his nutritious food recipes on The Telegraph.
THREE KEY FACTS
Whole eggs have more fat whereas egg whites are more protein-based.
Though fruit does have sugar, its fibre content makes the sugar slow to digest.
People naturally get an energy drop after lunch because the body redirects blood to the gut to help digest it.
As a gym-loving GP and dad, Dr Sermed Mezher’s diet consists of eggs and espressos to power him through the day.
My alarm goes off at 5am every day except Sundays and I normally head to the gym on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. My clinics can vary week to week because I work as a locum GP. Some weeks it could be three days a week but others it might be out-of-hours sessions in the evenings 5-8pm, which change my schedule.
I’ve never really been a morning person but I always get up before my wife and 2-year-old daughter because that’s when I can get the most done. I’ll do my morning routine such as skincare, brush my teeth, drink about 500ml of water and then I’ll make my omelette at around 5.10am.
I start every day of the week with an omelette made with eight egg whites, one egg yolk, some spinach and mozzarella. It sounds like a lot of eggs — in fact, if you count it up it’s 56 egg whites a week. But a few years ago, when I was trying to put on muscle and increase my general fitness I worked out a personalised formula to support my training level, how much muscle I wanted to put on, and my daily calorie requirement. I researched the exact combination of protein and carbohydrates I should be eating and worked out I needed to include eight eggs a day to hit my protein requirements.
The GP starts his day with an omelette made from eight egg whites, one egg yolk, spinach and mozzarella. Photo / 123rf
The reason why I specifically eat egg whites and don’t just have the whole egg is because whole eggs have more fat for the same calories whereas egg whites are more protein-based. Egg yolks still have a lot of very useful vitamins and cholesterol inside as well so that’s why I keep one whole egg.
After breakfast, at about 5.30am, I head to the gym which is a five-minute drive away.
First coffee: 0 calories
I don’t have any caffeine first thing in the morning because your natural energy levels are highest when you first wake up so I want to make the most of it and keep my energy levels more steady. So I wait to have my coffee until at least one hour after I’ve woken up.
I get home from the gym about 6.30am and spend the rest of the time making and editing videos for my social media. During this time I usually do research for my long-form videos, exploring topics and researching on PubMed or Google Scholar.
At about 7.15am, I get my daughter ready as I normally do the morning routine and my wife does the evenings.
Before I take my daughter to nursery, she eats a mixture of oats, a packet of fruit purée (for the fibre content) and multivitamin drops. Then I drop her off at nursery and when I get home, my working day starts at 8.30am. Then I have my first coffee of the day — a double espresso, no sugar, no milk. It’s an acquired taste.
First drink: 113 calories
I have a protein shake with my coffee, made with whey protein isolate and creatine. I’m currently in my muscle maintenance phase, so I’m neither trying to put on any muscle or to lose weight. I choose whey protein isolate over normal whey, which lots of people use in protein shakes because it contains an extra four grams of protein. I work in London and in order to get through the traffic quickly, I ride my motorbike to work — a Honda PCX, more of a scooter really and it’s a 25-minute ride into the surgery.
Dr Sermed usually has a protein shake with his coffee.
Between 9am and 3pm I work at the surgery and see about 30 patients a day. In my clinic, I see that there are a lot of misconceptions about diet, especially around diabetes. I met a diabetic patient the other day who hadn’t eaten fruit for 30 years as his friend had told him it contains too much sugar and people with diabetes shouldn’t have it. Though fruit does have sugar, its fibre content makes the sugar slow to digest. People with diabetes don’t have to avoid fruit completely but rather just manage their sugar levels.
First snack : 50-90 calories
I’ll have a banana or a tangerine as a mid-morning snack between patients.
I’m usually working at my clinic so for lunch I take leftovers from dinner the night before and heat it up about 12pm. I’ll eat at my desk and edit videos on my phone. I also work in private healthcare so I often work on any admin tasks or emails for this as well.
One of my and my wife’s favourite meals is chicken bruschetta, which is a recipe where instead of a bread base, there’s chicken. The ingredients include chicken, tomatoes, garlic, basil, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, mozzarella cheese and rice.
I wouldn’t advise that every person has the exact same diet I have. Because I train quite hard in the gym, I need a high protein intake to support my exercise routines and gym goals. I don’t think most people would need as much protein.
Second coffee: 0 calories
At about 3pm, I’ll have another double espresso. You naturally get an energy drop around the time after you’ve had your lunch because the body redirects blood to your gut to help digest it. Even if you don’t eat, your hormone levels are naturally changing so that second coffee helps to counteract this drop and helps you stay productive throughout the day.
I’ll have a handful of blueberries or grapes as an evening snack. I’ll often try to carry all of my food in one Tupperware as you can imagine, riding a motorbike to work doesn’t allow much room for multiple bags.
Dinner: 810 calories
I have dinner at about 8pm, which is a bit later than I would like, but when you’ve got a toddler, it’s so unpredictable how long it will take to put her to sleep. After she’s asleep, my wife and I will sit down at the table together and have dinner.
My wife works in a marketing agency and usually is on calls during the day so it’s nice to have a sit down and have an adult conversation with hopefully no crayons splayed out on the floor.
My portion size is a lot bigger and we often like to cook in batches.
Some of our go-to meals include Spanish chicken, halloumi flatbreads, spaghetti bolognese with a side salad, Thai beef salad or satay chicken with rice. Sometimes we’ll also have salmon soup. We make quite a varied set so we don’t get too bored of eating the same thing every day and it also helps with making sure that you get in all of your nutrients from different sources as well.
Thai beef salad is a mix of tomato, mint, coriander, cucumber, garlic, fish sauce and olive oil with steaks, which we usually cook medium rare. We then slice them and put them inside the salad with some peanuts to garnish. Sometimes mix in boiled noodles as well to get the carbohydrates in there as well.
I like to indulge in a snack every few days. At 8pm, I’ll either have a bag of salt and vinegar McCoys or my healthier alternative which is my chia seed pudding.
While we enjoy our snacks, we’ll normally indulge in a Netflix show; we’ve recently been watching a show called Mo.
Chia seed pudding can be a healthy snack alternative. Photo / 123rf
Dessert: 393 calories
I bake every now and then. I don’t really have a sweet tooth, but I know my wife really does like one dessert, which is chocolate fudge brownies with a soft centre and vanilla custard. I make that every couple of weeks as a treat for my wife.
Water
I try to get between two to two-and-a-half litres a day because I’m quite an active person and probably need a bit more than an average person.
It’s important to stay flexible
Let’s say my toddler has been up all night crying — at that point that does disrupt my morning routine, so I won’t still wake up at 5am if I’ve only had three hours sleep. If something like that happens, then I’ll usually sleep in until 7am, until the time she wakes up for daycare.
Sometimes there’s no routine with a toddler — she chooses the routine.
Usually, it would just be the morning that’s affected and I’ll just need to reorganise my day based on what my priority is. Sometimes I won’t get everything done that I wanted to do that day because there’s just not enough time. It’s important not to beat yourself up about it, because ultimately, there are so many things we don’t have control over.
Being flexible is also important: if I do miss that specific morning gym session, I’ll do the session after I come back from work. Only if something really unexpected happened that day then I would skip that day altogether.
