Last post I stressed the importance of moderation and common sense in our approach to body weight. As you may notice, moderation/common sense/sanity is one of my driving philosophies. Pretty boring huh?
My approach to nutrition is pretty boring to. I like the Michael Pollen approach (Haven’t read any of his books, but I really like the saying): “Eat food. Not to much. Mostly plants.”
I don’t believe in crazy diets for the sake of crazy diets because they eschew moderation.
SO:
1. Eat food.
Ease off on the “pink slime,” the packaged food at the grocery store, and most things from a chain restaurant. Notice I didn’t say “don’t eat them.” Remember, moderation. I’m a sucker for McDonalds and Annie’s mac ‘n cheese. But I don’t eat ‘em much. The problem is most processed food isn’t really “food” anymore, as many of the nutrients have been leached out during processing.
I believe that you should eat food based on what it HAS, and not what it DOESN’T have. I think “low fat,” or “diet” foods will probably give you cancer, and don’t taste very good. Which leads me to:
2. Mostly plants (yeah, I know, they aren’t in order, bite me)
As I’ve said I’m against eating JUST plants. However, they should comprise a bulk of your intake, because of what they HAVE. It’s really all about colors (you should shop for groceries like a girl shops for a car: “Oooooh! I want that one, it’s pretty!”) Different colors mean different nutrients, so a food rich in colors (NOT food coloring) means a food rich in nutrients. Oh, and the plants should be fresh. When you can, jar, dehydrate, freeze, etc. a plant, it loses some of it’s nutrients.
3. Not to much
THIS is the tricky one if you want to lose some weight. Appetite management is very difficult thanks to our culture, but can be learned properly with a little work in the beginning. If you want a good read on the subject, I highly recommend Racing Weight by Matt Fitzgerald.
You may have noticed that I said appetite MANAGEMENT and not appetite CONTROL. If you try to control it, by using a lot of willpower to eat less, it’ll blow up in your face. However, if you learn to manage it, mostly by “nutrient timing,” it’ll be sustainable. And sustainability is what we want here. I don’t believe in diets, I believe in lifestyle changes. If you try to cut calories to lose weight, you will gain it back. If you change your lifestyle to one of healthy eating patterns and healthy foods, however, you can stay lean forever.
Nutrient timing is one of the new buzz words in nutrition. It really just means when you eat (there is a little of WHAT you eat , but not enough to matter for most). Nutrient timing is really just a new way of saying “eat lots of small meals,” with a couple more specific suggestions:
1. Eat within 30 minutes of waking.
2. Snack before main meals.
3. Snack before you work out.
4. Eat during your workout (I have mixed feeling about this for most workouts, more on that some other time.)
5. Eat after your workout.
This one is changing a little bit. For a long time, it was common practice to eat as much as you possibly can after a workout. However, when you do that, where does all the blood in your body go? To your stomach. Away from your legs. Bad.
What you really should do, is eat a couple hundred calories (80% carbs, 20% protein, ish) right after your workout, and then maybe another snack a half hour later, and then eat a real meal an hour or more after. And remember, if we’re trying to eat smaller meals, even the real meal shouldn’t be 4000 calories.
One last thing: I know there’s starving children in Africa, but the urge to clean your plate is one of the single most destructive habits an athlete trying to maintain racing weight can have. One of the most important distinctions you can make is the difference between NOT HUNGRY and FULL. You should not strive to be full, you should eat until you are NOT HUNGRY. With this, don’t let yourself get very hungry. If your starting to get hungry, have a snack. Don’t let yourself get “starving,” and make two double cheeseburgers, get really full after one, and eat the second because it’s there. Booo.
Again, practice MODERATION. Sometimes I eat until I’m “full as a tick.” However, it’s really harmful to appetite management to eat large meals, so I don’t do it often. Sometimes I eat McDonalds. Sometimes I eat white pasta with butter and parmesan. However, when you look in my refrigerator, it’s packed top to bottom with foods purchased from the perimeter of the grocery store. Basic non processed food: fresh fruit, fresh vegetables, and lean cuts of meat. I eat like poorly sometimes. I drink alcohol sometimes (haha). But MOSTLY, I eat very well, and that’s all I could ever ask a normal person to do.
