How To Eat

I wrote a post a while back the was a quick over view of my day to day eating ‘plan’ looks like. I want to go into that in some greater detail here over a series of posts. While I don’t really have a ’plan’ when it comes to eating, I do have a set of guidelines that I use to try and maintain my weight, and my health. I’ve come to rely on these after a lot of trial and error. I can’t promise that they will work for you, but they’re easy and I swear by them.

Food for thought: You need to take every “diet” with a grain of salt, include the U.S governments. It’s hard to believe, but the U.S. Dietary Guidelines are HEAVILY influenced by lobbyists who are trying to get more of their product represented in the food pyramid. The Government guidelines change every few years not because there has been more “research” into what is good for us, but because some lobbyist has successfully bought our government officials. Put that in your food diary and smoke it. Also, remember that the “health” industry is a multi-billion dollar industry. With all that money being spent, don’t you think our the U.S. might loose some weight? fat chance, if those weight loss products actually worked, they’d be putting themselves out of business. Don’t be sold by this crap. Remember that you only need two things to lose weight: healthy food and exercise. That’s it.

Before I get too deep into food, we need to talk about portion size. I don’t care how healthy a food is, if you eat too much of it, you will get fat (or at least not have the calorie deficit you need to lose weight). As a child, I was always very active and “growing”, as my mom would say. I could afford to eat a ton of food because I was burning all of those calories. I kept that mentality all the way into college, unfortunately my regular diet changed significantly (beer) and I wasn’t as active as I used to be. Naturally I gained weight. I decided to start working out pretty heavily. Since I was working out so hard, I figured my diet was safe, in fact I ate MORE. After all, I was working out! I gained muscle like crazy which isn’t so bad, but my body fat didn’t budge. I looked even fatter. Moral of the story? If you want to gain big muscle, eat like a horse  and lift big. If you want to get lean and loose fat, you need to have a calorie deficit. I recommend keeping a food diary. Two very good electronic ones are FitDay and The Daily Plate.

So, Food. Here are my categories again:

• Things You Eat Regularly – I’m a creature of habit. I eat pretty much the same thing for breakfast 5 days a week, and while my lunches have a bit more variety they don’t vary widely.  So 2/3 of my meals, 5 days a week,  are fairly predictable. This is a great opportunity to make a huge difference in my diet. For both breakfast and lunch, I choose a really healthy meal (or a small handful of meals if you want some variety) and stick with them. What does that do? It takes close to 50% of what I eat, and makes it guaranteed healthy. That will make a huge difference.
• Meat – I’m not a vegetarian, in fact I love meat. That being said, if you want to lose weight and/or feel better on a regular basis you need to significantly reduce the amount of meat you eat on a regular basis. If your concerned that that you’ll loose muscle mass, I say B.S.. There are so many ways for you to get enough protein without eating meat, and we usually get far more protein that our body actually uses anyway. Don’t believe me? I recommend checking out Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food.
• Veggies – Vegetables are SO good for you. I’m talking super food. Anything that can grow on nothing but water, air, and sunlight is good in my book. Covering them in fat turns them to the evil side. Beware.
• Fish – Fish is your main protein replacement. Don’t like fish? Well, start liking it. Choosing the right fish can load you up with omega-3 fatty acids, and it just tastes great. Some fish can tend to have levels of mercury in it that you won’t want to eat on a regular basis. To avoid this, a good rule of thumb is: The lower on the food chain, the better. Shrimp, scallops, and sardines are a good place to start. Just don’t cook them in an unhealthy way.
• Milk – Dairy products fall into the same category of meat, they’re fattening and typically don’t offer as much benefit as you think. They also tend to be an inflammatory. Go easy on the dairy, you feel better. (I do like low fat cottage cheese – can be a good source of protein).
• Sweets/Soda – Look, I love sweets. So all I can say is ‘moderation’. Moderation doesn’t mean once a day. Moderation is once a week….maybe. Personally, even if I have some extra calories to eat I try to stay away. I find that sweets have a addictive effect.  Soda, go diet and you’ll be good. But, you’d be better off with water.
• Coffee – Coffee tends to get a bad rap. As long as you’re drinking it black, you’re not going to be ingesting too many calories. Also, It is a great alternative to a sugary afternoon snack when you’re needing a pick-me-up.
• Water- Drink it, and drink a lot. Don’t like drinking plain old water? throw some lime juice in it. Staying well hydrated will lower your heart rate, keep you feeling fuller longer, and make you feel better overall.

When putting together your food plan, try to think of how our ancestors ate. Meat was expensive, fish and veggies were plentiful and cheap. Food didn’t come in boxes. They ate real food. They worked hard for their daily bread. Just keep that in mind.

I will be outlining each of the bullet points above in a series of posts coming soon!