The Lowdown on Proper Nutrition

I've never been a real fanatic for healthy food. I like certain foods, and I dislike a lot of others. "Picky" could be a good word to describe my relationship with food. However, I have noticed an increase in my susceptibility to trying new foods over the course of the last 10 years or so, which is great. That susceptibility has grown tremendously over the course of maybe the last 2 to 3 years. I've learned how to cook a wide array of meals and staples from scratch, and while this is a wonderful WONDERFUL trait to learn, I've been doing a lot of this the WRONG way. For example, let's say I whip up a batch of my favorite blueberry muffins (here's the recipe, fyi: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/to-die-for-blueberry-muffins/). If I were to follow the recipe as written, we're looking at 383 calories PER MUFFIN! That's way too many calories on a muffin. I don't know about you, but I'd like to squeeze in a LOT more food that will carry me over much longer than a stinkin' close-to-400 calorie muffin. If I MUST HAVE the muffin, I try to negotiate with the recipe. Instead of white flour, use whole wheat. If I want to try to avoid wheat all together, I've learned that I really enjoy pulverizing dry oatmeal into flour, and using that (FANTASTIC in pancakes!). There's also spelt or teff flour, which is great for extra protein. Also, I'm a very big fan of ground flax seed, and by replacing maybe a 1/4 of the flour in your recipe with flax, will greatly improve the nutritional value of your food. Instead of granulated sugar, I like to use turbinado (raw) or organic, or even a sugar substitute like Stevia with my baking, but for things where texture isn't really an issue, my go to is honey or agave nectar. Here's a fantastic little article on healthier cooking that I found to be especially helpful. http://www.nomeatathlete.com/healthy-baking/

Doctoring recipes shouldn't feel like a chore, although at first I'm sure it will be. The important thing is getting into the habit of it, learning what you like, and going with it. One of my large downfalls with nurtition was feeling like I needed to try something new ALL the time. It got so overwhelming that I was getting too frustrated over meal planning. It's actually better for your body to sort of rotate through some of the same meals. It's less guessing for your digestive system, which in turn will yield better, easier digestion. If you aren't pooping at least once every day, you've got yourself a digestion problem!

Just in the last week alone, I feel like my body has gotten a bit of a cleansing, and is trying to reset itself. Today has been deemed my healthy shopping day. I spent a considerable part of my afternoon making a menu for myself yesterday. I took into account my 5-meals-a-day plan. Breakfast, Snack, Lunch, Snack, and Dinner. My goal is to be putting food in my mouth every 2-3 hours. I've already quickly discovered that coupled with my daily workouts, my body doesn't let me forget when it's time to eat. My meals are much smaller, because I guesstimate the measurements (I cook a lot, so I'm pretty familiar with eyeballing a 1/2 cup versus 1/3 cup, etc) and then calculate my caloric intake. I'm not a total Calorie-Nazi, but I have started inputting whatever touches my lips into my "myfitness pal" App on my iPhone. I used to HATE the idea of a food diary, or making sure my meals were recorded because I was making excuses to myself like, "Well, what if I'm not around my phone, or I don't have a pen? And who REALLY measures their food like that anyway? If they do, they're way too involved with their food." Bingo. I wasn't involved enough. I was choosing to ignore my food intake, and it was NOT helping me. I chose a day last week to just eat as I normally would, and I came to find that not only were my meals much larger (3 large meals a day), but after I ate the larger meals, I was immediately craving a nap afterwards. I was tired because I was overeating all at once. And to make matters even worse, I wasn't paying attention to the calories! Foods that I THOUGHT were okay in calories, turned out to be a disgrace to my daily caloric maximum. Things I was cooking were loaded in calories from all the additions. Sugar, butter, oil, eggs, flour, cornstarch, whatever. I made flippin' blurberry waffles one morning, and just about blew my entire daily allowance on breakfast! Definitely an eye opener for me.

So what does a daily HEALTHY day look like for me? Here's an example.

0630 - Wake up, get socks and shoes on, chug 8 oz of water, and 8 oz of skim milk (90 calories).

0645/0700 - Workout (sip on water throughout, 1 cup water consumed)

0800 - Drink as much water as I can (I aim for at least another cup, if not more). Make my morning Shakeology beverage with 1 cup skim milk and crushed ice, blended (230 calories)

1030 - 1 cup Fat free plain yogurt (110 calories), 1 Tbsp organic honey (60 calories), 1/3 cup KIND cinnamon oat clusters with flax seed granola (130 calories), and 1/2 cup frozen (and thawed) blueberries (40 calories).

1230 - 1/2 whole grain English muffin (65 calories), 1/2 oz shredded mozzarella cheese (36 calories calories), 1 Tbsp. pizza sauce (10 calories), 1 oz. red, yellow and orange bell peppers, diced (6 calories).

1500 - brown rice cake (60 calories), 1/2 sliced banana on rice cake (45 calories), 1 Tbsp almond butter (80 calories)

1730 - Broiled Tilapia filet with lemon juice, minced garlic, salt and pepper (120 calories), 1/4 cup brown rice and 1/4 cup quinoa (120 calories) mixed together, 2 cups romaine lettuce (15 calories), 1/2 cup cherry/grape tomatoes (20 calories), 1/4 cup croutons (35 calories), 2 Tbsp Ken's fat free caesar dressing (20 calories) -> Keep your dressing on the side, and dip your fork in the dressing before grabbing lettuce.

Water with all meals, water between meals, water every hour, if possible. Sometimes I like to add crushed cucumbers to my water, or lemon slices. Lemon slices in your water curbs your appetite!

Total calories for the day: 1,292. Goal: 1,300.

Personally, I think I can live without the muffin. Don't you?

Just remember, keep your meals simple. If you start adding in a bunch of stuff, it's easy to lose track of how many calories these additions hold. Clean eating is about simplicity. It's not a difficult science to learn. And once you've mastered that concept, your body WILL thank you.