I started on my summer food plan in the last third of spring, spring was terrible. I was living for bagels and sandwiches with chips and coke at work, and chicken tortas at home. I didn't sleep a wink the night before playoffs, had pancakes with syrup for bout day breakfast—I mean, I also had an omelet—and for bout fuel I drank down a 20 oz Coke. Which, you know, will do in a pinch. When you're on the carb rollercoaster though, you definitely feel like you're in the grip of something and I don't like that.
So I decided to clean it up, and I decided to be my best client and not do the opera about the bagel. The opera about the bagel is the drama that goes with making bad food choices, you think you're addicted to the food but you're addicted to the drama. I think you can read more about this in David Kessler's The End of Overeating. Which I have not actually read, I read an excerpt and ran with it. Nobody cares what you eat, Munt, so don't be a drama queen about it. If you want to clean it up, clean it up and no crying.
Clean it up means I'm eating almost all whole foods, hardly anything packaged. No sugar, so obviously no Coke and also no sweetie tea as dilute as that is. I have unsweetened tea in the fridge now, or I drink water, or black coffee. Quinoa and beans are my starch, and sometimes I eat potatoes. I could eat rice, but quinoa is faster. No pasta, no bread. Lots of protein, and lots of fruits and vegetables.
Still fits with my basic guideline for eating around workouts:
| BEFORE complex carbs & light protein | IMMEDIATELY BEFORE simple carbs | WORKOUT | IMMEDIATELY AFTER simple carbs & light protein | AFTER complex carbs & heavy protein | BETWEEN complex carbs & heavy protein |
Immediately before/after means within 45 minutes, before/after means within 1-3 hours, and between means more than 3 hours before or after workouts.
Summer is:
- Dinner - complex carbs with light protein - quinoa salad with beans and raw vegetables
- Workout Drink - simple carbs - CocoOJ2O
- Post-Workout Snack - complex carbs with light protein - fruit salad and cottage cheese
- Breakfast - complex carbs and heavy protein - power smoothie
- Lunch - complex carbs and heavy protein - green salad with eggs, chicken or fish
I mean, eh, "simple," "complex," "light," "heavy," the basic rule is eat easier-to-digest foods closer to (before and after) your workouts, and more complicated foods further away. It's sort of relative, so like you could eat, say, pasta between workouts and, well, I've read one sports nutritionist who says that if you're going to eat candy, save it for before and after your workouts. Or you might eat whole wheat pasta or bread between workouts and white pasta or bread before and after. I'm not really eating pasta or bread at the moment, I eat fiber carbs (vegetables) between workouts and starch carbs (whole grains and beans) before and after. And also, do you see, this is an okay strategy for upgrading your carbs over time. If you want.
But anyway this is the simplest I've ever eaten, and simplest means the easiest. I feel like when you read a book off the prelim list, and it's so juicy. Like watermelon which I've been eating a lot of lately, who knew it was so sweet! Nothing is work, and everything tastes so good. "Recipes" TK.
