Category Archives: Diet
The 10 Most Delicious Foods that I can still eat on Primal
YUM!
Here are 10 of my FAVORITE foods that I can still eat on Primal…not necessarily in any particular order…but I do love bacon!
1. BACON – Do I even need to explain why bacon would be on this list? It is the BEST food in the entire world!
2. Macadamia nuts – DELICIOUS! A perfect snack and they are super low (like the lowest of all nuts) in omega-6s! A salt treat that takes away any cravings.
3. Cheese – Cheese honestly makes everything better. I mean blue cheese and bacon is a match made in heaven! And not only can I have cheese in moderation, but I can have the most delicious kind of cheese – full-fat! No crappy, limp, flavorless fat-free cheese for me!
4. Avocados- – I know these are sort of a weird thing to have on this list, but I LOVE guacamole! Guacamole on bunless burgers or on a steak salad is AMAZING!
5. Dark Chocolate – Now I’m talking serious dark chocolate like over 70% at least! It is delicious especially with some red wine and macadamia nuts. I’m a dessert person and this little bit of sweet always curbs my cravings. 🙂
6. Red wine – One of the hardest parts about being on a diet is the fact like you feel like you can’t go out and eat or drink with friends. On Primal, you can easily enjoy a glass or two of red wine and still be on your diet! No one will even have to know you are being good! 😉
7. Steak – If you don’t like steak….well I just don’t know what to do with you! A fatty, juicy steak is like one of the most delicious things in the world! AND when you order a steak with blue cheese and bacon along with your red wine, no one will know you are on a diet.
8. Butter – Butter makes everything better. Sorry but it does. Enough said. (Oh and get grass-fed butter to get even more omega-3s in your diet!)
9. Cream – This helps you make the most delicious sauces, guacamole AND it is delicious in your coffee…WAY better than stupid, watered-down skim milk!
10. Salami – I think I just LOVE fatty meat. Nothing is better on a Saturday night than drinking wine and eating cheese and salami while watching a great movie!
Hopefully, I’ve made some of you on low-fat diets jealous! 😉
Eat Meat
I run into vegetarians all the time who tell me that my meat-eating ways are bad for the environment and that I’m promoting cruelty to animals. And I’d like them to reconsider that statement.
For one, I eat animals that have been naturally raised – I eat pigs that grub and cows that eat grass. So actually by eating naturally raised animals, I’m doing more to fight against the farms/companies that raise animals in an inhumane environment than you vegetarians are!
And two, herbicides and pesticides are NOT good for the environment. And what do you think we use to grow the crap load of vegetables, grains and such that you vegetarians eat?
Could it be that eating meat that is raised in a natural way is actually way better for the environment? YEP!
Check out this article “Ordering the vegetarian meal? There’s more animal blood on your hands.” Maybe you vegetarians will stop trying to convince me that eating meat is so unethical!
A true environmentalist! haha
Accountability
Of course New Years resolutions are a hot topic right now. And everyone is giving advice about how best to achieve them.
In my opinion, the most important thing to develop when trying to achieve any goal is accountability.
Not only holding yourself accountable but also having other people to hold you to your goal.
When I first started on my fitness journey, I started a blog (not Man Bicep, but another blog…which now no longer exists). It had only one follower (Ryan), but the fact that it was public and that anyone could read it helped me remain dedicated to my goals. Having to keep a public log of my progress was enough to hold me accountable.
Also, sharing my goals with my family and friends helps. If other people know what you are doing, you are less likely to cheat on your diet or exercise plan because they are holding you accountable. You don’t want to disappoint them do you? No one ever wants to have people know they failed at something!
I’ve also run into the situation where friends and family try to be bad influences on you when they know you are on a diet. I take it as a challenge. I just think, “HA! Just watch me stick to my goals!” 🙂
And now I’ve also found that hanging a calendar on the refrigerator mapping out my goals helps me stick to them. It is a way for me to hold myself accountable. I don’t want to deviate from what that calendar says. So anytime I go to the fridge and think, “What’s just one little piece of cheese!?” I see that calendar telling me that it isn’t on my diet for today. That stops me.
That one little piece of cheese isn’t worth the shame and guilt I would feel for cheating on my diet.
If you find you have trouble holding yourself accountable, try making your goals more public. And hang reminders of your goals in places where you need the most encouragement!
Low Carb Flu
I understand why people have a hard time committing to a Paleo/Primal diet and sticking with it. Especially since it can be lower carb.
You feel crappy at the beginning. It takes your body awhile to re-regulate.
There is even a name for that transition period when you start eating lower carb – the low carb flu.
I’m actually suffering from it as we speak…I went from eating crappy food during the holidays to a SUPER clean diet of only meats and vegetables during the week with nuts, cheese and fruit added in on the weekends.
And right now…all I want is a huge handful of potatoes, dried fruit…ANYTHING WITH LOTS AND LOTS OF CARBS!
BUT I know this feeling will pass if I’m patient and stick with my current program. And once it does, I will feel SOOOOO GOOD! Better than I could feel eating a ton of carbs!
However, many people don’t like that initial discomfort so switch their diet before they’ve really given themselves a chance to adjust. They go back to their old high carb, crappy food diet and never find out just how much BETTER they could feel if they ate a diet like Primal or Paleo.
It’s like what I was saying with committing to your fitness goals – you’ve got to give yourself a chance to get into a routine. You’ve got to give your body a chance to adjust!
And then once you start to get over the low carb flu, you’ve got to stick with it for a while before it even becomes natural and the cravings start to subside.
Trust me the cravings do get better. You start to want bad food less and appreciate the foods you CAN EAT more.
I’ve also found that planning out cheat days for the future (holidays or vacations or any event when you know you will want to cheat) can help make you feel more committed now. It always helps me because I know that at some point I will eat pizza or ice cream again and that I don’t NEED IT today!
Anyway, my point is that if you are going to do self-experimentation with a diet, you’ve got to give it at least 6 weeks before you can even say you’ve really tried it. You’ve got to give yourself a chance to adjust! Please!?!
I think you’ll be surprised at the results if you do really stick with something through the initial discomfort!
Anyone else push through the low carb flu only to realize how much better they feel afterwards?
Give it 3 months
I have a love-hate relationship with January.
Be honest...Does this sound like you?
On the one hand, January means lots of new members and clients (YAY!). It is also a great time to rethink your goals and plan out new strategies to reach them. It is usually a time when you are most gung-ho about your goals so it is a great time to start working hard!
On the other hand, January means a crowded gym and goals that are never achieved by the majority of the population. It means a lot of frustration for me as a trainer and fitness enthusiast because I see person after person quickly give up on their fitness goals.
How are some people just happy about signing up for a gym membership? I mean literally we have people come in during January who sign up for a membership and never come in after signing up. Why waste your money? I mean if you aren’t going to use it – if you aren’t going to follow through on this resolution – why even set it?
Don’t be one of those people!!! I can deal with a crowded gym but I can’t deal with the people who don’t even give their resolutions a fair chance.
Making a commitment to your health and fitness isn’t easy. There are even times that fanatics like me falter…like these last two weeks…and trust me I feel so crappy I can’t wait to not see bad food or the couch for a while. (Actually my body is screaming out to me, “VEGETABLES!!! VEGETABLES!!!”)
Anyway, committing to a healthy diet and fitness program isn’t easy. You don’t just say to yourself, “I want to be healthy” and it instantly happens.
No! There are cravings for bad food. There are days when you feel sore and tired and just don’t want to workout. There are friends and family who can act as bad influences!
It isn’t easy. No one ever said it would be.
BUT if you give yourself a chance to really settle into a ROUTINE, it will get EASIER!!! You may always still crave certain foods, and there may be times you skip workouts, but you will feel committed and CRAVE your healthy lifestyle if you stray from it for a few days.
How long does it take before you actually feel committed? I tell my clients that if they can push through the initial struggle and stick with their resolutions for 3 months, they will find that it gets like 100 times easier to stick to their goals after that. It takes about 3 months to make working out and eating well a HABIT. Once you’ve made a habit out of enacting your goals, you are way less likely to give up on them.
So don’t be one of those people who only crowd up the gym in January or sign up and never come!
Join a gym, set some goals and push through the first three months. It will be worth it. Trust me.
P.S. If you need help staying committed for those first three months, hire a trainer! I always tell my clients that my job is to help them make working out and lifting weights a habit so that they can do it on their own!
Is Paleo a trend?
Right now the hot topic in fitness is trends. What were the best, worst and weirdest trends of 2011 and what trends will continue into 2012?
On a few of the trend lists I found was Paleo…of course it was listed with alternative therapies and cleanse diets….but I guess at least its popularity is being recognized?
I was both happy and sad?, confused? that it was being include in these “trend” lists.
Why did it slightly upset me? Because I don’t consider Paleo to be a trend.
I consider a “trend” to be something that is “in style or in vogue,” which means that if you call Paleo a trend, you think that it will eventually go out of style.
And Paleo, aka a healthy lifestyle, won’t ever go out of style.
Yes, diets become super popular and then fizzle out as a new faster, easier diet pops up. But the diets that I would define as “trends” are all weight loss diets. People do these trend diets because they are looking to lose weight quickly and don’t necessarily care about long-term consequences or their overall health. They want to lose weight and they want to do it fast – that is all that matters.
So no, Paleo isn’t a trend. Yes, it has just recently been getting a ton of attention and growing in popularity, but it will never go out of style.
How could being healthy ever go out of style?
Haha ok I guess you could argue that being healthy has gone out of style for the last 50 or some years and that is why we have an obesity epidemic….BUT you could also argue that we’ve been TRYING to be healthy all along and have just been misled by the government and corporations who’ve been telling us that low-fat, high carb is healthy!
I’m going with the second one. As more research comes out Paleo has been gaining popularity. We are now realizing that a high protein, high fat, only healthy carb (like veggies and fruits) diet may be the RIGHT way.
So it isn’t a trend rapidly gaining popularity only to fizzle out. Paleo has actually been around for a while, slowly gathering momentum until finally it has only recently gained mainstream attention.
And with its solid nutritional guidelines, backed up by LOTS of research (contrary to what Conventional Wisdom would have you believe), Paleo will only continue to become more and more popular.
What do you think? Is Paleo a trend?
“I need to workout so I don’t get fat”
I hear this statement uttered all too often in the gym. Clients tell me they are frustrated because they haven’t lost weight even though they are working out every day. Candy and I have even been guilty of thinking this statement at times…like when we go on vacation or home for the holidays and we know we are going to be eating WAY too much and not working out at all.
But the statement is just so ludicrous.
I mean yes, getting in a light workout (like an easy bike ride, a long walk or even going roller skating) can help with damage control, but we aren’t talking about preventing weight gain here…we are talking about LESSENING the damage not fully preventing it.
And yes, exercise can help you reach your weight loss goals by adding muscle, which will help you burn more calories, BUT if you are consuming crap calories, you won’t be getting anywhere fast. Exercise gives you an extra boost, but it won’t be the driving force behind weight loss.
For one, 80% of weight loss is eating healthy foods. As much as I would love to tell my clients that all they need to do is train with me to lose weight, it just isn’t true. Diet is key to weight loss. So you don’t need to workout to keep from getting fat…you need to eat right to get the weight off and keep it off!
Diet is also key to maintaining a healthy weight. And if you’ve been down at a healthy weight for a long time, eating badly on vacation while you aren’t working out isn’t going to make you fat.
Yes you may gain some weight, but most of it will probably be water weight. AND the second you get back from vacation, if you return to your normal healthy eating pattern, the weight will melt off in less than a week.
But if you really don’t want to gain weight over your vacation or the holidays, I guess you could follow these stupid conventional wisdom tips (they remind me a bit of the tips you see every where right before Thanksgiving..)
And if you can’t do that…well just enjoy the vacation and get back to your diet the second you come home! Sometimes you just do need to let loose and live a little!!!
Why is there so much crap out there?
Seriously, why is there so much crap out there? Why do people make being in shape more difficult than it actually is?
In a span of like five minutes I saw two ridiculous infomercials. One was for the Brazil Butt Lift Workout and the other was for Sensa.
Cocaine in a box?
First off, if you want a nice butt you don’t have to do some ridiculous dog-peeing-on-hydrant move. Just do a freaking deadlift. Trust me, deadlifts will give you a nice, firm, toned butt.
You don’t need to do ridiculous workouts like this. There is no “secret” to a great butt. This video isn’t anything revolutionary (actually half of these moves have been stolen from Jane Fonda workouts…)
Yep see there is no new “secret” move. It’s just the same old stuff re-packaged. It’s just another company trying to sell you something instead of telling you, “Hey, having a nice ass is easy. Do deadlifts and squats and use heavy weights and you will have the tight firm ass of your dreams in no time!”
AND SENSA!?! A magic powder that makes you lose weight without dieting…I think Candy’s statement was spot on…”What is it? Cocaine!?!”
I mean if you read how it works…it does kind of sound like an illegal drug…
And you always see these testimonials saying the product works, but does anyone ever know the people? I’ve never had a friend or even a friend of a friend be one of those people….Is it possible they are just actors! :-0
Oh the things you will see
You will never believe who Ryan and I saw in the Boston airport….
MARK SISSON!
He is so nice and stood and chatted with us for a moment and Ryan took a picture with him! It was super exciting and just may be the highlight of our trip!
Another not as exciting thing that I saw the moment we left the airport in LA was a billboard for “cool sculpting” (you freeze off your fat). And then two seconds later, I saw another one for lap-band surgery. Within like 50 feet of one another were two billboards for quick weight loss.
BOOOOOOOOOO!
Only in LA right?
What I found and thought this week…
First off, please wish Candy good luck!!! She has to undergo the second round of cuts for Roller Derby on Sunday! You can do it Man Bicep Sister!!!
And I thought this cartoon was funny…
Now on to some links and random thoughts!
- Calories aren’t created equal…we all knew that. BUT just how important is getting the right kind of calories? According to this article it is very important to our mental functioning and our feelings of sleepiness. I obviously agree with this article…which is why I posted it! 😉
- I thought this was a rather funny article and an interesting question…Can you be overweight and still be fit? What defines a person as fit? – “To be Fit or be Fat, That is the question.”
- Can we say YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS! There was a recent study done that supports carb cycling (and low carb diets in general)! Check it out!
- And what was that one stupid list about Paleo not being a good diet? Well this article says that a low carb, high protein diet is the most effective weight loss diet!
- Studies about diet are interesting…there are just so many contradictions and uncertainties. Look at some of the other articles on the site “Science Daily,” which I’ve linked out to a couple of times in this post. On the one hand, there are studies supporting low carb, high protein diets, but on the other hand, there are studies saying that low carb, high protein diets may be bad for your gut bacteria…So which is it? Personally, I think you just have to pick something to believe and hope that your way is right (and have enough proof to back it up!).
Man Bicep 