What I Eat and Why.

What I Eat and Why.

I like to keep things simple. I don’t worry about my weight primarily in regards to nutrition. In my opinion that’s where most people go wrong! Rather, I want to know that what I’m eating is going to help me achieve my main goal of maintaining my fitness while also keeping my body healthy long term. So because I get asked this question quite regularly, and because I also think people VASTLY UNDERESTIMATE how good they’d look and feel with an improved diet, here are the foods that constitute 95% of my daily intake. The other 5%…well I do really enjoy pizza and burgers sometimes!

Meat – Shocker…I know. I typically stick with ground beef or steak, 2-3x per day. The protein, micronutrients, and saturated fats is simply the best. If there is a superfood, this is it(along with beef liver). I eat poultry only sometimes, mainly because I don’t enjoy it as much. I also enjoy fish and game meats from time to time although those are harder to come by. I aim for about 1.25-1.5lbs per day.

White Rice, Potatoes, Oatmeal – In order to recover and perform well day in day out, these three types of carbohydrates help the most while giving my stomach the least amount of distress. I don’t typically enjoy white rice and plain oatmeal quite as much, so I usually add honey to them. The sweet taste of honey sure helps me eat enough. Hard workouts necessitate the right recovery nutrients, in this case…carbs. I vary the amount of carbs I eat in direct proportion to how hard I’m training. More training = more carbs and vice versa.

Eggs – I eat eggs every single morning. Again, the protein, vitamins and minerals, and saturated fats from eggs is very high quality. No, I do not worry about the cholesterol or saturated fat found in eggs. In my opinion, the “science’’ around limiting those two is not settled even in the slightest.

Cooking Oils – I typically cook fattier ground beef so I can save the fat, to be used later when I want to fry up eggs or potatoes. I also use butter every now and then. I avoid cooking in seed oils entirely…’if man made it, don’t eat it’ applies here. People sometimes look at me weird for using butter or beef tallow while simultaneously using some oil made in a factory that isn’t natural at all. It bewilders me.

Whole Milk – This is a cheap source of high quality protein, saturated fat, vitamins, minerals, and much needed calories. I know some people don’t tolerate dairy well but for me, I love it! And no, I do not consume 1-2%, why ruin a perfectly good food! I typically have milk with oatmeal and sometimes a glass throughout the day.

Fruit – I typically eat at least a piece of fruit per day. Grapes, strawberries, apples, and bananas are the common ones. I find nothing wrong with fruit, I just don’t consume a ton of it to make room for the other things higher up on this list.

That’s it. I know, simple right?! But I enjoy almost every meal I eat and I typically eat until I’m full most of the time. Remember, if you eat the right foods, consuming the right amount becomes a lot simpler.

Should everyone eat this way? Perhaps not, we don’t all respond the same way to foods. However, almost everyone of us would live a much higher quality of life if we just ate more protein and cut out the fake stuff.