Eating For EXCELLENCE
1) Avoid binging. People often binge because their body is nutrient deficient. This can be solved through:
a) Avoiding empty calorie foods. These are foods high in refined sugars and/or fat, and low in nutritional value. Foods like cookies, juice or soda pop, chips, snack foods, fast foods, baked goods, etc. Your body knows you haven’t given it anything it can nutritionally use so it demands you eat again. If you feed it nutrient deficient foods again it will get you to binge later in an attempt to get the vitamins and minerals it needs. This leads to stored fat as the body can’t convert the “empty” calories as efficiently to useable energy. Empty calorie foods also cause a strong insulin response which may lead to an energy crash 1-2 hours later. Not to mention contributing to heart disease, diabetes and chronic degenerative diseases of aging.
You say you don’t eat that much? Oh, you may be surprised! It is well hidden by food manufacturers. They know that we are addicted to sugar, so they hide it in our foods to make us want to buy more of their products, so they can make more $$$$$. Learn to read labels. Sugar is often disguised under the following names usually ending in -ose: glucose, dextrose, sucrose, lactose, maltose, fructose, corn syrup, trubidino.
b) Avoiding things that interfere with digestion, assimilation and ultimately cell deprivation of nutrients:
-Drinking excess liquids with your meals. Don’t. When you drink lots of liquid this dilutes….. Don’t drink icey cold liquids with food either. Cold shrinks the blood vessels in the stomach, reducing the stomach’s ability to produce the acid chemicals that you need to effectively digest food so your body can benefit from it to the fullest extent possible.
-Not chewing food enough. Chew food until it has the consistency of baby food.
-Taking antacids. This prevents stomach acid from breaking down protein into amino acids to be absorbed.
2) Drink a high quality whey protein drink as your first nutrition in the morning. This provides a quick source of amino acids as fuel to jump start your body’s metabolic processes.
3) Eat fruit 30 minutes later. Two pieces should be adequate. This speeds up your metabolism by giving your body some fuel after a 12 hour fast, (break-fast). In doing so, you will burn more calories and have more energy. Approximately 1 1/2 hours later eat some complex carbs with some protein like lean meats such as chicken, turkey or better yet, fish.
4) Eat live, colorful, high water content foods. Examples would be fruits and vegetables, those that are as fresh as possible. They were recently alive, (until picked). Most are very colorful and have a high water content. The longer fresh picked produce sits, the lower it’s nutrient, fiber and enzymatic value. Avoid processed, dead, bleached, dry non-foods. The first thing I cut out when I begin to diet is starches, especially refined ones, (breads, pastas, etc.).
5) Look at the fat content/serving of the foods you eat. Don’t eat any with >2g/ serving. The only exception would be with essential fatty acids like flax oil, cold water fish like salmon, cod, halibut, and nuts.
6) To get lean, lift weights. Increasing your muscle density will help you lose and keep weight off. Muscle burns more calories at rest, so having more muscle helps to keep you lean. Muscle also acts as a storage depot for calories that can be called on later for energy. If your muscles are small or flabby they can’t store as much energy, so guess where that energy (calories) are stored? Right, exactly where you don’t want it, on your hips or your waist line!
7) Never eat closer than three hours before bed. Eating before bed affects your body’s ability to rest and recover, as digestion requires an enormous amount of energy. Food also stimulates insulin release. Insulin is antagonistic to the release of growth hormone. Growth hormone is released when you reach deep sleep. If your insulin levels rise, it suppresses growth hormone release and prevents your body from stimulating growth, healing and repair