What's everyone's nutrition like?

[bundaberg]

What's everyone’s nutrition like?

Hi,

Just wondering what everyone’s nutrition is like. I see a lot of different theories on nutrition all the time, especially relating to muscle building, fat loss and so on. Some of the information varies from that which is in John's book. People seem to be successful with varying types of nutrition as well.

Matt Furey recommends big eating for muscle gain, where as others refer to eating a specific amount to only add lean muscle. Now Matt is a big guy, and one whom I admire, so I do value his information. He's got a large amount of muscle mass and obviously big eating got him there.

I've read other reports about eating big and people say it just puts too much strain on the body’s organs.

I'm wondering what everyone's theories are. If you've got your own theory, or plan, please post it. If it's specific to something like muscle gain or fat loss, please provide that information.

Thanks a lot,

Mark

[JoeJustice]

I eat what some people call the caveman way as much as possible. Fresh fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, berry and meats. I try to avoid any kind of processed foods like breads and crackers. I don't stay super strict on that, I usually eat a sandwich once a week or so and have a bowl of chicken noodle soup now and then. But for the most part I avoid any kind of processed foods. I've also knocked desert out of my diet for the most part, I only eat cookies and such whenever I go to a party r something like that.

After the Christmas season I'm going to try to tighten up on my diet and completely eliminate all processed foods, at least for awhile and see what happens.

I manage my weight loss through pretty much pure calorie counting. And my macro-nutrient intake is moderate carb, high protein.

-Joe

[jgfergus]

I am in line with Joe. I eat the caveman (or paleo) diet. Fresh raw fruits, veggies, soaked or sprouted nuts and seeds, lightly steamed veggies, naturally raised meat, wild game meats like bison, caribou and venison, wild fish, and raw eggs. I eat meat only once or twice every couple of weeks but never the commercially raised factory farmed junk. I stay away from all processed grain products. I make my own bread from sprouted grains like wheat, rye, and buckwheat and dehydrate it for 24 hours at about 110 deg. F.

I also have one or two green smoothies every day. A great way of getting lots of greens into your diet. The fruit masks any bitter taste of the greens. Blending the greens in a powerful blender like a Vitamix (2hp) or Blendtec (3hp) breaks down the cell walls of the greens much better than chewing making the nutrients much more bio-available. A typical Green Smoothie recipe might look like this...
-2 bananas
-1 raw egg
-1/2 cup of parsley
-several leaves of kale/chard/romaine, etc.
-a few ice cubes
-1 to 2 cups of water

I try to mix up the type of greens and fruits I use on a weekly basis. It is fun to come up with different combinations. I will also ocassionally just make a fruit smoothie without the greens for a sweet treat.

Cheers,
Jeff

[tom]

Combination of:

Nos - where everyone should start.
Intermittent fasting (Fast5, etc.) - Google IF
Caveman
Ice cream

Tom

[gruntbrain]

Sardines, eggs,apples,nuts, & raw veggies

[Hank_Z]

The honest answer is that my nutrition has not been good. I've been on a couple of medications for many years that tend to cause one to crave carbohydrates. I gained most of my extra weight on ice cream...and the humongous amount of grapes that I posted about on another thread yesterday.

Since I came to Costa Rica more than 10 months ago, I've been eat a LOT more healthily. In the U.S., I was eating very little except fast food and cereal. But even in Costa Rica I've still been falling way short of that which will help me. Fresh vegetables and fruits (too many bananas...which also have carbohydrates that I crave. But also too much One serving of chicken, fish, or beef each day. White rice (pretty empty calories) that my landlord cooks each day with beans.

I've also been eating too much cereal (carbohydrates), but I have been eating it with non-fat, 90% lactose-free milk. It comes in a powder that is mixed with water. It's intended for nursing mothers. Being male, the odds are strong that I won't need it for it's more popular purpose.

Overall, someone could probably eat nutritiously by looking at how I've been eating...and doing something VERY different.:act-up:

Today I started writing down every food that I eat, as well as the portions and portion sizes. I'm entering the info into a user-friendly, free software program and am able to track my calories, proteins, fats, carbs, and other nutritional items through that.

I think that writing down everything I eat will...in itself...help me eat more healthily.

- Hank

[jan]

Hi Mark,

I start the day with a fruit blend, yoghurt and honey. Lunch time is soup and raw veggies, in the evening the standard dinner. In between I snack on nuts and try to dring a lot of water.

Jan

[kelbiz]

I am of the opinion that "bland is better" - both for health and fitness.
Breakfast is usually 1 - 2 eggs scrambled with a slice of whole wheat toast. Occasionally I switch that for a bowl of oatmeal.
Lunch is a sandwich on whole wheat (chicken, turkey or a personal favorite - PBJ):act-up:
Dinner is typically caribbean style - (my wife is a beautiful Latina that cooks great) - rice & beans with fish, chicken, steak or pork (yes pork):pig:
My main drink is water (bottled) but I do enjoy coffee or green tea.
I've really cut down on soda big time.

Nothing exciting. To me it's just about emotional as putting gas in my car...it's just fuel!

Jack

(Every now an then my Irish side calls for a :beer: but I tend to keep it 'light')

[gruntbrain]

My latest food experiment: souping up soup with protein powder

[tom]

Now that sounds gawdawful.:dazed:

Tom

[Viking Dan]

Now that sounds gawdawful.:dazed:

Tom

I recall one bodybuilder would make himself TUNAFISH smoothies in his blender. That would be pretty vile...unless you use enough mayo, of course.

[kelbiz]

I recall one bodybuilder would make himself TUNAFISH smoothies in his blender. That would be pretty vile...unless you use enough mayo, of course.

Viking Dan;

That sounds like it's off the menu at Rut's Hut.:dazed:

Jack

[omad0n]

Well, I for one don't like the idea f restricting what I eat. I believe that if I need to diet I'm simply not expending enough calories in the day through working out. I've been losing weight now for several months and at a steady reasonable pace.

All that said, I also don't drink soda (unless it's diet, and only then if I'm at a bar since i don't drink beer anymore.) I also don't drink beer as a long time ago it put a lot of weight on me so I stopped it for a while, and just never got the taste of it back. Speaking of which for the last 2 weeks I've been on sabbatical from all booze in general. This was again something self imposed, only because i felt like it'd be nice to clean my system out.

I also don't eat many sweets, that's just something that came with age. I simply don't like things like that as much. Though if you give me a delicious chocolate mousse I will never turn it down.

Day to day, I usually start off with something like yogurt and a piece of fruit with water vitamin water or sometimes a smoothie like Naked. Lunch I'm usually pretty boring, just scramble some eggs, 2-3, with friend onions (1 tbs butter) along with pepper fresh tomato sometimes basil and other spices as i feel. If I happen to have an avocado around, then I'll eat half of that too.

Dinner is the fun time though . I will eat almost anything I want for dinner. Pizza from a fast food joint, or burgers. If I feel like cooking then I'll make some sort of noodle dish and if the mood strikes me a salad. I really try and base dinner off what my body feels like. It tends to know what it needs. Though if it said fast food all 5 nights of the week I would say no. Think that's about it from my side, but if I'm asked questions I'll try and answer, and if I think of more I'll try and add it.

I'm aware I could lose more weight and faster if I was more restrictive of my dinner time eats, but really I figure if I'm losing weight each week then I'm doing something right. I just enjoy food too much to restrict it all. Though who knows I may make a restrictive push to drop a few more before I go home for the holidays.

[jaymo]

If it was me, and it is, usually! I'd forget the buns to the burgers, and the dough to the pizzas!

I am convinced that:

Flour products are BAD!

Cheese and other dairy are NOT so bad...

And BEER, as my revered Father has always told me, is WAY better for you than soda pop!

I actually think that beer, or wine, is basically.... NEUTRAL in your diet, with a slight tilt towards... beneficial!

Sugar, it's clone (flour) as in:
bread, pasta, chips, crackers, cereal, EVEN "WHOLE GRAIN" is : (drum roll!)-

poison!!!

These are the tenets of The Barbarian Diet!

I am convinced of their truth.

Politically incorrect as they are- they produce results, and healthy human beings!!

Just eat:
Lean meats, all you can! (Especially organ meats!)
Seafood, all you can!
All the fruits and vegetables you can!
Dairy, in it's whole form, moderation
Beer and wine, moderation
Chocolate, moderation

Just eat as our barbarian ancestors did, before agriculture made them "grain-based" and WEAK!

Fruits, vegetables, seafood, and lean meats...

NO GRAIN BASED SUGARS!!!

Sorry for shouting... but anything else is OK...Low fat, hi carb diets are...

B.S.

[FalcoX]

I am recently back on the Ripped/Body for LIfe approach which is pretty much in line with what John lays out in PYTP. Six smaller meals each day. A typcial day would look something like this.

Breakfast - Protein Shake (EAS Myoplex or fill in the blank)
Mid AM Snack - Apple with string cheese
Lunch - Turkey sandwich
Mid PM Snack Afternoon - Fat Free Yogurt mixed with cottage cheese
Dinner - Turkey Lettuce Wraps and Edamame
Snack Night - Carrot Cake Muffins

This diet plus aerobics and transformetrics won't net you huge weight loss, but maybe 1- 2 pounds a week. Also, it does incorporate the FREE day where you can eat whatever you want which helps many people stay on the wagon.

One thing a lot of people mention and I agree with when it comes to staying with a wholesale lifestyle adjustment is having the right things on hand to eat and the right equipment to make it easy to prepare them. Vitamix blenders, electric Woks, rice cookers, etc. can all add to the fun of cooking and making it less of a chore to do all that up front planning that staying with any nutritional philosophy is going to require to succeed.

James

[Greg Newton]

HI Jaymo,

I'll go with most of what you say, white flour being devoid of nutrients, and wine being beneficial in small amounts, but doesn't beer come from grain? The reason I say this is that some allergy problems I used to have with whole grains, I had a similar effect from beer.

[gruntbrain]

Years ago Durk Pearson & Sandy Shaw proclaimed 'it's not what you eat, it's what you don't eat'; they were pushing supplements. Later they refined their advice by using the glycemic index to make their food choices

[sillypup]

the purpose of nutrition is to cover all the nutrients we need for life and repair. for example. we don't make all the amino acids we need. we have to get them from meat or plants. you can eat tons of rice and carbs food all you want and still be malnutrition of protein because you don't have enough proper nutrition to function or create proteins. some cells need certain nutrients to function properly.

some nutrients our body don't make so we get them from plants, or meat.

so it's not really what type of food style you eat but more of what food provide you with essential nutrients. As long as you have the essentials nutrients you should be ok.

many foods are just good for taste and our body don't use all of them but a small fraction so they are wasted energy and sometimes are hard for our body to get rid of. therefore they are considered toxic as they get in the way of body's need to do other important stuff.

if people want to learn more about what they should eat. just study nutrition rather than what type of fad food style to eat. integrative nutrition book by Joshua Rosenthal seems to be a good book that focus on food for individual lifestyle rather than a one diet fit all. he's found of integrative nutrition institute in new york.

[jaymo]

I am in agreement with jgfergus- paleo diet for the most part...

But, I have moved onto the: Barbarian Diet!

Fruits, Vegetables,nuts, meats and seafoods (all unlimited)....
but, I add in, as our barbarian forebears did:

dairy, and beer/wine!

VERY minimal, whole grains- almost none.
NO legumes- (this includes peanuts, and cashews!)

The easiest way to acheive this is with JUICE DRINKS- using a Vitamix blender!

And, truly don't we all WANT to be like our barbarian ancestors, running around with a sword, and, well, revenging ourselves on those darn Romans??

Did you know, by the way, that the Romans recognized the Germanic barbarians as being TRUE to what they imagined their OWN forebears to be like? And, that this realization made them FEARFUL, since these "barbarians" were more "true" to the ancestral ways than they were-

AND so, they targeted these barbarians for elmination!

It didn't work out quite as they had planned, ultimately...

[jaymo]

Hi Greg!
Maybe you, like those who are unable to process dairy products, are unable to process the great goodness that is beer!

Wine may be your adult beverage of choice- Mediterranean diet "spice".

At any rate, I'm not saying that beer is great for you- I'm just saying IT"S NOT THAT BAD!!

SUGAR, and FLOUR, (and rice and dumplings and noodles and pasta and soda pop (even diet!) and all the other CARBS are really, REALLY BAD! )

But, vegetables and fruits and lean meats and seafood and flax seed meal and nuts are REALLY REALLY GOOD for you!

And, (I'll go out on my "Barbarian Limb" here...)

DAIRY and BEER/WINE, within limits, ARE ALSO GOOD!

They give you a feeling of "satiety", and then you don't think you need to eat:
cookies, cakes, pies, pop, and their ILK!

As Gary Taubes says in his book of the same name:

"Good Calories, Bad Calories"

There IS a difference!

[gruntbrain]

OneWheel

No joking - Adding a bit of VANILLA whey powder to many healthy(?) foods can eliminate the "yuck factor" without overwhelmin' your taste buds. Try some with oatmeal

[gruntbrain]

Adding vanilla whey protein to soup may be a "Ricky Retardo" idea but it at least is a conveneient way to create a hearty meal while it disguises the sardines added to the soup.

[Bruno]

I'm following the Primal Blueprint.

Meat, fish, vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds and elimination of sugar, flour, candy, cake, bread and processed food to the extant possible.

[jaymo]

Huge results with this:

NO SUGAR!

NO FLOUR!

Unlimited lean meats, fruits, and vegetables.... Seafood preferred!

NO BEANS- this includes cashews...
and whole grains are even verboten!!

Think that you are a barbarian, battliing against the Romans-

You eat meat, dairy, fruits, and vegetables....

And you KICK THEIR ROMAN BUTTS!!

Sorry about that graphic aside; but, the Roman records themselves record how the Romans saw the Germanic barbarians as "magnificent specimens- just like our own ancestors".

Read Julius Caesar- he was aware that the germanic barbarians were a HUGE threat- they were physically superior! (probably due to diet, and lifestyle)

So, my point is:

Copy their diet!!

(The lifestyle would be difficult- but Transformetrics kind of duplicates the physical demands!)

[jaymo]

Soy is probably really inferior protein... sorry...

Whey would be good, or flax meal...