Have an Eating Strategy

I try to eat 3-4 hours before bedtime, but truthfully between work, my evening work-outs, sauna and meal prep -it doesn’t always work out.

My past habits were terrible, get home, workout sometimes, eat my mostly vegetarian meal and continue eating till I went to sleep and abuse myself almost every night because I couldn’t control my appetite.

I was skinny fat -not particularly heavy, but had a belly and love handles that would never go away no matter how I trained. The sugar, carbs always kept me wanting to eat more and diets were short-lived. Basically I never had a plan until I committed to eliminating sugar, sugar substitutes, seed oils and many of the “don’ts” listed in my previous blog.

Eliminating sugar is not easy at first- our brain sends out pleasure signals like dopamine which make us crave sugar. It’s as addicting as cocaine and studies conducted in Harvard have shown mice going to the sugar water more frequently than cocaine (listen to Huberman podcast on addiction and published pub-med studies on addiction/mice studies). Took me a solid 3 days to ween off sugar going cold turkey. Stayed away from any and all carbs, so no vegetables or fruits as well. I had headaches for 2 of the days, day three not so bad, but I felt liberation and accomplishment because I was able to do it.

I continued to avoid any carbs for a few more weeks and honestly there was no desire to have them. My taste buds have been been liberated and I can really taste food- it’s amazing what effect sugar has on us and how it controls us.

I do add some carbs into my diet because my training is a little more intense and I was losing too much weight at one point. Probably could have upped my fat consumption, but I really do love some fruits, vegetables, so I’ve added some but very selectively.

All fruits and veggies are organic, wont buy anything else and I add some fermented items like Kimchee and sauerkraut to my salad. I stay away from leafy vegetables and stick with organic cucumbers (low in oxalates). I don’t want to get into the various camps of what does what to you, but I really enjoy a salad with my Dinner

My go to salad: 3 mini cucumbers, avocado, Beet Sauerkraut (The Brinery found at Pure Pastures and many specialty markets), Kimchee, cold pressed olive oil and farm made goat feta or blue cheese. I have this salad nearly every evening it gives me the fats (avocado, olive oil) and the probiotics (Kimchee, sauerkraut and cheese) to make my gut microbiome happy and working to break down food and distribute nutrients throughout the body.

Preparing, cooking and seasoning my amazing entrees in my next blog