What's in that thing?

Here is a great example of the ingredients that go into some of the foods we eat:

Look at the ingredient lists. The multigrain chips have three times the ingredients the restaurant style has. Wheat, Sugar, Toasted Corn Germ? These are the kinds of things we want to look for so we can stay away. The entire philosophy of this is to eat natural. The more ingredients and chemicals; the less natural a food is. There's a reason meats, veggies, and fruits usually don't have ingredient lists!

Keep this in mind when you're grocery shopping or do a little research on your own now. Look at the ingredient lists for fast food restaurants. They are long and littered with chemicals. Their food has to be filled with preservatives in order to keep them from spoiling during the move from the factory floor to that plastic wrapper.

math is hard

Should we be counting calories everyday? Hell no. That would be time consuming and annoying. I'd rather be fat than count calories everyday

But you'll probably want to do it at some point for a couple weeks. The reason for this is simply to build an understanding of what your foods consist of. Everyone's knowledge of the calorie content in food is different. We can't assume that you know the difference between plain greek yogurt and flavored greek yogurt, or even Coke vs. Diet Coke. When you record these foods in a calorie tracker however you'll begin to learn and understand what's in a food and how to check the label's serving size for the content of fat, carbs, and protein. By learning the general calorie content of the foods you eat you'll be better equipped to make substitutions and judgement calls when you need too.

Quick thing: The calories in one gram of each macronutrient is as follows:

• Carbs = 4
• Protein = 4
• Fat = 9

So 25 grams of protein is 100 calories. 5 grams of fat is 45 calories.

Important: The amount of calories eaten is secondary to the foods eaten. What I mean is what's in the blue circle is more critical in the red:

But more on this later...

What I eat on a typical day

I figured the best place to start would be with me and how I eat during a typical work day. Under each meal there's a little description on how it's prepared. I know it seems like a lot of information at once so focus on this: the work I need to put into eating this way, it's almost zero. That's why I love eating this way. Not only does it make me feel great but it's also easy and cheap (everything can be bought in bulk).

Disclaimer: This is not meant to be an ideal diet. It's what I do that works best for me currently. No one diet works for everyone. What we'll eventually try to achieve is finding a way of eating the works for you

Breakfast:

• 4 hard boiled eggs
• Great source of protein and fat. I have an egg steamer that I use to cook them. It really is set it and forget it haha
• Blueberries in Coconut milk
• Carbs from the fruit and more healthy fat from the coconut milk. Coconut milk comes in a can. I just open it and portion it out into tuperware containers then add blueberries from a frozen bag in my fridge. Each can makes three servings for me
• Carrots
• All I have to do is put them in a container to bring to work!

Lunch:

• Chicken on greens
• Protein and greens! All of the chicken is cooked before hand. I buy boneless chicken breasts, cut them into bite size pieces, season them, throw them in the oven and store them for the week. I buy spring mix greens and just put some in a travel container when I'm packing my lunch.
• Olive oil dressing
• Chicken doesn't have any fat in it so I have to add some
• Fruit
• Delicious grab and go fruit carbs

Dinner: This is the only meal I cook when I'm ready to eat it. It takes about 10 min to make

• Steak
• I heat up the skillet with some avocado oil; season the steak and throw it on. Flip half way like most would do. I love steak
• Peas
• Frozen. After the steak is cooked I leave the skillet on and throw the peas right in the remaining juices. I don't want to waste a bit of that delicious steak flavor
• Fruit
• An apple a day keeps the doctor away! It's dumb but I honestly think it's true. All fruit. Apples aren't some magical medicine.

The great thing about this is that everything is quick and easy. I can make everything I need for the week in about an hour and store it in the fridge. The night before work I just put breakfast and lunch in my lunch bag. In the morning I wake up, shower, get dressed, grab my lunch, and I'm out the door and unto another day of thoughtless healthy eating!

The Philosophy of Eating

A friend of mine once asked me what was so special about my diet that makes it so much better than a diet recommended by everyone else. The answer is absolutely nothing. Eating this way has many names: The green face, the warrior, paleo, whole 9, caveman, etc etc. They all have little variations but they are all fundamentally the same thing. Eat natural foods.

The premise is extremely simple. We want to eat meats, veggies, and fruits. We'll get into more detail but this is where it starts. Don't freak out if your current lifestyle is filled with unnatural foods and you have no idea how to make that change. We'll get there. This takes time. As people like to remind me when I'm getting too critical: "Rome wasn't built in a day". It's as true as it is corny.

We know what we are preaching works. Eating this way makes us happy, healthy, and as I'm sure some of you are most concerned: fit. The goal is to get to a place where you are happily eating foods that taste good, make you feel good, keep you looking good naked, and don't get in the way of the things you love to do. I wake up every morning feeling awesome and I want that for everyone else too.

What this is.

These are my thoughts, opinions, and suggestions on diet, exercise, and maybe even life in general. They are random thoughts and are in no particular order. This should be fun!