Day 4: Fuel for the Race

An area where I feel many people fall short in their fitness regimes is their diet. Many put in the hard work at the gym, then give it all away in the kitchen. I believe a big reason for this is that nutrition is not something that is formally taught in the school systems (at least in Canada), & the information is not readily available.

               

Diet is one area in my life that I have been consistent with, even when I have allowed my exercise regime to fall away due to various work or life commitments. The reason I’ve stuck with my diet even as I lose my motivation to exercise, is that it doesn’t take much time or money, & it makes me feel great. When I get away from the diet that I outline below, I feel lethargic, slow, & unhappy. When I stick to my diet, I feel more energetic & find I have greater mental clarity.

I am by no means an expert in this category, & have long given up tracking micro- & macro-nutrients, or even calories for that matter. I simply eat a lot of whole, healthy foods, & generally enjoy the results I achieve.   

The diet I’ve listed below is what I eat from Monday to Friday when I have to pack a lunch, & eat late after I get home from work & rush off to the gym. My diet on the weekends is similar, with the exception that I eat my meals earlier & will often switch out lunch for bacon & eggs, or some other prepared meal.

Breakfast (sort of): 1PM – 2PM

                I call this breakfast, but the reality is I consume my first meal between noon & 2PM, depending on when I had dinner the night before. I try to wait 16 hours between dinner & breakfast, a process called intermittent fasting (IF) that I picked up from Dr. Rhonda Patrick on Joe Rogan & Tim Ferris’ podcasts. More on the IF process in later posts, I want to focus on the food itself here.

               

The Shake: the shake I consume each day contains one full avocado, 5 stalks of celery, half a cucumber, half a lemon for taste, & a handful of kale & spinach. It is simple yet effective (~5 minutes to prepare) & to my co-workers’ bewilderment, it actually tastes pretty good. I go through stages where I add in garlic &/or ginger root, but often I just use the recipe above.

Lunch (2PM – 4PM)

                For my lunch, I toss together a medley of vegetables that include a combination of carrots, tomatoes, broccoli, cucumber, celery, red, green, or yellow peppers & green beans. The reason I choose these vegetables is ease of preparation. In total, it takes about 5 minutes to put this together & packs a nutritional punch. I will also pack a protein that consists of: chicken breast & guacamole, tuna, or a meat leftover from dinner (ground beef, steak, etc.).

Pre-gym Snack (4PM – 6PM)

                Late in the afternoon & pre-gym, I will snack on some almonds.

Dinner (7PM – 8PM)

                Dinner varies quite a bit, but 95% of the time, it is simply meat & vegetables. As I am by no means a chef, I will simply list the ingredients that are most used in my kitchen, & from there you can likely deduce the types of meals I am eating.

Protein: chicken breast, ground beef, steak, tuna, salmon, other fatty fishes, eggs, bacon

Carbohydrates: carrots, celery, kale, spinach, green beans, peppers (green & coloured), broccoli, cauliflower, brussell sprouts

Summary

                I’ve adopted my new diet plan after trying a few different diets, including the popular Paleo & Ketogenic diets. Most recently, I followed the ketogenic diet for around 4 months. Although I liked the way I felt & the results I achieved, I found the diet to be too restrictive for my lifestyle, & instead have adopted the more laid-back natural food diet that I have outlined above.

                The diet that mine most resembles that you can read about online is Tim Ferriss’ ‘slow carb’ diet. It consists of a lot of the same principles, but Tims includes a ‘blow-out’ day where you eat whatever you want. I do still enjoy the occasional cheat meal, but find if I dedicate a whole day to unhealthy eating, I feel lethargic not only that day, but often the next.  

                As with most things, the key to a good diet in consistency. Too often, people set out to follow strict diets, then when they deviate slightly, they throw the entire diet out the window & give away any momentum or results they have achieved.

For me, shifting my focus from micro & macro nutrients & calories to the idea of eating lots of whole, raw foods has worked wonders & simplified my life. As I continue on this journey to the Spartan race, I am going to continue to research nutrition so I can optimize what I am using to fuel my body.

100 Day Spartan