The 100-Day Spartan

Sunday, 7 May 2017

Day 52: Diet Pt 2 - Healthy Eating Tips

EDIT: This post on diet quickly turned into a 6,000-word behemoth, so I have separated it into two parts. The first post, which can be found here focused on the types of foods that I suggest eating & avoiding. The post that follows looks at 7 tips for sticking to your diet once you establish what foods you would like to include in it. Bon appetit!

I recently posted a progress picture in my day 49 post on Transformation Tuesday, & by far the most common feedback & questions I got came regarding my diet. This was an encouraging sign to me because it showed that many in the OCR community are acutely aware of just how important diet is to achieving fitness goals, a knowledge that I’m not sure is replicated in the rest of society. There are tons of misconceptions out there regarding what we should and shouldn’t eat, & while by no means do I consider myself any type of expert or authority on the subject, I have been able to find a diet that works well for me after experimenting with many different diets such as the paleo, ketogenic, & slow carb diets.

Note what follows is my personal approach to dieting. Dieting is entirely individual, so I encourage you to find what works for you & stick to it. In my opinion, the key to success with any type of diet is that you follow it consistently.

Healthy Eating Tips

Now that I’ve established what types of food you should be eating, I discuss below 7 of the strategies I use to try to stay consistent with my diet.

Stock your fridge full of healthy foods: although it seems simple, for me keeping only healthy foods in my home has a hugely positive effect on my diet. Even if I get the late-night munchies, the most damage that I’m going to do is a handful of almonds or a piece of cheese. Sure it isn’t ideal to be eating these extra calories late at night, however it’s a lot better than digging into that bag of chips or cookies. A lot of people such as Tim Ferriss suggest incorporating one cheat day per week. Cheat days are not a good option for me personally because I have an addictive personality & one day quickly turns to one week, however my suggestion if you do elect to have a cheat day is to keep the ‘cheat foods’ out of your house until the actual cheat day arrives. Although some may argue that it is a good strategy for practicing will power & self-control, I am not a proponent of putting oneself in difficult situations just for the sake of overcoming difficulty. If the food is not in your house, you are far less likely to cheat on your diet. By not having the food readily available, it forces you to have to walk or drive to a store, which can often provide the time needed for cooler heads to prevail & to avoid you from cheating at all. Next time you’re grocery shopping ask yourself a simple question each time you put something in your cart; ‘is this part of my diet?’ The results will quickly speak for themselves.
Pack your lunch: perhaps the biggest contributor to my improved diet over the past 8 weeks has been the practice of packing my lunch every single day. I used to go out to a restaurant with co-workers each Friday for lunch, a completely reasonable routine, provided it only occurred on Fridays. As with any other habit I take on, this quickly developed into me going out throughout the rest of the week, even on days that I packed a lunch. Not only did the food from the restaurant often fall outside of my idea of ‘healthy eating,’ it also took a toll on my bank account. Since I started this journey, I have made a habit of packing my lunch every night before I go to bed, ensuring that I don’t skip packing a lunch due to a missed alarm or one too many morning ‘snoozes.’ Bringing my lunch has simplified my mornings & made it much easier to stick to my diet & turn down my co-workers’ invitations to go out for lunch. I’ve also been able to shorten my work days (I have a flexible schedule), as eating my lunch in the lunchroom only takes 15 minutes compared to the hour that I would often take with co-workers. This has allowed me to get my work done earlier, & get home earlier. Obviously not an option for everyone, but it does free up time to read or go for a walk at lunch if you have set hours that you must be at the office. Finally, another unexpected bonus has been that I’ve been saving a lot of money by avoiding those lunches out (which I’ve promptly spent on supplements…). If you haven’t already, I challenge you to start packing your lunch before bed each night & begin experiencing better health, more free time, & cost savings!
Automate your meals: I suggest eating the same thing everyday for breakfast & lunch. No seriously. I thought this was insane myself, but since I’ve automated my breakfast with kale shakes, it has freed up time & made one thing less that I have to think about or take care of in the morning. My lunches, which typically consist of 3-4 cups of vegetables & leftover protein from the night before, take me at most 10 minutes to prepare the night before. In my post on habit-forming, I discussed how forming habits allows your mind to automate the process which requires less brain power & allows you to focus instead on more unique & challenging tasks. Automating my breakfast & lunch has made my life a lot easier & I know that each day I am getting the nutrients that my body requires. To keep things from getting boring with my lunches, I vary through the type of vegetables & meat that I’m eating, but realistically it stays about 75% the same every single day & I love it! Try automating your lunches for a week & see the benefits it provides. The beautiful thing is, if you get bored of the meal, you can move on to the next one & recycle through different meals as you go. Trust me, it will free up time & provided the meals you choose consist of the nutrients your body requires, you will feel great!
Tell those around you: all my co-workers are aware that I’ll be running this race on June 23^rd & they’re all aware that I’m taking my training for it quite seriously. By sharing my goals with them, they often carry my narrative for me & reinforce what it is I’ve set out to accomplish. An example would be recently when a co-worker was walking around passing out sweets that she baked on the weekend, & before I even answered my office mate answered, ‘oh he won’t eat those.’ Although this could be considered meddling, I appreciated it because I have built up a reputation amongst my co-workers that makes it easier to live up to. I love the added pressure that if I vary from my diet or decide to go out for lunch, my coworkers will notice. Even though they would take it in stride & not make a big deal out of it, I like that the expectation exists because it has created something for me to live up to.
Don’t drink calories: one of my strongest rules aside from limiting sugar consumption is to avoid drinking calories wherever possible. This would include soft drinks, juice, milk, cream, sugar in coffee, & of course – alcohol. I am fortunate to have never developed a taste for pop, however I did have to make a conscious effort to eliminate iced tea, juice, & coconut water from my diet, all of which were crammed full of sugar. As mentioned in my first post on diet, I have struggled a little bit with completely eliminating alcohol from my diet. In the first 50 days of my Spartan Race journey, I believe alcohol consumption was my number 1 diet ‘cheat’ that I’m looking to eliminate in the second half of the journey. Calories in beverages are problematic because they can add up quickly while not providing any form of satiation; leading to even more consumption. A notable example of this lack of satiation would be the ability to sit down & drink 5-6 beers. Rarely do you feel full, yet you have consumed the same caloric content as you would have if you had a meal from a restaurant. A second issue with drinking calories is the types of drinks that we consume often contain 35+ grams of sugar per serving which is INSANE! If you read my first post you would know how I feel about sugar consumption, so for me a good rule is to avoid drinking calories whenever possible.
Eliminate ‘the binge’: in my day 27 post on setbacks, I discussed the importance of avoiding the all or nothing mentality. See below for an excerpt from that post:

“The ‘all-or-nothing’ mindset refers to the type of thinking that states ‘since I already cheated on my diet with this slice of pizza, I might as well eat an entire chocolate cake.’ Moderation is key here; if you’ve made a mistake, acknowledge it, put it in perspective, & get back to the regularly scheduled programming. Habits or old ways of living can be very challenging to overcome, do not fuel the fire by getting back into a negative cycle.”

In short, when you slip up on your diet (yes, when – you will not follow your diet perfectly), the key is to not allow the problem to compound by writing off the entire day or week, but instead to identify it as a slip-up & get back to the regularly scheduled programming. Since I am so susceptible to this style of thinking, I avoid the ‘cheat days’ that are popularized by many diet experts. If however you are the type of person that can pull off a cheat day, just make sure that your cheat day doesn’t leak into the days that follow & that you are able to get back to a strict diet as soon as the cheat day ends.
Don’t overcomplicate things: after I’ve thrown all of this information at you, I am going to leave you with one contradictory piece of advice – don’t overcomplicate things. Between the paleo, ketogenic, & other diets, there is a ton of conflicting information floating around the diet regarding dieting. For me, the key is to establish what foods you would like to include in your diet, establish what you would like to avoid & use common sense & moderation to monitor what food you put in your body. Once you learn about what types of foods make you feel good & which ones don’t, eating healthy becomes intuitive. You will soon know what you should be eating, as well as what you shouldn’t. The major key is that you are consistently eating nutrient-dense, raw foods, & that you only allow yourself to indulge once in a while.

As mentioned in the beginning of this article, diets are far from universal. We all have different tastes, bodies, & preferences & our diets should reflect these differences. The ‘one-size-fits-all’ diet simply does not work & forcing yourself to consume foods that you don’t enjoy is bound to result in failure. What is important is that you find what works for you & stick to it with as much consistency as possible. Establish what foods you would like to eat (my suggestion being vegetables & meats), & establish what you would like to avoid (suggestion being simple carbs, sugar, processed foods, & alcohol), & try to stick to it as closely as possible.

100-Day Spartan

Day 51: Diet Pt 1 - Foods to Eat

EDIT: This post on diet quickly turned into a 6,000-word behemoth, so I have separated it into two parts; the first, which is what follows, will focus on the types of foods that I suggest eating & avoiding, & the second will be my personal tips & tricks for sticking to your diet once you establish what foods you would like to include in it. Bon appetit!

Note what follows is my personal approach to dieting. Dieting is entirely individual, so I encourage you to find what works for you & stick to it. In my opinion, the key to success with any type of diet is that you follow it consistently.

What to eat

The key to a healthy diet is ensuring that you are constantly replenishing your body with lots of nutrient-dense, raw foods, especially when you are stressing your body with exercise. Most diet experts suggest weighing foods & tracking micro- & macro-nutrient ratios to guarantee success on your diet. While I believe there is certainly merit in terms of tracking nutrients, especially if you are looking to lose substantial amounts of weight or are looking to achieve high-level athletic performance, for my ‘weekend warrior’ goals, simply ensuring I am eating the right foods to satiation, & not beyond, has provided the results I’m looking for. If you are looking for a cookie-cutter diet plan, it will not be included below, however I believe the advice still holds true.

Below I discuss the types of foods that I attempt to eat on a regular basis.

Vegetables: in terms of volume consumed, the vast majority of my diet consists of raw vegetables. To me, vegetables are crucially important because they provide a ton of vitamins & minerals which are critical to basic body & brain function. Additionally, vegetables are packed full of fibre which is very important for aiding with your digestive track to ensure your body is working as a well-oiled machine & efficiently processing all of the food that you eat. I try to incorporate a wide variety of vegetables into my diet, but the most common vegetables that I consume in order of frequency are kale, spinach, cucumbers, celery, broccoli, brussels sprouts, carrots, green beans & snap peas. I consume each of the first four vegetables raw each morning along with a full avocado in my morning shake (technically afternoon shake due to intermittent fasting, but I’ve already talked about that in a different post), then will have a mix of around a cup each of 3-4 of the other vegetables listed each day for lunch along with about a cup of tomatoes & a fist-sized protein. For dinner, I will typically have 2-3 cups of boiled broccoli, brussels sprouts or carrots along with another fist-sized source of protein. Once again, when I say 1-2 cups, I am simply estimating as I do not weigh my food, but instead have been able to find the portion size that keeps me full for the evening, & I encourage you to do the same.
Fruit: many suggest eating a lot of fruit, however as I will discuss below, I attempt to avoid sugar at all costs & many fruits are filled with huge amounts of sugar. Although the sugar that comes from fruit is preferable over the processed sugars found in soft drinks & candy due to the fibre content, I personally try to avoid fruit where I can. I have two exceptions to this rule; I eat avocados & tomatoes almost every single day as the former contains a fantastic amount of healthy fats & very low sugar content (<1g per 100g serving), & the latter contains fairly low sugar content (3g per 100g serving) & contains substantial amounts of vitamin A, C, & K. All of this said, if you are a sugar addict (look it up, it’s a real thing) looking to wean yourself off of candy, then fruit is a good short-term substitute, however in the long-term I would look to limit your consumption of fruit as well.
Meat: like fruit consumption, meat consumption is a controversial issue, however the controversy stems from social issues rather than nutritional considerations. Let me say up front – if you are a vegetarian for social reasons I completely respect your choice & am onboard with most of your opinions, especially when it comes to factory farming & environmental sustainability. Unfortunately, I do not have the fortitude to stand up for my beliefs in the way you do. Now that I’ve got that out of the way, if you are a vegetarian for strictly health reasons – you may want to take a closer look. Social issues aside, lean meats provide an important mix of protein & essential amino acids that help with brain function & muscle recovery & also contain vitamins & minerals rarely found in vegetables such as vitamin B12. While I tend to gravitate towards lean meats, I also consume fatty fish & fattier meats such as bacon on a semi-regular basis. The types of meat that I eat in order of most to least regularly are: chicken breast, ground beef, steak, tuna, sardines, haddock, pollock, salmon, bacon, pork chops & sausage. I start my day with a kale shake that is obviously meat-free, but usually eat a fist-sized portion of meat for lunch (usually leftovers from the night before), & again for dinner.
Fats: while fats are found in most of the meats that I listed above, particularly in the fish, the biggest sources of fat in my diet come from avocados, eggs, cheese, almonds, dark chocolate, & sunflower seeds. I also supplement daily with fish oil to ensure my body is getting the fat that it requires daily. Dietary fats have been vilified for many years with unfounded claims that they increase cholesterol, make you fat, or will give you a heart attack. The reality is that many of the vitamins & minerals that we consume are fat-soluble, meaning that they are better absorbed when your body has fat to process them with. Additionally, fats can be burned as an energy source, particularly when your body is in a ketogenic state. The ketogenic diet has picked up a lot of publicity recently & I even tried it out for a few months, however I have now opted instead for intermittent fasting which allows your body to get into a ketogenic state for a few hours each day. Regardless of whether your body is in a ketogenic state however, it will use fats as energy once it burns through your glycogen stores. Finally, since I have incorporated more fat in my diet, I have found that my skin is much softer & looks much healthier to the point that friends & co-workers have commented on the change. I highly recommend that even if you aren't about to adopt a high-fat diet, at the very least you incorporate a fish oil supplement as it is extremely cost-efficient & provides a ton of benefits.
Snacks: everyone has their vices & for me, these are flavoured sunflower seeds & dark chocolate. While both snacks tip very high on the scale in terms of caloric content, the former is packed full of unnecessary salt, while the latter has a ton of fat, which as discussed above is not by itself a bad thing, however for its caloric content, dark chocolate does not hold its weight when compared with the nutritional value of other fat-rich foods such as avocados or eggs. Though I would certainly be better off without these two snacks in my diet, instead of eliminating them completely I try to use them as a reward for a clean week (or sometimes day) of dieting & exercise. As with anything, moderation is key, but I suggest (if necessary) you find a food that is not too unhealthy & incorporate it into your diet once in a while as a treat. It can be very encouraging mentally to know that at the end of the week (or day) you are going to indulge in a food that you love, even if it's not the healthiest.

What to avoid

I believe a major short coming of most diets today is that they define themselves on what you shouldn't eat as opposed to what you should eat. My suggestion would be to focus more on the information above, incorporating nutrient-dense foods into your diet as much as possible which will ensure your body is getting all of the vitamins & minerals it needs, while leaving little room for the foods I discuss below. That said, I am going to ignore my own advise of focusing on the positive, & list a whole bunch of foods that I suggest avoiding below.

Simple carbohydrates: I have experienced the most significant positive benefits from dieting when I was able to remove simple & processed carbohydrates from my diet. For me, the benefits included rapid weight loss (3-5 lbs in first couple days of removing them), fat loss, increased mental clarity, & increased, sustainable energy levels without the common 'post-meal crash.' The simple carbohydrates that I’ve removed include rice, bread, pasta, cereals, potatoes, sugars, & most other refined carbohydrates. The reason to avoid these simple carbohydrates is that your body converts them into glucose, meaning that it treats these types of carbohydrates the same way it would process sugar. Therefore, you get a lot of the same negative consequences that you get from eating sugar that I’ve listed below which include increased inflammation & an increased rate of aging, among many others. Although removing these foods from your diet may represent a substantial change from your regular eating habits & be difficult at first, I assure you that replacing these simple carbs with complex carbohydrates such as vegetables & beans will leave you feeling more mentally clear, energetic & the weight will drop off in a way that you’ve never experienced before. As an added bonus, removing these foods from your diet will put an end to the 'post-eating crash' or 'food coma' that is common in North American diets today!
Sugar: I am strongly anti-sugar. There are numerous documentaries & studies discussing the negative health consequences of sugar consumption, but perhaps the strongest argument comes from Dr. Rhonda Patrick who suggests that sugar consumption can negatively effect cognitive abilities & muscular recovery, & can increase inflammation, speed up the aging process & increase the likelihood of depression & even cancer. Draw your own conclusions, but one of the very few hard lines that I draw in my own diet is to avoid sugar wherever possible. If, like most North Americans, you consume a lot of sugar, I would start small by eliminating sodas or candy, & slowly look into the other processed foods you are consuming as you will be blown away by how much sugar products like pasta sauce & salad dressing contain. I whole-heartedly believe that sugar consumption is one of the biggest health concerns in North America today & that unfortunately, as a society, we are trending in the wrong direction & consuming more sugar than ever. I believe that the unscrupulous advertisements for sugary cereals, snacks, & colas aimed at children will be as shocking in 25 years as advertisements for cigarettes from the 1960's seem today. As mentioned in my discussion on fruit, if you need to temporarily increase fruit consumption to offset the lack of sugar in your diet as a result of removing sodas, candy, & processed foods, I believe this is a good option in the short-term due to the increased fibre content, however in the long-term I would suggest limiting your fruit intake as well.
Processed foods: as mentioned above, my strategy for choosing what foods to eat is to always opt for the more natural, raw option. Within reason, I attempt to avoid any processed foods which is the reason my diet consists primarily of raw vegetables & meats. There are many reasons to avoid processed foods, but to summarize quickly, they often contain a lot of salt for preservation, simple carbs, artificial ingredients, sugars, & are often deficient in nutrients & fiber. These drawbacks barely even scratch the surface regarding why you should avoid processed foods, but if you would like further information a quick Google Scholar search will bring back hundreds of articles & research papers for you to chew on. The major takeaway; go natural & raw whenever & wherever possible. If you cannot do this, check the sugar content of your processed foods & opt for the less sweet options when you can.
Alcohol: ah alcohol, perhaps my biggest vice. Having formerly worked for a craft brewery, I am a huge fan of beer & alcoholic beverages of all varieties. Over the years, I have found myself drinking at least a few nights per week, every single week, even if most of those nights involve just 1-2 beers or a single rum & coke. The reality is that alcohol packs a ton of ‘empty’ or nutrient-deficient calories that are quickly converted by your body into glucose, & excessive alcohol consumption can slow protein synthesis & muscle recovery. As with anything, moderation is key, but the more you can avoid alcohol, the better, from both a health & an athletic performance stand point.

100-Day Spartan