A Day in the Life: Jessie Delgado

What started as an escape has turned into a passion for social influencer Jessie Delgado, who documents her fitness journey to her more than 500,000 followers on Instagram. We asked the Instagram fitness star and nursing student to share a rundown of a typical day in her busy life, including what she eats to stay healthy and fuel her body for work, school and her workouts.

Morning

My job can be kind of crazy because it’s 24-hour shifts, and I go to school, so I make sure I have my green juice. I grow a lot of things for my juice so that I don’t have to buy them, like kale, and I have an apple tree in my yard as well as a lemon tree next door. I also put in cucumber, spinach, parsley, frozen bananas, coconut water, a little spirulina powder, some maca powder and celery.

I also usually have some hot lemon water, which I’ll take to school with me if I’m running out of time, and a couple of hard-boiled eggs. Those are easy!

Besides taking care of my nutrition, I rinse my face with warm water, and then I put sunscreen on because that’s one of my 2018 resolutions.

Afternoon

Lunch is probably carrots, cottage cheese and a turkey sandwich, and always water. I drink like a gallon of water every day! Then I go to school (right now I’m studying nutrition and taking a psychology class).

Since every day is kind of different, I’ll try to work out between work and school if I have time. I generally like to work out at night because that’s when I’m the most awake, and when I have the time, I like to split up my workouts over the week: back one day, shoulders one day, quads and hams one day, and then glutes one day. To be honest, I don’t do much cardio, although I do some plyos here and there if I’m doing a leg workout. Otherwise, it’s five or 10 minute warm up on the elliptical or the treadmill.

I rest probably twice a week. On rest days, I pretty much just do nothing, and I eat a lot to make up for what I lose on the days that I work out.

Evening

I usually go to work in the evening. I am a private in-home caregiver. During the week I have work from 5 p.m. to 9 a.m. the next morning, and on the weekends it’s 5 p.m. to 5 p.m. the next day.

On the days I work out, I also have a protein shake with dinner. I use pure egg white protein powder, liquid egg whites, Greek yogurt and some frozen strawberries and frozen mango. It tastes really good and helps me make sure that I’m getting all the extra protein that I can possibly get in for that day.

If I don’t have to work, then after my workout I’ll steam for 20 minutes or so and then shower. That’s what relaxes me every day, and then when I come home I’m ready to eat dinner. For dinner, I like chicken, green beans and rice. My secret ingredient is an herb and spice mixture that I buy, and I put that on everything.

Photo credit: Erik Umphery