So you know my goal has been, all my goals have been, to come up with a master plan for everything, which reminds me of the freshman history paper I wrote titled "Western Thought from The Enlightenment to The Present," whereupon my professor commented, "Ambitious!" But anyway foodwise, I have wanted to come up with a four by four grid of meals—a breakfast, a lunch, a dinner, and a post-workout snack for each season—that I could cycle through annually and not have to think about food anymore, or at least a lot less than I currently think about food, which is basically all the time, and this has been unfolding for more than a few years like the world's slowest-moving Bildungsroman about eating your vegetables where we last left our heroine making a little jump from veganish to paleoish. I've just been doing a little reading for my continuing ed and I guess there's a name for the way I eat now, viz., low glycemic, neither low fat nor low carb. I talk about this all the time, but once again it's 1) whole, unprocessed foods in general, and 2) protein and vegetable at every meal, and 3) starchy vegetables or whole grains only around workouts:
| BEFORE light protein & complex carbs | IMMEDIATELY BEFORE & DURING WORKOUT simple carbs | IMMEDIATELY AFTER light protein & simple carbs | AFTER heavy protein & complex carbs | BETWEEN heavy protein & complex carbs |
Immediately before/after means within 45 minutes of, before/after means within 1-3 hours of, and between means more than 3 hours before or after workouts.
All of this you know and you also know that I work out mostly in the evening, so dinner is my starch meal. All of which I think I have finally more or less worked out in an ultimate food chart, and it's basically eggs and vegetables (or fruit) for breakfast, chicken and vegetables for lunch, quinoa and vegetables for dinner, and greek yogurt and fruit for post-workout snack ALL YEAR ROUND. Anyway, try it if you want. Eventually I will put a food planner for each season in this book of charts, and explain how those work if they're not self-explanatory, or even if they are self-explanatory, explain them anyway.
So winter food will be this:
- Before - Dinner - light protein & complex carbs - sweet potato and quinoa with roasted vegetables
- Immediately Before & During - Workout Drink - simple carbs - CocoCherry2O
- Immediately After - Post Workout Snack - light protein & simple carbs - greek yogurt and roasted fruit
- After - Breakfast - heavy protein & complex carbs - eggs in cauliflower or carrot puree, recipes TK
- Between - Lunch - heavy protein & complex carbs - slow chicken and steamed vegetables, updated recipes TK
I had an epiphany that greek yogurt could stand very nicely for post-workout protein, if I bumped over the roasted fruit recipes that I just developed for breakfasts. Which leaves me with some egg problems to solve for work breakfasts, but oh well, bridge, later. So mainly I've upgraded from last winter's post-workout ramen and udon, which I was full of regret about. So I had an udon bowl to be sure! And after a year of not eating noodles very much at all, meh, it was only okay.
I cannot tell a lie though, all of a sudden I want bagels again. After nine months of not even thinking about pasta or bread, I've been standing up after breakfast and walking straight downstairs for a bagel like I'm possessed. Just at work, I mean. After a couple weeks of this I thought I might as well go straight for the bagel and I'm back down to one breakfast again. Eh, I trust that my body needs starch for some good reason. Like if I'm going to be smashing my bony parts on other people's bony parts, it's not going to hurt to have a little layer of fat. Or maybe just to stay warm or maybe to keep the SADs away, those are totally believable too.
