As probably seen in earlier posts, I have thrown down a couple of nutritional challenges to start of the year and potentially help everyone get into that realm of "being fit". Lets remember that we work out for 1 hour of a 24 hour day. That leaves us with 23 hours to complete the cirlce and actually make that 1 hour intense workout worth something! So with that being said, lets recap the first two and bring on the third and forth! As a note, you can tackle these one at a time in order from 1-4, or all together. I would recommend for the nutritional newbie to take things slow though, i.e. one step at a time.
NUTRITION CHALLENGE #1:
Eat protein with every single meal. EVERY meal! What kind of protein? A once living, breathing, roaming, walking, swimming, animal!
To spell it out even more: (in no particular order of relevence)
- Chicken, Beef , Pork, Fish, Shellfish, Eggs, Turkey, Lamb, Venison, Duck
NUTRITION CHALLENGE #2:
Drop sugar from your diet for a minimum of 2 weeks and see how you feel at the end. Once you realize how great you feel continue on with the NO SUGAR challenge. Of course its ok to indulge every now and again, but for the ones that have a soda or ten, a cookie, a doughnut, candy, etc. on a daily basis needs to stop! Try it and see what happens. The benefits will definitely outweigh any kind of negatives your pesky brain will come up with.
NUTRITION CHALLENGE #3:
Now that we have rid our diets of sugar and we are eating protein with EVERY meal, (yes this includes snacks) its time to take away the comfort food of our time: Breads, starches (minus the occasional sweet potato or yam), grains, cereals, wheats, pasta, rice, corn, and the like.
Here is a good article about the evil that are these!
"The Definitive Guide to Grains"
These things have been linked to all types of illness, disease, allergies, and just all around health problems. If anything, drop sugar and grains from your diet to create longevity of life! Once again, try it out for minimum of two weeks. After the two weeks, evaluate how you feel and carry one once you realize the benefit that you have just given your body.
NUTRITION CHALLENGE #4:
Once the first 3 challenges have been completed either one at a time or all together, its time to bring the final piece to finish our Nutrional Puzzle. Eat some GOOD fats with all your meals. By good fats I mean:
Olive oil, coconut oil, coconut meat, avocado, nuts, seeds, some nut oils, REAL butter, lard, EFA's (Omega 3's), Animal fats
Heart healthy fats that will help promote a healthy lifestyle. A plug from the FDA (although they are akin to the Anti-Christ in my opinion). This is now a primary fuel source for our body since we have ditched the grains and sugar, so you want to make the right choices. Not to mention they are more caloricly dense than carbohydrates (sugar and grains) at 9 calories per gram than 4 calories per gram respectively.
Read: "Definitive Guide to Fats"
Bringing it all together......
Once this has come full circle, whether it takes 2 weeks or 2 months, you WILL see a noticeable difference in how you look and feel and I would imagine that you will want to carry on this new lifestyle change from here on out. It will only allow you to live a longer, happier, and healthy life so why not?
Friday, January 23, 2009
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Cold Remedies for the "Modern Man"
There are a couple of articles I would like to link in refernce to this post:
1. "Maintaining Your Immunity During the Holidays"
2. "Make Your Own Flu Shot, Or Just Stay Healthy in the First Place"
3. "What Happens to Your Body When...You Carb Binge?"
There is something that I noticed over the recent holidays. I got sick for a few days. I never get sick! This got me to thinking about what might be the cause of it so I am going to make an assumption on the issue. Around this time of year I tend to get more into sugar than normal, whether it be through pies, cakes, brownies, ice cream, candy, etc. After reading a little about sugar, it can cause an immune suppresion in the body. As can over-indulgence in alcohol, which also tends to happen around this time. Bad news. Especially this time of year when the Flu seems rampant. So, scan or read the accompanying articles and make your own assumptions, but I am going to attribute this recent sickness to too many sweets and too much drinks! Especially the 2 huge pieces of cheesecake that I ate for my brother-in-law's birthday a few days before Christmas. Well, I started "feeling bad", sore throat, congestion, runny nose, on Christmas Eve Eve (the day before Christmas Eve: not a typo). So I took meds and nothing really worked. NyQuil, my once favored drug of choice for a small cold, didn't do a thing but make me sluggish in the morning. Mucinex, which can dry out a 5x5 childrens sand box didn't work either. I had all the symptoms that these medications are supposed to take care of! After all the holiday hub-bub, I got back on track with my diet [lots of protein, good fats, fruits and veggies] and a couple of days later everything went away. So where am i going with all this? Well, it sounds like a good "prescription" for a cold or the flu is to just eat right (read older posts) and stay the hell away from mass quantities of sugar in the form of sweets and high density carbs.
Food for thought.....SUGAR = BAD
NUTRITION CHALLENGE #2:
Drop sugar from your diet for a minimum of 2 weeks and see how you feel at the end. If you say you feel worse I know you're lying!
1. "Maintaining Your Immunity During the Holidays"
2. "Make Your Own Flu Shot, Or Just Stay Healthy in the First Place"
3. "What Happens to Your Body When...You Carb Binge?"
There is something that I noticed over the recent holidays. I got sick for a few days. I never get sick! This got me to thinking about what might be the cause of it so I am going to make an assumption on the issue. Around this time of year I tend to get more into sugar than normal, whether it be through pies, cakes, brownies, ice cream, candy, etc. After reading a little about sugar, it can cause an immune suppresion in the body. As can over-indulgence in alcohol, which also tends to happen around this time. Bad news. Especially this time of year when the Flu seems rampant. So, scan or read the accompanying articles and make your own assumptions, but I am going to attribute this recent sickness to too many sweets and too much drinks! Especially the 2 huge pieces of cheesecake that I ate for my brother-in-law's birthday a few days before Christmas. Well, I started "feeling bad", sore throat, congestion, runny nose, on Christmas Eve Eve (the day before Christmas Eve: not a typo). So I took meds and nothing really worked. NyQuil, my once favored drug of choice for a small cold, didn't do a thing but make me sluggish in the morning. Mucinex, which can dry out a 5x5 childrens sand box didn't work either. I had all the symptoms that these medications are supposed to take care of! After all the holiday hub-bub, I got back on track with my diet [lots of protein, good fats, fruits and veggies] and a couple of days later everything went away. So where am i going with all this? Well, it sounds like a good "prescription" for a cold or the flu is to just eat right (read older posts) and stay the hell away from mass quantities of sugar in the form of sweets and high density carbs.
Food for thought.....SUGAR = BAD
NUTRITION CHALLENGE #2:
Drop sugar from your diet for a minimum of 2 weeks and see how you feel at the end. If you say you feel worse I know you're lying!
Friday, January 2, 2009
Bringing in the New Year: 2009
Well it's time to end the 2008 chapter and start 2009. It's always nice to take some time and reflect on the years past to make some decisions for the upcoming one. So what is on the books for 2009? What, if any are your new goals or resolutions? I have decided to test myself for the month on January and clean up my act a little. I have other goals and resolutions as well but here is the main one that I hope to accomplish over the next month.
January Detox Challenge:
The goal of this challenge is to rid your life of anything that is "harmful". I will use that term loosely as there are many things that could be qualified as harmful to one person and ok to the next. So, things that I will be doing away with for January are as follows:
1. Any food that is processed. By this I mean any thing that comes in a box, jar, or has more than 3 ingredients.
2. Sugar
3. Tobacco
4. Alcohol
5. Eating out at restaurants
--What I will be keeping:
1. Whole natural foods; fruits, veggies, meats, nuts, seeds, good fats, fish oil. little starch in the form of yams/sweet potatoes.
2. A varied workout program to benefit from this "clean" living.
3. A positive frame of mind
I am doing this challenge for 2 reasons: 1) So I can see if I have the mental fortitude to undertake something like this for 30 days. 2) To see what kind of changes can be present without the influence of "harmful" substances such as alcohol and tobacco. So to all I say, give this challenge a try or cheer from the sidelines and wish the followers luck! I will keep an updated log along with this to track my progress.
January 2, 2009 - Start of challenge
January 6, 2009 - 5 days in and so far so good. I have made some amendments to allow for things that are in a container but are not laden with garbage. This would be milk, cottage cheese (not the Shepps kind) and some cocktail sauce I used for Oysters that Bevin and I bought at Sprouts. It was made from a tomato puree and not ketchup which has "HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP (HFCS)" in it. I haven't had any cravings for anything in particular. So, all is well for right now!
January 13, 2009 - 12 days in and all is good! No cravings for anything and all we have eaten has been great, wholesome, delicious food. We did eat out once but it will be an exception to the rule because it was Jason's Deli. We had the salad bar and only salad and veggies with a homemade olive oil dressing. For the protein there was eggs, and I just brought a steak from home. So, it was basically like eating at home, we just had to meet my little brother for lunch. Will probably do this again as its nice to eat outside of the house sometimes. NOTEABLE CHANGE: My weight has kept dropping and is now to 177....Don't know if this is good or bad yet as I have not lost any strength, so I figure its fat and water that is leaving. I hope so!
January 26,2009 - Well the month is almost up and I haven't had any issues keeping this challenge going. I am going to extend it 14 more days to Feb 14th to make a total of 44 days of clean living! Set a huge PR the other day on Grace @ 3:14. I can attribute that to this change and my consistant workout scedule.
January 30, 2009 - End of Challenge
January Detox Challenge:
The goal of this challenge is to rid your life of anything that is "harmful". I will use that term loosely as there are many things that could be qualified as harmful to one person and ok to the next. So, things that I will be doing away with for January are as follows:
1. Any food that is processed. By this I mean any thing that comes in a box, jar, or has more than 3 ingredients.
2. Sugar
3. Tobacco
4. Alcohol
5. Eating out at restaurants
--What I will be keeping:
1. Whole natural foods; fruits, veggies, meats, nuts, seeds, good fats, fish oil. little starch in the form of yams/sweet potatoes.
2. A varied workout program to benefit from this "clean" living.
3. A positive frame of mind
I am doing this challenge for 2 reasons: 1) So I can see if I have the mental fortitude to undertake something like this for 30 days. 2) To see what kind of changes can be present without the influence of "harmful" substances such as alcohol and tobacco. So to all I say, give this challenge a try or cheer from the sidelines and wish the followers luck! I will keep an updated log along with this to track my progress.
January 2, 2009 - Start of challenge
January 6, 2009 - 5 days in and so far so good. I have made some amendments to allow for things that are in a container but are not laden with garbage. This would be milk, cottage cheese (not the Shepps kind) and some cocktail sauce I used for Oysters that Bevin and I bought at Sprouts. It was made from a tomato puree and not ketchup which has "HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP (HFCS)" in it. I haven't had any cravings for anything in particular. So, all is well for right now!
January 13, 2009 - 12 days in and all is good! No cravings for anything and all we have eaten has been great, wholesome, delicious food. We did eat out once but it will be an exception to the rule because it was Jason's Deli. We had the salad bar and only salad and veggies with a homemade olive oil dressing. For the protein there was eggs, and I just brought a steak from home. So, it was basically like eating at home, we just had to meet my little brother for lunch. Will probably do this again as its nice to eat outside of the house sometimes. NOTEABLE CHANGE: My weight has kept dropping and is now to 177....Don't know if this is good or bad yet as I have not lost any strength, so I figure its fat and water that is leaving. I hope so!
January 26,2009 - Well the month is almost up and I haven't had any issues keeping this challenge going. I am going to extend it 14 more days to Feb 14th to make a total of 44 days of clean living! Set a huge PR the other day on Grace @ 3:14. I can attribute that to this change and my consistant workout scedule.
January 30, 2009 - End of Challenge
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