So here's some guidelines my trainer gave me. I follow this probably about 90 percent. The no dairy is pretty tough.
1. I don't listen to anything the news or anything I see advertised has to say about food/nutrition. You hear/see catch phrases like fat-free, sugar-free, antioxidants, low carbs, blah, etc. Oprah does this or eats that......All designed to make you buy something, NOT designed to make you healthy.
2. Variety, variety, VaRiEtY. Eat nuts, but not just Almonds every day, eat fruit, but not just oranges. I once listed everything I ate in a day and it had 30 something ingredients. So try EVERYTHING that is natural often. And this will also help you eat everything in moderation.
3. Fats are good for you and will not make you fat. Our body needs dietary fat to metabolize food properly and make hormones(which control all cell function). Upon further research, I have also learned that even saturated fats are needed by the body for very complex metabolic system pathways. Once thought to be evil, cholesterol is needed to make testosterone. This helps to explain why increased exercise lowers cholesterol and raises testosterone. So eat the whole egg!! Use olive oil and use nuts as a great snack. Vitamin d is also made by our body with sunlight and cholesterol as a precursor.
4. When you eat matters. I choose to have 6-8 meals a day. Why give your "Engine" it's largest meal at night?...So the energy can be stored for later..as fat?? The body uses energy only when it needs it. Lets say you eat an egg, some mixed greens w/olive oil, an orange, and mixed fruit blended in a shake for breakfast. The total energy from this meal is probably around 400 calories. Most of these ingredients are "slow burning" (low glycemic index)and will be used by your body as they are being digested which will take maybe 3-4 hours. Chances are you will need the 400 calories over that period of time. Now lets say you drank a coffee w/sugar and milk, and had a bagel with cream cheese. Ok, roughly 400 calories as well. The sugar enters the body immediately and the white-bread bagel is turned into sugar almost as quickly and placed into the blood stream. But, your body doesn't need 400 calories that fast. So, what does the body do with excess calories? The answer is NOT leave the sugar in the blood stream. The answer is store it for later...as glycogen or in most cases..as fat.
5. I only use natural, whole, organic food. Period. Natural to me means unprocessed. I don't need my food to be put in a can and heated or to be dried and cooked in some factory. Our bodies were not meant to digest chemicals and preservatives. Cherries are good, canned cherries are useless. Green beans are great, canned ones are not. Whole means the entire thing (within reason). Some exceptions apply..an example is olive oil. An orange is good, just it's juice is not. Wheat is not that bad, just it's flour, is. Organic is the only catch phrase I hear a lot that I do agree with. If it is truly organic that means the farmers didn't use pesticides or fertilizers.
6. I don't consume milk/dairy. This would take a colloquium for me to explain fully, just go to www.notmilk.com
7. I eat as many vegetables as possible. Again, too many reasons why.. Consult an oncologist or someone who studies centenarian diets for all the reasons. Frozen, fresh, steamed, un-steamed, sauteed in olive oil..whatever.
8. I try to stay away from most grains. They just have an abundance of energy with little nutrition...something I don't need.
9. I like lentils, beans, and legumes.
10. Soy is not that great. It has become an adulterated unnatural replacement protein that is found in everything. Google it.
11. Red meat makes me tired and I find I am hungry shortly after eating it. I love how it tastes, but gave it up and never felt better.
12. I have found that eating too little makes me store fat easier. Yes, when I was trying to lose the last 5 pounds of body fat on my stomach I noticed it wasn't until I ate more that it started to go away. The answer is survival. When you don't eat enough calories the body slows metabolic function to as low as possible, and will do everything in it's power to conserve energy, especially the energy stored as fat and glycogen. Then, when you try to jog 5 miles to burn it off, the body just responds by slowing the BMR (basil metabolic rate). Causing further frustration and causing one to "crash" or become hungry. This is why you can see overweight people who spend hours on a treadmill tell you, "but I hardly eat anything!" Why would your body use up energy it has stored when it knows it can just make you tired, lower the heat, or make you eat something?? It wasn't until I ate more and more often with the right amount of exercise that my body realized the energy was going to be replaced and my six-pack started showing.
13. Finally, if one were to insist on drinking coffee or soda, just use real sugar. Aspartame and the like are poisons and will increase insulin resistance and make you hungrier, sicker, and tired. Google it, go to www.mercola.com and read through his site, or go strait to, www.mercola.com/article/aspartame/hidden_dangers.htm I agree with most of what Dr. Mercola says with the exception(s) of his take on whey and he always seems to be selling something he is talking about....how convenient. If I was selling Tulsey tea, I could list 1,000 great things about it as well.
