Jessie James Decker’s Fat-Burning Food Rules, Say Dietitians

Jessie Decker James is no stranger to showing off her toned physique and we don’t blame her. The mother of three looks amazing! Scroll through her Instagram feed and you'll see countless stunning photos of the country singer, but you'll also see images of her working hard for her fit figure. "It takes a lot of hard work and discipline," she said in a YouTube video about her diet and workout routine and CelebWell talked to experts who break down her regime. Read on to see 5 ways Jessie Decker James stays in shape and the photos that prove they work—and to get beach-ready yourself, don't miss these essential 30 Best-Ever Celebrity Bathing Suit Photos!

1. She Counts Calories

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"I stay within the 1200-1500 range," she told fans in a YouTube video about how she got back to her pre-pregnancy weight. Jana Beaudoin, NBC-HWC Certified Health & Nutrition Coach Anti-Aging & Longevity Center of Philadelphia says, counting calories is, "The act of accountability. Recording your food intake increases awareness and intention around what you are eating and how much. The added level of awareness guides your decision making around food. Recording food and counting calories also helps to address the issue of eating out of boredom and stress and adds a component of mindfulness to your daily nutritional choices. You need a calorie deficit to lose weight. Knowing your basal metabolic rate, activity level, your current weight and your desired weight will help you determine how many calories you need each day to achieve your weight loss goals. It is important not to become excessive with your calorie deficit as your body will then be forced to pull energy from protein stores which can cause the breakdown of muscle. Using an app to record food choices and calories provides the added benefit of reviewing your daily intake of fiber, protein, vitamins and minerals. A diet rich in protein and fiber increases satiety helping you to feel full with less calories. A quick nutritional analysis can give you valuable information that may be impeding weight loss efforts. Generally a balanced diet, portion control, exercise, in addition to stress management and sleep hygiene are essential when it comes to weight management."

2. Hydration

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According to People, the mom of three drinks plenty of water. Robert Dodds, a Certified Personal Trainer, a fitness coach, and founder of nothingbarredfitness.com, a fitness coaching service for busy parents says, "Water intake and hydration levels do not directly influence weight loss. However, a good level of fluid intake can assist with weight loss, providing you have a calorie controlled diet, as it will help you to feel full - especially if water is drunk before and during meals. This is because water takes up space in your stomach and is an appetite suppressant. Sparkling water works especially well as the gas takes up space too. Being well hydrated is important for many factors relating to weight loss, such as muscle function and digestion, but it does not directly drive it. A calorie deficit must always be present. Switching from a drink with calories to drinking water instead may drive weight loss, if this switch leads to a calorie deficit (burning more calories than you take in). Weight loss and health are two separate things that sometimes overlap. Having good habits around hydration and keeping up a good water intake is good for your health, but it won't drive weight loss on its own. Being well hydrated means your blood is less viscous (thick). This means it's easier for your heart to pump, and it also can return to your heart more easily. This will help your blood pressure readings to remain healthy. If your blood is less viscous it is easier for it to reach all areas of your body and deliver nutrients. Daily fluid intake for men should be about 15.5 cups (3.7 liters). For women it is about 11.5 cups (2.7 liters). This doesn't have to be just from water. All fluids count, including tea and coffee."

3. South Beach Diet

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E! News reports that Decker helps keeps the weight off by doing the South Beach Diet. Dana Ellis Hunnes PhD, MPH, RD is a senior dietitian at UCLA medical center, assistant professor at UCLA Fielding school of public health, and author with Cambridge university Press, of the new book, RECIPE FOR SURVIVAL (2022) says, "The South Beach Diet (like the Zone or Atkins diet) is a relatively low-carbohydrate (processed carb) diet that is high in protein. In the initial phase of the SBD you're often restricting yourself to 20 grams of carbohydrate per day or less. This lasts around 2 weeks, after that you begin to add back unprocessed carbs such as whole grains, vegetables, fruits, and then when you're in the maintenance phase, you're eating 28% of calories from carbohydrates. The problem with this is that you risk going into ketosis, and unless you're prescribed a specific ketogenic diet for a specific health condition (seizures), this level of carbohydrate intake, and the subsequent intake of fats and proteins is not particularly healthy. The weight you initially lose from SBD is primarily water weight. You are not only restricting processed carbs, but also carbs that are super healthy for you, such as fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, which are filled with naturally occuring vitamins, minerals, fiber, and water. Our muscles and our brains prefer and honestly, require glucose as their main fuel source, so cutting them out of the diet is not a good idea (again, unless you have prescribed a medical condition and see a dietitian for that). Our bodies, our intestinal tracts, thrive on anti-inflammatory fruits, vegetables, fiber, and healthy nutrients. Proteins from animal foods are inflammatory and actually can harm our intestinal flora (the microbiome/bacteria that are healthy in the gut), and make us less healthy, increasing our risk for certain cancers and heart disease. Instead, I like to recommend people follow a whole foods, plant-based diet for sustained health and fitness goals. It is unprocessed foods with just the right balance of fiber, water, vitamins, minerals, polyphenols (antioxidants) and other plant-based compounds that are anti-inflammatory, and keep our gut health in check and help with weight maintenance and weight loss. It's the processed foods that we all ought to do away with, not carbs, and I really want to dispel those myths. I'm a mom, a dietitian, and an environmentalist. SBD is not environmentally friendly owing to its use of animal products which use a lot of land, water, and produce a lot of greenhouse gas emissions. A whole-food plant-based diet is not only healthy for you, but for the environment. I'm a fitness enthusiast and plant-based consumer and I keep my weight very much in check."

4. Portion Control

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The TV personality is very careful about how much she eats and so portion control is key to staying within her 1200-1500 calorie a day diet. Bess Berger, a women's health registered dietitian Nutrition by Bess explains, "When people think of portion control they often think of limiting portions. While this is true, it's so much more. It's really about eating more over time than less. It's providing your body doses of food throughout the day to help moderate the portion of food when you eat. For example, if someone doesn't eat all day and gets to dinner. They'll be starving. They won't be able to have recommended portions. If we have meals and snacks strategically through the day, one can then portion control their food throughout the day. Eating throughout the day instead of large portions lets our body digest and metabolize calories much more efficiently. If we take in too large a portion, and too many calories at one time, there's a high likelihood our body can't deal with all those calories and they get stored as fat. Eating portion controlled food can help avoid this and can help with weight loss."

5. She Runs

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One way the active mom stays in shape is by running, which she shows off her skills in this Insta pic she posted recently. Tyler Read, NASM certified personal trainer and CEO of Personal Trainer Pioneer says, "Running offers a multi-pronged approach to weight loss and fitness. The most apparent benefits are an active calorie burn during physical activity. You also get to enjoy the after burn, where you will continue to burn calories at a higher rate for hours after your run. Running builds muscle mass which means a high metabolic rate at rest. All of these will help someone lose weight and stay fit. Stress relief may be a less obvious benefit, but regular exercise like running will decrease the body's cortisol (the stress hormone) levels. High cortisol levels can lower your metabolism, leading to weight gain or difficulties losing weight, sleeping problems, and other quality of life issues. Improving cortisol levels is one of the best and less obvious benefits of running for maintaining a healthy weight and lifestyle!"

Jessie James Decker is ab-solutely fabulous! This week, the country singer unveiled her latest music video, Should Have Known Better, and also her rock hard abs. “Girls can wear boxer briefs too right? They’re like bigger grannies TBH,” she captioned a photo on her Instagram stories, wearing plaid pajama pants with a crop top. How does the singer and mother-of-three keep herself in prime physical form? Read on to see 5 ways Jessie James Decker stays in shape and the photos that prove they work—and to get beach-ready yourself, don't miss these essential 30 Best-Ever Celebrity Bikini Photos!

1. She Weight Trains

Jessie James Decker/Instagram

Jessie’s workouts are hardcore with a focus on weight training. She starts with 30 seconds of jump rope, high-knee running, ankle grabs, high kicks, lunges and lateral lunges, spinal rotations, and tension squats, which she demonstrated in a recent Instagram video. Next she executes overhead squats with resistance bands, medicine ball slams and tosses, medicine ball chest passes, medicine ball sit-up tosses, resistance band pulls, deadlifts, step-down exercises, weighted overhead presses, inverted rows, bent over kettlebell rows, weight plate steering wheel exercises, dumbbell rotations, and box jumps. "I work out 3 to 4 times a week and they pretty much look like this with certain variations whether we're doing more upper body or lower body," she explained.

2. She Follows the 16:8 Fasting Routine, Unofficially

Jessie is an unofficial intermittent faster. She explained to Women’s Health that while she doesn’t use the term her eating method is very similar to a 16:8 fasting routine. "I eat what I want to eat within that time frame but don't overdo it," she says. "The timing really is important to me."

3. Her Diet Is Healthy and Protein Packed

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Jessie eats a protein heavy diet. If she does eat breakfast it will be a bowl of oatmeal or toast and coffee with cream. Post-exercise she will fuel up with a protein shake. "For lunch, I will have 4 to 6 ounces chicken salad or chicken over rice," she explained on Instagram. "For dinner, I will either have a lean red meat, like flank steak with vegetables, chili from my book, or the same kind of thing—chicken and rice vegetables or my fit-enchiladas from my first book.”

4. She Keeps Frozen Meals On Hand

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Jessie is a big fan of nutritious frozen meals from Trader Joes. "They are so good if I don't have time to make myself lunch," she told Women’s Health. "I get the Indian curry or butter chicken and rice meals, and they are so delicious and filling. I have stashes of them in the freezer in the garage. I never want to run out."

5. She Doesn’t Skip Workouts

Jessie doesn’t skip her workouts, even when she is super busy. “Got in at 1:30 am last night from shooting a music video( deets on that coming soon)! But I wasn’t about to miss my work out! Gotta get it in!!! Here’s some snippets from this morning💪 (also if I’m in charge of the music and Eric doesn’t take over, I play @nickelback to get my hyped,” she captioned a recent post.

Jessie James Decker is getting her sweat on – in her workout gear. In a new social media post the country singer shows off her amazing body during an F45 workout. She shared the clip via her Instagram Stories. How does she approach diet, fitness, and self-care? Here is everything you need to know about her lifestyle habits.

1. Pickleball

Jessie loves playing pickleball. “Pick-le your player,” she captioned a post from the court. According to the Cleveland Clinic, the racquet sport helps improve heart health, enhances muscle and bone strength, increases balance and coordination, boosts brain health, and lengthens lifespan.

2. South Beach Diet

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Jessie used the South Beach diet to slim down after having a baby in 2019. “I didn't start working out until three months post because I had C-sections and you can't work out for a really long time. So I started working out a little bit. I didn't really diet yet at three months because I was still making lots of milk and I wasn't ready for that. Started working out though,” she told Us Weekly. At four and a half months she started the South Beach Diet again. She started on phase two of the diet, “because I needed to have enough calories to produce milk,” she said. “I just did that consistently. I really did. I followed it like crazy,” she continued. “I did it from top to bottom. I did this diet 100 percent, literally a 100 percent, and it's the fastest I've ever lost weight. It just kind of melted off.”

3. Here Is What She Eats in Day

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Jessie revealed specifics about her diet to Us Weekly in another interview. For breakfast she has a sausage English muffin sandwich. She also has a South Beach Diet lunch. “For dinners, I don't do the South Beach Diet meals. And that's the thing about South Beach, they don't want you to always rely on the meals. They want you to learn how to make these things yourself. Or when you're out at dinner, it's the South Beach way. So it's not necessarily, you have to only eat these meals that deliver to your house. It's like I'm learning the proportions and I'm learning what I can and cannot eat. So I might have South Beach breakfast and lunch, but for dinner I'm going to make something for my family that we all could eat. So it could be brown rice and chicken and veggies, or I'll make gumbo, which is actually very lean. Believe it or not. There's only 160 calories in a cup of gumbo.”

4. High Intensity Interval Training

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As for exercise, “I really love high intensity, really quick, and I like heavy weights,” Jessie says There is lots of research backing up the benefits of HIIT workouts, including body fat reduction, improved cardiovascular function, and mental health. It is also time effective.

5. F45 Workouts

Jessie James Decker/Instagram

Jessie enjoys F45 workouts, a form of strength training. According to the Mayo Clinic, strength and weight training help reduce body fat, preserve and increase lean muscle mass, and burn calories more efficiently. Strength training may also help you:

• Develop strong bones
• Manage your weight
• Enhance your quality of life
• Manage chronic conditions
• Sharpen your thinking skills

If you’ve got it, flex it! Jessie James Decker is the perfect example of “strong is sexy.” The country star shared a post-workout photo on her Instagram stories Monday, showing off her huge muscles and gorgeously toned figure. “Mama gettin after it on a rainy Monday,” she wrote. “Wish there was a good work out for loose mommy skin.” How does the mother-of-three maintain her super fit figure? Read on to see 6 ways Jessie James Decker stays in shape and the photos that prove they work—and to get beach-ready yourself, don't miss these essential 30 Best-Ever Celebrity Bikini Photos!

1. She Lifts Weights

Jessie James Decker/Instagram

Jessie’s buff body is primarily due to her weight training devotion. She recently demonstrated her routine on Instagram, which consists of 30 seconds of jump rope, high-knee running, ankle grabs, high kicks, lunges and lateral lunges, spinal rotations, and tension squats. Next she does overhead squats with resistance bands, medicine ball slams and tosses, medicine ball chest passes, medicine ball sit-up tosses, resistance band pulls, deadlifts, step-down exercises, weighted overhead presses, inverted rows, bent over kettlebell rows, weight plate steering wheel exercises, dumbbell rotations, and box jumps. "I work out 3 to 4 times a week and they pretty much look like this with certain variations whether we're doing more upper body or lower body," she explained.

2. She Times Her Eating

While she doesn’t use the term “intermittent fasting” Jessie explained to Women’s Health that she skips breakfast. Her eating style is very similar to a 16:8 fasting routine. "I eat what I want to eat within that time frame but don't overdo it," she said. "The timing really is important to me."

3. She Eats a Lot

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Jessie fuels her body with healthy food. She recently revealed what she eats in a day on Instagram. If she eats breakfast, On Instagram she revealed that if she does eat breakfast it will be a bowl of oatmeal or maybe coffee with cream, followed by a post-workout protein shake. "For lunch, I will have 4 to 6 ounces chicken salad or chicken over rice,"she continued. "For dinner, I will either have a lean red meat, like flank steak with vegetables, chili from my book, or the same kind of thing—chicken and rice vegetables or my fit-enchiladas from my first book.”

4. Frozen Meals Help Fill the Gaps

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When she doesn’t have time to cook, Jessie relies on frozen meals from Trader Joes. "They are so good if I don't have time to make myself lunch," she told Women’s Health. "I get the Indian curry or butter chicken and rice meals, and they are so delicious and filling. I have stashes of them in the freezer in the garage. I never want to run out."

6. She Doesn’t Make Excuses

Even when she is busy, Jessie prioritizes her health. “Got in at 1:30 am last night from shooting a music video( deets on that coming soon)! But I wasn’t about to miss my work out! Gotta get it in!!! Here’s some snippets from this morning💪 (also if I’m in charge of the music and Eric doesn’t take over, I play @nickelback to get my hyped,” she captioned a recent post.