Healthy cooking and eating Part 3. (final installment)

Create a Lifestyle part 3: Healthy Cooking & Eating

So you have mapped out your day and tackled the grocery store, now the final part of the puzzle is preparing and eating your food. Similar to dedicating a day of the week to shopping for groceries, I encourage you to dedicate 1 or 2 evenings per week to food preparation. If you live with a partner or spouse make this something you guys do together and make it a fun experience that will help you to grow your relationship. My wife and I like to throw on some music and try cooking something brand new each week to broaden our array of foods and avoid getting bored of the same things over and over again.

As far as your protein sources from the grocery store, you are going to cook them either in the oven, on the grill or on the skillet. I am a big advocate of using the oven for food preparation because it’s simpler, has the least mess and allows for a large amount of food to be cooked at once. Each type of meat varies, so you will have to do a quick Google search for how long to cook a certain cut and type but I recommend cooking each protein source at 425 degrees Fahrenheit to avoid it drying out. (For example a thawed chicken breast, I will cook at 425 for 25-30minutes and cut after cooking to ensure they are cooked all the way through)

To prep the meats for the oven I will take them out the night before or morning before to thaw. Then I will take a baking tray and line it with aluminum foil and spray the foil with my extra virgin olive oil spray. Then I will season the meats with my choice of seasoning and/ or marinade and arrange them onto the baking tray so that they are not touching and give them room to expand in the oven. Then when the oven is preheated I throw them in and set the timer for required cooking time. This method will allow you to cook multiple amounts of meat at once and then you can throw them into tupperware and freeze them for later in the week, then you simply take the tupperware out of the freezer the morning that you head to work and reheat it in the microwave to eat.

For carbohydrates such as rice there are instructions for how to cook those on the packets… make sure to read the serving size to ensure that you do not eat too much per meal. Vegetables can be cooked by steaming on the stovetop, grilling or my personal favorite; roasted in the oven. Again I will prepare a baking sheet just like with the meats and throw on the vegetables I want to cook. (Broccoli and asparagus are some of my favorites) I will cook the vegetables at 425 Fahrenheit for around 20minutes so when the meats go in for 30 minutes, I will add the vegetables after 10minutes of the meats being in the oven.

My fats come from egg yolks in the morning, almonds as a snack during the day or a little olive oil, or coconut oil with my other food preparation. Finally my supplements are all taken with breakfast in the morning, with the exception of my whey protein, which I use immediately after my afternoon resistance training and sometimes as a snack during the day maybe between breakfast and lunch, or lunch and dinner.

So as you can see from this article and the 3 previous articles, changing your lifestyle and becoming the best version of you possible isn’t difficult, in fact it’s very simple however it does require discipline and organization. Temptation is going to creep in more than once but the key to your transformation is going to be having the mental strength to ignore it and be relentless in your journey to greatness!

Healthy lifestyle eating and shopping.

Create a Lifestyle part 2: Healthy Shopping

So in part 1 of creating a new healthy lifestyle, we spoke about your new healthy lifestyle day! Like I mentioned, a massive part of being the best version of you is the food you eat. The saying goes; ‘you are what you eat’, so shopping for groceries is one of the most important activities you will do. If you purchase a Ferrari and use regular gasoline, then the car will not perform at 100%. However if you use premium gasoline and treat the car well, it will perform at 100%... our bodies are no different, we have to use premium fuel for our bodies to perform optimally.

First and foremost, schedule a day every week that you (and your partner/ spouse/ family) will dedicate to refilling the house with groceries that you will need for the week ahead. If there is always necessary food in the house, then you have no excuses for ‘cheating’ on your new healthy lifestyle.

Your shopping is going to be separated into categories: Proteins, Carbohydrates, Fats, Seasonings, Supplements and Others (‘others’ would be bathroom accessories, dish soap etc). And make sure to have a list of what you need refilled each week when you go to the store. Like I said in the last article, preparation is the keys to success especially in your healthy eating habits.

• PROTEINS:

Your main source of proteins will come from fish such as Salmon, tilapia, flounder, trout and lean meats such as lean ground beef, lean ground turkey, Turkey breast tenderloin, Chicken breast. Stay away from fried, marinated and seasoned meats as we will be seasoning and marinating the food ourselves. You will also get proteins from egg whites and milk.

• CARBOHYDRATES:

Your carbohydrate sources are going to be vegetables, sweet potatoes, rice, fruit, whole grain bread and oatmeal. Again go for fresh unflavored options as these are going to contain less calories, sugars and poor fats.

• FATS:

These get a bad name but are essential to a healthy body and healthy lifestyle. Your fat sources are going to be RAW nuts, whole eggs, coconut oil and extra virgin olive oil.

• SEASONINGS:

Within reason anything is fine here… sea salt, ground pepper, cayenne pepper, extra virgin olive oil spray and garlic salt are some I use a lot. Also any of the Mrs. Dash seasonings are fantastic for cooking with.

• SUPPLEMENTS

These are going to be essential for your new healthy lifestyle in order to become the best version of yourself possible, so you will need a daily multivitamin, fish oil, vitamin D, a probiotic and whey protein isolate. (see my previous article top 5 supplements you need to take daily for more in depth information on each of these supplements and what they do/ why you need them to become the best version of you)

You will notice that the greater majority of your grocery shopping is going to be spent on the perimeter of the store. 

This is where we find the healthiest foods that are going to be the best fuel for your bodies. When we were created we simply either grew our food, or killed it! That’s what our bodies were built to eat and thus that’s the optimal fuel for our bodies to perform at 100%. Of course the candy isle, or the ice cream isle may lure you in but is that 5 minutes of pleasure worth it versus the lifetime of pleasure you will get from knowing you are in perfect health and looking the best you could possibly look? I’m also aware that there is going to be a variety of options for each of the foods I have recommended, so I want you to get used to reading nutritional labels.

 Go with the option that has the lowest sugar and avoid anything high in trans fat and saturated fat. Experiment with seasonings to spice up the flavor and enjoy the learning experience of becoming better and better as each day passes.

Create a Lifestyle part 1: Healthy Living & Exercise

Well you have taken the first step in creating your new healthy lifestyle in reading this article, so congratulations. The benefits of a healthy lifestyle go far beyond just looking good… you will feel better in yourself, you will live longer and healthier lives, you will save money and most importantly you are now going to be inspiring and motivating your friends, family and peers, through transforming your body and passing on your experiences and knowledge to them, in order to better their lives also.

‘Healthy living and exercise’ is not about doing unusual things in an extraordinary fashion but instead it’s about doing normal things in an optimal fashion, to create the best version of you. I will take you through a day, from morning until night and how your healthy lifestyle is going to be and before we go on I would like to say; that I’m not promising you this is going to be easy! However I am promising you it going to be worth it!

First and foremost your healthy lifestyle is going to start with optimal sleep. Optimal is going to be 7-8 hours and upon waking from your sleep you are going to be taking a walk.(not a run, or jog) Now some of you are going to be able to do this around your neighborhood or local town and others are going to have to head to the gym but 30minutes of brisk walking is what I am asking for here. If you have a dog, go ahead and make this 30minutes a morning ritual to give them and yourself some exercise.

 Obviously the time you go to bed the night before is going to depend on when you have to wake up. For example I have to be in work at 8am during the week, so my alarm clock for a morning walk is 5:50am, I am out the door at 6am and home at 6:30am with just over an hour to get showered, changed, cook breakfast and off to work. So the night before, I make sure to be in bed between 9:50pm and 10:50pm in order to get my 7-8 hours of sleep. Also before I head to bed, I have my clothes laid out ready for the morning walk, I have my coffee & breakfast prepped to eat when I get home and my bag prepared for work… If you fail to prepare, you prepare to fail!

Now the next key to a healthy lifestyle is going to be a balanced healthy diet. I will go in depth in the next installment on HEALTHY SHOPPING & COOKING, but my advice is to eat about every 3 hours which means if you work a typical 9-5 and have eaten breakfast before heading to work, you will need to pack 2 meals and a snack to stay fit and healthy throughout the day. Food preparation is all about organization but it will be a primary key to you and your transformation.

After work I want you to perform 45minutes to an hour of resistance training. Optimally this will be done at a gym; however you can also do this at your house, with a number of bodyweight exercises. (I will do an article on how to stay fit and toned without a gym membership, so keep an eye out if this interests you)

Finally I want you to relax and spend some time with your loved ones. Being the best possible version of you is a lifestyle but it has to include socializing, personal growth and time with spouses and family.

Like I said at the beginning of this article living a healthy lifestyle is simple but takes discipline. Is it going to be easier to hit the snooze button and skip the morning walk? Is it going to be easier to pop to the fast food place for lunch at work? Is it going to be easier to skip the gym after work and just head home? Of course the answer to all of these questions is yes... because it’s easier to live an unhealthy lifestyle than it is to live a healthy one. I encourage you to live outside of the norm and be part of the 1%... if it was easy everyone would do it but I promise you, once you have experienced the benefits of this change of lifestyle, you will never feel the same again and the world around you will begin to change for the better.   

Stop dieting and start a lifestyle

Over the past 8 years I have had enormous fluctuations in weight gain and weight loss. I have tried just about every diet out there: Low carb, high carb, low fat, high protein, juicing, gluten free, paleo, the list could go on for hours and I'm not going to sit here and tell you that some of these diets didn't achieve the weight loss that they promise because they did, however when the time period of the diets ended there was a rebound effect that would have me right back where I started in the first place if not even further back. It took me some time to realize what some of these diets were doing to my body that had long term negative consequences and finally about a year ago I found the answer and it was the simplest solution to what I was unnecessarily making a complex situation.

When we search for popular diets or see commercials for them on the TV, what do they all promise?... massive weight loss right? Well let me ask you this: What if I told you that you lost 20lbs but your body fat stayed identical, so you would look exactly the same, just the scales would change? Of course you wouldn't be happy! This is what happens when we go to low on carbohydrates for a prolonged period. Not only does our body go into a state called ketosis but it also starts burning lean muscle when our goal here is to burn fat. Also ketosis has negative effects on our insulin sensitivity so when we do eventually reintroduce carbohydrates into our diet down the road (which is going to be absolutely necessary for our own health), then we are going to be massively sensitive to them and gain back a lot of weight and body fat. This happened to me multiple times throughout my first few years experimenting with various diets.

The key to losing fat and transforming your body versus just 'losing weight' and looking exactly the same is balance! First and foremost our primary goal should ALWAYS be to improve our health and that requires us to create a lifestyle, not start a diet. We want to implement ways of shopping, cooking, eating and living that are sustainable for as long as we live and allow us to continuously improve our health and our body's aesthetics.

That being said I will be following this article with 3 articles on HEALTHY LIVING & EXERCISE, HEALTHY SHOPPING and HEALTHY COOKING & EATING. It's important that you first throw away the concept of embarking on a journey that has a deadline. Instead set goals but realize that the journey to true health and fitness is infinite. Fulfillment comes from sharing your successes with others and motivating family, friends and peers to embark on their own journeys. We rise in life by lifting others, so don't just give to get... give to inspire others!