Nutrition is a tough part of getting results.
Actually it is THE toughest part of getting results. Diet accounts for 90% of your success in losing or gaining weight.
“I want to lose weight.” Easy…stop eating. You will lose weight. Oh wait…you want to look good after you have lost all that weight and you want to be healthy during the weight loss? Oh….well that’s a different story.
A lot of people don’t really understand how much they have to change in their diet in order to see results. It really is a lot. But, initially it is not really about changing WHAT you eat, but rather WHEN you eat it.
For instance, every person eats protein, eats during the day and eats some fruit/veggies during the week.
I use a nutrition system that is based off of a hiearchy of habits and nutrition.
Habits:
Eat breakfast
Eat consistently
Eat protein at every meal
Eat fruits/veggies
Nutrition:
Eat 20-30 grams of protein per meal depending on body size.
Eat twice as many veggies/fruit as protein
Make sure you get enough calories
Make sure your percentage of calories is not wacked out.
All of that may seem complicated but it is all a little different depending on the individual. However, it really comes down to a simple game of “better then”.
For instance, what is better then eating an extra large french fry? Broccoli is better by far! However, for some people that might be too much of a swing, so a medium french fry is better then an extra large.
What’s better then a big mac? A homemade hamburger on whole grain bread with a big slice of tomato and onion is much better then a big mac! However, a big mac with out the bottom bun is also better then a big mac.
What is better then 3 slices of pizza? Let’s be honest….2 slices of pizza!
See it really isn’t that hard to make better decisions. Everyone wants to go all crazy style and make these outrageous changes like ” I am not going to drink alcohol anymore”. Really? No alcohol? Um….I am going to call bullshit on that one lady.
The smallest change you can make will be the one you can keep.
So try this:
If you don’t eat breakfast as soon as you get up, eat one oz of cheese first thing or 5 almonds.
If you eat 3 meals a day increase your meal intake by 1. But make sure you eat no more then 150 calories at that meal and make sure they are from a good source. If you really believe that a calorie is a calorie and the sources of calories are irrelevant then your a fu#$ing idiot and you should only eat 1000 calories a day all of which come from chocolate cake fatty McGee.
If you eat protein at dinner, try to eat it for one other meal during the day.
If you don’t consume any vegetables, try to eat one serving a day.
If you already eat protein at every meal then try and eat only clean sources of protein, i.e. lean low fat.
If you eat veggies and fruits during the day try and limit your fruits to before noon and eat more veggies then you do right now. Eating a 1/4 cup more pre day makes a huge difference in your body.
If you don’t know how many calories you eat in a day….that is totally fine. I don’t either. But I can tell you approximations. Look at one food label that you consume per day.
Don’t worry about your percentage of macronutrients. It is way too complicated anyway.
February 2nd, 2010
Posted by
bendearman |
Nutrition |
STOP! BEFORE YOU READ FURTHER!
I DO NOT WANT YOU TO GO ALL CRAZY SURVIVOR STYLE ON ME AND START SENDING HATE MAIL ABOUT HOW ALL I WANT YOU TO EAT IS GRUBS AND GRASS. THIS IS FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY. I DO NOT SUPPORT A 100% ORGANIC DIET NOR DO I LIVE OFF SQUIRRELS AND BARK. I SUPPORT A HEALTHY LIFE STYLE AND GOOD EATING HABITS. I ENCOURAGE MY MEMBERS TO CHEAT 10% OF THE TIME. BELOW IS A LIST OF THINGS I LOVE THAT ARE SURELY NOT ORGANIC AND THAT I WILL NEVER GIVE UP.
1. PEANUT BUTTER
2. TRISCUITS
3. WHEAT THINS
4. ALCOHOL (I DON’T HAVE HEALTH INSURANCE SO I HAVE TO SELF MEDICATE SOME HOW)
5. GIGANTIC ASIAN PEARS (NOTHING THAT BIG IS NATURE MADE)
6. HIGH FIBER BREADS (HELLLOOOOOOO FORTIFED WITH FIBER)
7. SELTZER WATER
8. MUSTARD
9. SOY SAUCE
10. PROTEIN BARS
I believe you got the picture.
An obesogen is a chemical compound, foreign to the body, that can disrupt normal development or homeostasis (usually concerning metabolism and use of lipids, or fat) inducing obesity.[1]
These chemicals can effect things such as the distribution of fat in a person to sexual characteristics through disrupting the nuclear receptor signaling pathways which regulate the genetic expression of the proteins of these biological functions. For example, if an obesogen affects where fat deposits are located, it could do so by disrupting the genetic expression (by increasing or decreasing the propensity of a cell to produce certain proteins) of the biochemicals which regulate where fat is deposited. If this happened and there was more fat in the blood vessels of the heart, a heart attack could be more likely.
The term was coined by Bruce Blumberg of the University of California, Irvine.[2]
The topic of obesogens and how to counteract their effects is explored at length in the book The New American Diet.
January 21st, 2010
Posted by
bendearman |
Nutrition, Rants |
Wow, what unbelievable arrogance we see in that quote right there! So as a tribute to that dermatologist, let’s discuss chapter two of your book. In this chapter you’ve included one of the greatest expository pieces I’ve read to date on how limited the average medical student’s nutrition training can be. What’s up with this and why does it piss you off so much?
The average person would be shocked at the sad state of affairs that is nutritional training in our medical schools. It does upset me because people with chronic illnesses look to physicians for guidance on nutritional matters, assuming that they are well versed.
In truth, only 30% of medical schools require an actual nutrition course, and even this is almost exclusively related to intravenous nutrition and biochemistry of the cells. It’s not the clinical stuff.
According to a study last year in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 78% of graduating medical students didn’t feel that they were extensively educated enough to provide appropriate nutritional counseling. In their patient contact hours, only 17% had frequently counseled patients in nutrition.
The real problem is lack of accountability. For my license to practice I had to take separate board exams in biochemical and clinical nutrition. For MDs, it’s a different story. Only 3% of medical board exam questions are even remotely connected to nutrition. Why study it, why learn it, why make the effort if you’re not going to be tested on it?
And so it goes. For students in the world of pharmaceutical drugs and surgical techniques, nutrition becomes the stuff of home economics class.
You know, I was particularly surprised by the studies published in Nutrition Journal showing the following:
1. Nearly 25% of medical students didn’t know that fat contains, gram-for-gram, more calories than an equivalent serving of protein or carbohydrates.
2. Nearly 50% of the students were unaware that olive oil is rich in monounsaturated fat.
3. Nearly 50% of the students thought that folic acid (B9) supplementation can make up for a B12 deficiency.
It’s a bit shocking, but once again, it’s reflective of a broken system. It’s pretty easy to fix this. A little less influence by Big Pharma on setting the curriculum and even just a little more on nutrition and lifestyle, even just the basics, would be a good start.
Plus it’d be nice if the medical students themselves actually knew something about good nutrition personally.
Absolutely! At present, medical students are hardly the poster children for healthy eating. Only 11% of them meet even the minimum five servings of fruits and vegetables!
To read more about this click here: http://www.tmuscle.com/free_online_article/sports_body_training_performance_interviews/skin_deep_nutrition_and_good_skin
January 19th, 2010
Posted by
bendearman |
Nutrition, Rants |
I hear this a lot. I recently heard this from a client of mine who was having a hard time eating every few hours. His wife has been working with me for a while and he told me/her that eating every few hours was going to be easy. So when I weighed him in and asked how his diet was going two weeks later, his reply was “”I’m having a hard time eating every three hours. I just don’t enjoy the food as much.”
This unfortunately is a pretty typical response.
Ahhhhhh….”enjoyment of food”. 200 years ago food was sustenance first and enjoyment second. A typical day would consist of:
The husband would come home from work with either the meat in hand or to a waiting dinner that has already been prepared by his wife, who used just salt and natural herbs. That was it. That was how people ate. No extra fat, no preservatives, no added flavor. Just real food and real spices.
(DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT SUPPORT NOR CONDONE THE WOMAN DOING ALL THE COOKING OR THE MAN DOING ALL THE “BREAD WINNING”, THIS IS JUST AN EXAMPLE. PLEASE DO NOT SEND ME HATE MAIL.)
Enter Nabisco, fast food, preservatives, etc. and now all food is supposed to be “enjoyable”. Let me tell you what people really mean when they say “food is enjoyable”…”food is fatty and sugary”.
Do you mean to tell me that you don’t find a piece of properly cooked chicken with some salt and pepper, broccoli with cheese melted over top and an apple “un-enjoyable”?
Of course not! You could substitute the chicken out for some other type of protein but that meal would be enjoyable to anyone and everyone (baring vegans). And if it’s not, then you wouldn’t classify it as UN-enjoyable.
Food is supposed to be enjoyable and sustaining. But, long ago people stopped eating for sustenance and started eating just for enjoyment. It isn’t easy to gain weight, you have to actually try…or in some cases prevent yourself from not trying to gain weight. I am not saying that food shouldn’t be enjoyed. But if you’re eating 4-6 meals per day, every meal will not be “enjoyable”. All of your meals should be eaten to keep you healthy first (i.e. as sustaining meals) and enjoyable second. All of the major health diseases can all be traced back to diet, i.e. high blood pressure, high cholesterol, heart disease, various types of cancer, etc. Show me someone with high blood pressure and I will show you someone who eats from enjoyment not from sustenance.
So this is what people really mean when they say, “The meals just aren’t enjoyable”. *TRANSLATION* “I miss my fatty, sodium filled, preservative soaked, sugar laden, easy to microwave, pre packaged, LABELED meal.”
”
*NOTE ON EACH POINT ABOVE*
Fatty - foods are higher in fat now than they were in the past. “Fat Free” or “low in fat” ring a bell? Why the hell would they put that on a food? Do you think 70 years ago they had eggs that were “low in fat”? Hell no! They had eggs that were NATURE MADE to have high levels of omega-3’s in them…now we have engineered eggs with high levels of O3. Crazy man, we had to engineer a nutrient back in that nature supplied naturally.
Sodium filled - 70 years ago the only foods that were sodium soaked were foods that you would find in a barrel or on a ship. Salt is a natural preservative. Baring beef jerky and other foods that use salt as preservatives, why would you want to eat a food that needs to be preserved?
Preservative soaked - I read in Men’s Health about this woman who would go around and give nutrition lectures. She kept a hamburger that she bought from McDonald’s with her to show her clients. The hamburger had no mold on it and was over 10 years old! What do you need to preserve food for? Meat lasts 3-7 days, veggies 3-7 days and fruit 5-10 days. Guess what…if you’re collecting box tops you’re probably eating a lot of food that you shouldn’t be.
Sugar laden - Did you know that the food industry has engineered water melons to be sweeter? Holy SH!T PEOPLE! ARE YOU SERIOUS! WATER MELON ENGINEERED TO MAKE IT SWEETER! Unfortunately most fruits are now ”grown” that way. The only thing sugar should be added to is coffee/tea, oatmeal, tomato sauce or apple sauce.
Microwaveable - I won’t even go there.
Pre-packaged - when I start to see apples fall of the trees with cellophane on them then I will rescind this statement.
Labeled - show me a cow walking around with a label on its ass and I will show you a stun coach.
October 14th, 2009
Posted by
bendearman |
Nutrition |
Essential Fatty Acids (EFA’s, usually found in the form of fish oil pills) are something that I have all of my clients use. Not only do they help in controlling inflammation but they also help in weight loss. I just read a little blurb in an issue of Wired about how fish oil pills can also increase your mental awareness! A man named Tim Lundeen (a software developer) developed a simple test to determine mental acuity: 100 simple math questions that he would take every day. As his fish oil quantity increased, the time it took him and the number of correct questions he answered both improved. Showing a definitive relation in high dosage of fish oils and mental acuity.
Now obviously this is a far cry from a university study, however, if I did some research I am sure I could find a similar study. EFA’s are one of the most important supplements you can take, exercise or no exercise. Shoot for 8-12 grams a day depending on body size.
July 8th, 2009
Posted by
bendearman |
Nutrition |
It occurred to me this weekend that my stomach was just like my girlfriend’s five year old son when we go to the store and he wants something. He knows he wants a toy, but he doesn’t understand the value of money and thus does not know how much something is or how much we give him to pick the toy out. But he does understand quantity. He knows that 10 objects are greater than 1. So if we give him ten one dollar bills compared to one twenty dollar bill he thinks he has more with the one’s than with the twenty. It is easier for him to break down the worth of each dollar as opposed to holding a twenty.
When we’re hungry our body sends a signal to our brain telling our brain we are running low on something, i.e. energy, building blocks, liquid, etc. Our brain then interprets that signal into the message “feed me”. Our body might be telling our brain, “I need more protein and Zinc to build more muscle and up regulate my testosterone level”. But the brain interprets that signal as “feed me, now”. So we suddenly get a craving for sweets because our brain knows that ultimately all of our systems in our body run off simple sugar, i.e. glucose. So, candy bar it is. However, since your body and brain don’t really understand the value associated with nutrients (it’s not like your brain is telling your body that we need 30 grams of protein and 60 grams of carbs after a workout) it wants the easiest thing to break down, i.e. sugar. It’s already broken down a lot for us.
But, if you give your body some protein it will do the same thing with protein that it would do with the candy bar: metabolize it into sugar. The difference is it has to work a little bit harder to break down the protein, which in turn means that it will burn a little bit more calories. It also means that since protein is not easily stored as fat your body will only use as much as necessary to satiate its energy needs, i.e. if you give your body 300 calories of protein vs. 300 calories of sugar when it only needs 200 calories your body will metabolize all of the sugar and turn the excess 100 calories into fat, whereas the excess protein will be excreted or go towards tissue repair/regeneration.
Protein is a little bit harder to break down which will lead to less fat storage and more burning of calories than simple sugars, but since your body doesn’t know the value of nutrients…eat your protein. Just like a child doesn’t know the value of a twenty dollar bill, give him ten ones. You will save money and your kid will be happy. Win-WIN!
March 17th, 2009
Posted by
bendearman |
Nutrition |
