Tag Archives: #eatallthethings

To Track or Not To Track, That is the Question

19 Tuesday Jun 2018

Posted by in Lifestyle

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As with most nutrition questions the answer is “it depends”…..blink blink….seriously though, it depends on the individual.

I personally despise the time and effort it takes to track calories and macros. However, I have found it helpful to do in short duration to see if I’m eating enough protein and to do periodic check-ins to make sure I’m eating enough calories. If I decide to actually do a shift in number of fat or carbs or cycle then I usually have to track for a few week to a month to get in a good groove.

When Not to Track

If you are the type of person who has dieted most of their life and has unhealthy relationship with food and diets, I suggest NOT tracking. It can make people neurotic and extreme and generally unhappy. I advise not tracking for the purpose of “staying under a certain calorie level” for the purpose of restriction.

For more information on this topic, please check out the posts listed below.

For these folks I recommend doing a “portion size” approach. Meaning, protein the size of the palm of your hand, all the veggies you can fit in, starchy carbs the size of the front of your closed fist (more if you are super active), added fat the size of your thumb. Or on a normal size plate, ½ the plate of veggies, ¼ protein, ¼ starchy carbohydrates, and 1 tablespoon of added fat. Eat it all.

When to Track

I think that for most women it is important to track when there is a suspicion that you are not eating enough calories or enough protein. Both of these are super common among women specifically. Thanks to the pressure of societal standards many women under eat. Stop that! Eat the food!

The point of tracking isn’t to see if you were “good” or “bad”; food doesn’t have morality. It is to obtain data to see if you need to make adjustments to reach your goals. Like seeing how many M&Ms or in my case Margaritas are sneaking into your week.

I find that when I track, I put forth more effort to eat more protein and less sugar. I want to make sure that I’m eat enough calories to sustain my life and activities. To make sure I’m eating lots of veggies and not just chips, salsa, and cheese for dinner. I know you feel me! Not that there is anything wrong with that….clearly I do this with some frequency to bring it up.

It can be a good way to stay accountable to yourself and your health goals. It is also a good way to do periodic check-in to make sure, over time, you are still eating enough calories and protein.

Side Note: It goes without saying that if you are a physique, bikini or bodybuilder competitor you will track.

Tracking Isn’t a Way to Live

If you have never tracked your food, I think you should try it. Even if it isn’t in an AP with calories and macros, just write down everything you eat in a day for a month and then review it at the end of each week. You will see trends and where you can make better choices towards better health.

Tracking isn’t something that I recommend people do long-term. Again, it is time consuming and can drive you to an unhealthy extreme mindset.

Eat the food! All the food! Just eat!

Batch or Bulk Cooking / Meal Prepping

16 Tuesday May 2017

Posted by in Food, Lifestyle

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Meal prepping….batch or bulk cooking is not a foreign concept….there are hundreds of resources that talk about this practice. And don’t get it twisted….it is a “practice” in the traditional since of the word.

Practice meaning that it is not usually easy to do start with, but after you do it for a while you get better and more efficient at doing it (definition source – my brain).

The basics of what you need:

  1. Time 1x to 2x per week (I like a weekend day and a mid-week day)
  2. Food / Ingredients (make a list, go to the store or farmers market)
  3. Lots of glass or stainless steel containers and zip-lock baggies

Add Some Fun

To make your batch cooking experience more fun, I suggest putting on some groovy music or informative podcast while prepping and cooking. It is fun to bring a friend or loved one in on the fun by batch cooking together and splitting the food. If you have kiddos you can include them on the process as well, the more involved they are the more fun it will be for them to eat the food they helped prepare.

Note: If prepping the food items and cooking it all on the same day is too much; then prep the food (cut, chop, puree, marinate, make sauces etc.) one day and cook it the next day.

Variety is the Spice of Life

My bulk cooking strategy has been to cook-up approximately 3 different meals to last 3 -4 days until my next session. You can also cook up 2 – 3 meats that you can mix match with 2 – 3 starchy carbs sources and veggies. You can also cook enough to last 5 – 7 days, but be sure to freeze half of the food and then pull it out to replace what you use from the fridge. I’ll cook enough veggies to use with breakfast and lunch and cook fresh veggies at dinner time. But, whatever works for you….do that!

The key is cooking enough variety that you don’t get bored or tired of eating the same food. Also, to avoid food boredom if you cook generically spiced food items you can later add different spices or sauces to create a new flavor profile to the meal you are about to eat.

Utilize all the Tools

I’m a bit of a kitchen gadget junkie; anything to make my experience more fun, easier, or faster! You really just needs some pots, pans, baking sheets, your grill and or a crockpot. An Instant Pot also works nicely. Choppers, Food Processors, Blenders etc. etc. can all come in handy depending on what all you want to make.

The plan is the use all of the things at the same time! The more you cook at the same time the shorter the amount of time it takes to complete the objective. Use your crockpot(s) (get them going first), oven, pots and pans (use all 4 or 5 you have), grill, and Instant Pot.

To Recipe or Not to Recipe….That is the Question

So, the question is – do you want to use recipes or not. My suggestion is to do one of three things….1) pick recipes out ahead of time and make a grocery list or 2) go grocery shopping see what looks good to you and then pick out some recipes that will work with what you bought 3) go grocery shopping see what looks good to you and then cook them up however you like, add some condiments and be done.

I like to do a bit of #1 and bit of #3. I like to have a general idea of what I want to cook, find some recipes that look easy, get a grocery list together, pick up some extra generic stuff, then cook it up and mix and match my meals.

I have LOTS of recipes on my Pintrest page. LOTS!

Where to Start? Here are some basics….

As I previously said, you’ll do this once or twice a week.

After you have all your ingredients, you can start prepping it, most of my dishes start with a base of onions so I usually chop those first and get them sautéing/browning (butter, salt, pepper, and garlic powder).

If you are doing something in the crockpot, get that meal in and cooking first – cause it is the slowest. If you are doing chili or greens or peas get those going now because they will cook for a few or more hours.

Then get your meats prepped and cooking – likely next would be the whole chicken or the bone-in and skin-on chicken as it takes time to cook. Then your beef items. If you are precooking bacon; I would do that now as well, so you can use your bacon grease (if it is high-quality bacon) for roasting veggies.

Once your oven is free from meat you can roast your veggies and potatoes; use two wracks and get it done. You can also roast your veggies and potatoes with and around your chickens; they will get good flavor soaking up the chicken drippings. I also have a counter-top convection oven I use as well.

While you are cooking all that also put on a pot of rice or use a rice cooker.

There will be a point when all things are cooking – this is when you chop your raw veggies for grab-n-go and wash-up dishes and utensils to get them out of the way.

You can also cook up one-pot-meals or casseroles. The book “One-Pot Paleo” is fantastic!

Food Stuff

Since Protein is the most time consuming part of cooking meals, at the very least make sure you have enough proteins cooked for each meal for 4 – 7 days. If that is all you prep each week, it will save you so much time!

Chicken / Turkey / Duck

Skinless boneless breast or thighs for quick stir-fry or Asian inspired food dishes, whole baked or crockpot chicken to just eat and to make things like chicken salad or shredded chicken for tacos, grilled or baked crisp dry-rub wings, for easy snacks. Save your bones and throw them in a pot to make broth.

Beef / Bison

Ground beef (grass-fed/finished is the best quality) or ground bison sometimes I mix the two together. I probably cannot adequately describe out versatile this meat is. I like to cut some onions up and sauté them nice and brown in butter, salt, pepper, and garlic powder, then add in the ground beef and add more, salt, pepper, and garlic powder till done (but not dry). This base can be then later used for dinners where you will add extra spices to create various meals like Mexican or Italian. I also like to make meatballs with salt, pepper, garlic powder and an herb blend of some sort – easy to bake them in the oven. I like to pre-make a bunch of burger patties and put them in ziplock bags. I like to have some pre-cooked and some raw (parchment paper in between) in the freezer for easy grab and go. Putting a beef or pork roast in the crockpot is easy and delicious; you can even add in a bunch of root veggies (others will get too soggy) and you have a one-pot-meal. Pre-grilling various types of steaks (keep them at least medium-rare so when you warm them back up it won’t get over cooked). I like to make a double recipe of Spicy Pineapple Chili and keep it in my freezer at all times. When I run low, I make another batch.

Pork

I love to pre-cook a whole package of bacon, creating individualized portions in zip-lock bags to eat with my eggs for breakfast and some for crumbling up and adding to other dishes. I also like having pre-cooked sausages available to easily pull out for breakfast or snack – add some spicy mustard, sauerkraut, and cheese. Yummm! Again a nice pork roast in the crockpot is so easy. You can also cook up pork chops and tenderloins in the crockpot or oven, do your best to not overcook or cook on too high of heat (in the oven, stove-top or grill) because they will get tough and dry.

Seafood

I tend not to bulk seafood. It takes very little time to cook and doesn’t preserve very well. If you are going to eat it the next day you can pre-cook a filet of fish or boil some shrimp, but I’d eat them pretty quickly. I love salmon cakes, so keeping cans of salmon in the pantry is a must for fast meals. They are fast to put together and cook – if you make enough you will have some to eat the next day too for added variety to the week. (How-To: Cook Scallops Perfectly)

 Eggs

I personally don’t consider eggs a protein necessarily I consider them a healthy fat. I prefer spending an extra couple of bucks to get fully pastured / free range eggs like Vital Farms. I like to batch cook “egg muffins” with meat and veggies in them – heat up and eat with hot sauce. Also, I will pre-cook soft or hard boiled eggs for grab-n-go breakfast with pre-cooked sausage or bacon.

Starchy Carbohydrates

Easy-peasy! Roast or bake some potatoes, yams, sweet potatoes, and or winter squash. Cook up a pot of black, brown, or white rice. I also will occasionally cook up some plantains; but not very often. I love these Plantain Chips to eat my chicken salad on.

Vegetables

One of the easiest things I like to do is to roast a BIG pan of veggies together. I will add onions, carrots, parsnips, brussel sprouts, beets, turnips, radishes all on one pan together with some avocado oil or ghee with some lemon juice, salt, pepper, garlic powder, and herb blend and roast them up till they are soft and browning.

I like to pre-roast cabbage steaks, broccoli, and cauliflower – basically with the same oil, citrus, and spices as above. I love asparagus, but I’m not big on bulk cooking it; tastes better fresh. You can also roast or sauté yellow squash and zucchini to mix match.

I also like to sauté onions, all the colors of bell peppers, and garlic with lemon or lime juice, salt, and pepper and keep it in containers to add to dishes for extra flavor. If you like mushrooms add those in too.

You can add these to any meal of the day – throw some fried eggs over the top with crumbled back or sliced sausages, add your meat of choice to them for lunch or dinner with a side salad.

During the winter I like to make large pots or slow-cooker of greens, usually a mix of collards, mustard, and turnip. I do the same thing with peas and keep them in my freezer all the time to pull out at any given meal. I cook up ½ to 1 pkg of bacon, in the same pot I add onions to brown with salt and pepper, then garlic cloves, then add stock/broth, water, ½ cup of Apple Cider Vinegar, red pepper flakes or ¼ to ½ cup of Frank’s Hot Sauce, and all the greens with additional salt, pepper, and garlic powder. Same for the peas except I don’t add the vinegar and hot sauce.

Raw Veggies

I keep lemons and limes in bulk in my refrigerator at all times and I use them all the time for all the things.

It is always good to have grab-n-go veggies in the fridge or at least veggies you can quickly cut and eat. Love to have cucumbers, carrots, broccoli, sprouts, and lettuces in the fridge so that I can snack or have a salad with some meat that is fast and easy.

Fruit

During the summer time I eat more fruit than winter time, because they are fresh and in season. I will keep some fruit around. I’ll keep a couple of apples or banana to easily grab-n-go. I love grilled peaches, tangerines, and pineapple to add to my pork and chicken dishes. Berries and homemade whipped cream for a treat. When cherries and watermelon are in season, I eat them for a couple or few weeks until I’m tired of them. If fruit floats your boat then add that in too. I incorporate avocados into my meals every week as well.

Side Notes

You want to cook the food till it is done and flavorful, but not so much that when you warm it up later that it is dry. With this in mind, at the end when put your food in containers you will want to add a touch of bone broth, lemon or lime juice, Ponzu sauce or other to the container so when you warm it up it has extra moisture already and it doesn’t try out. Also add a dipping sauce (tzatziki, quacamole, almond butter, homemade ranch, hummus) or something after you warm it up to add to the variety of the meal.

I am all about brining my chicken it give it so much more flavor and keeps it moist.

Storage

I like to use glass containers, stainless steel, or at the very least BPA free plastic.

No Food Poisoning Here!

  • Allow the food items to completely cool before placing them in the refrigerator or freezer. Rapid cooling is best – I use a fan
  • Put half of your prepared proteins in the refrigerator and the other half in the freezer; as you eat the ones in the refrigerator pull one out of the freezer to replace it
  • When reheating your food, make sure you get them nice an hot for at least 10 or 15 mins (boil, hear sizzling) (unless you are using a microwave) to kill bad bacteria. This webpage to make sure the food is over 165 degrees.

This mini crock-pot food warmer is so awesome!

Are you Fully Prepared for Your Week Now?

While this is about bulk cooking, it is also about being prepared for your week. Snacks are important. If I am able to, I prefer to have smaller containers/portions of the foods I bulk cook as my snacks. If I am on the go, I like to have beef sticks, cheese slices, a few nuts, a piece of fruit, a shaker bottle of protein powder or this one, seasnax, or even some of the grab-n-go veggies in a baggie in my purse or vehicle. And don’t forget water!

 

 

 

Diet – The Short Version….

13 Saturday May 2017

Posted by in Books, Lifestyle, Nutrition

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THEN

Back in the 1990’s and 2000’s I was all about a Low-Fat diet. I thought I had to eat low-fat to be fit and health. Keeping in mind I was in my early 20’s I was fit, but I was not healthy. At all. Then I also became un-fit as well. I yo-yoed back and forth for years.

Side note: Even when I was eating low-fat, I was never really able to eat as low-fat as I thought I “should” be eating. I still don’t know what people eat to maintain super low fat intake.

Enter “The Paleo Solution Diet” by Robb Wolf. This is a great book – I highly recommend it!

I again was not healthy. At all. So, I dove into Paleo face first. Over a few years I became very health and fit again. It was fantastic! I felt great – I preformed great – I looked great!

Somehow I ended up messing around with a super low carbohydrate diet. Between the low carbohydrate diet and poor lifestyle factors, and after some time…I became unhealthy and un-fit yet again.

I’ve been working to flight my way back ever since. This time my body broke down to levels I did not know existed and wish I didn’t know.

NOW

Through all of my diet and health struggles…..this is what I’ve learned.

  • Paleo is not dogmatic (you’re the only person that can impose rules on yourself)
  • Low-fat diets will eventually break you
  • Low-carb diets will eventually break you
  • Excessive exercise will eventually break you
  • It takes longer to heal the broken than it takes to break

I will no longer cut out a whole macro groups (protein, fat, carb) from my diet ever again. It isn’t necessary and in the long run it will break you.

 

Eating protein, fat, and carbs is required.

I know….I know…. everyone is either still in the low-fat camp or all about the ketogenic diet – it is everywhere and I’m sure most people are super confused about it all.

Truth is everyone’s dietary requirements are different from everyone else’s and each person’s dietary requirements change throughout their lifetime.

Recommended Books

Soooo…..I’m not a man…I realistically cannot speak to that….but I can tell you….as a women….while we can adjust our macros (protein, fat, carb) of how much of each we take-in we need to be eating all three. Maybe not at every meal and maybe not every day, but you need all three in your face…in your body if you want to maintain your life, health, well-being, fitness, hormones, sleep….etc.

I find that I personally do not do well with restriction. Restriction in anyway will send me into a tailspin. So, now….I do not tell myself that I cannot have something. I can have anything I want any time I want. It is my responsibility and my choice to eat something or not to eat something that I choose…knowing that it either helps me or hurts me and it either gets me closer to my goals or further away from my goals. I own it and I suffer or reap the consequence of my choice one way or the other (I don’t feel bad about it either way).

UNCOMPLICATED

This whole thing is less complicated than what folks make it out to be.

Eat whole real foods.

If you can answer yes to these three questions, then it is real whole food.

  • Did your food grow out of the ground, fall from a tree, or have a mother?
  • Will it spoil?

There are times when we will eat foods out of a box or a bag; this day in age it is inevitable.

  • Can you pronounce all the ingredient’s names? (if not, find a better quality product with simple/less/pronounceable ingredients)

Go back to basics.

Trust me I get it….while this is a simple approach….it isn’t necessarily easy. BUT there are lots of tools out there to help (including me). I have found that we can and will do anything that we determine is important to us.