Diet tips, part 2

Hi people! It’s again Sunday, and I’m again writing down some diet tips to make you both look and feel better. And exactly like last week, I’m again enjoying some protein coffee because why not! Protein is good for satiety, and coffee is the best muse there is for writers, in my opinion.

-1. An un-tip

There’s an old saying along the lines “those who don’t know, teach”. It certainly fits me about vegetables. I know they are good, and I do agree that most everybody should eat lots of them. I – unfortunately – usually don’t. Thus, for honesty’s sake, here’s the recipe for my lunch today (and tomorrow):

1. 420 grams of leftover chicken breast (about a pound you, you…Americans).
2. 5 dl (roughly two cups) of pasta.
3. Some leftover tomato puree.
4. Enough garlic to kill a battalion of vampires.
5. Smash everything together. Cook. Enjoy.

Obviously low on veggies, I know. The smashed tomatoes and garlic don’t really count.

However, it does fulfil the recommended 50-50 division between protein and carbs. It’s also a dish of relatively high volume, and thus harder to overeat. Moreover, it tastes delicious.

With that confession out of the way, let’s move on to some proper tips.

4. Do some resistance training

This is of huge importance, in my opinion. Do something that really taxes your muscles. It can be gym, it can be bodyweight training. If you are a lumberjack and hoist huge logs of wet wood up and down all day, that definitely counts too.

However, cycling and jogging don’t count. Unless you do them with berzerk intensity, naked, and dual-wielding axes. If you do that, I’ve got nothing left to teach you.

In all seriousness, aerobic exercise is very good and has lots of health benefits, and weight control ones as well. It just does not count as resistance training, that is.

The number one benefit of resistance training is preservation of muscle mass during dieting.

You see, plunging head-first into a caloric deficit causes you to lose a significant amount of muscle mass along with the fat. Tens of percents of the total lost weight seems to be fairly typical.

And this, in turn, is all kinds bad. It seems predispose you to regaining all the fat – and then some – in the future. There also seems to be a clear correlation between muscle and health – especially on older people. Finally, losing muscle is aesthetically unpleasing. Few people like a soft sack of bones and fat.

All in all – not good.

The good news is that the percentage of muscle lost goes pretty much to zero by simply working out. If you have no previous experience in the gym, you even gain some.

And the training doesn’t have to be fancy. Three times a week, approximately one hour at a time. Mostly multi-joint movements (squats, deadlifts, bench, rows, chin-ups in any of their numerous variations), 3 sets of 8 reps each. Add some bicep curls for slightly higher reps because that’s what gym’s essentially about, right?

That would be a starting point for a healthy adult. Adjust accordingly. If you are 80, simply standing up from your chair a couple of times, plus some knee extensions with a rubber band, can alone have a huge influence on your well-being.

The point is, stress your muscles. A lot. If you don’t, I really don’t know how to help you.

It really is that important.

5. Adopt a regular meal pattern

It’s not a good idea to go extremely hungry between meals. With time, the probability of snack-binging goes sky-high. I know it does for me.

However, by regular I don’t mean uniform.

You don’t have to eat breakfast. There’s nothing magical about it. If you are not hungry in the morning, and can easily make it to the lunch without murdering anybody or robbing the nearest donut stall, by all means don’t eat breakfast.

The idea is to eat less – hardly makes sense to force yourself to eat when you are not hungry.

Indeed, if you are not hungry in the morning, changes are you like to eat in the evening. Then by all means do so. Just keep it healthy and reasonable.

And the same also goes in the opposite direction. Many women seem to be starving in the morning. In that case, definitely eat some eggs and oatmeal.

What I mean by regular is essential unchanging. Meaning adopt whatever meal pattern that keeps you the least hungry (on daily average). Then follow that pattern every day.

Simple as that.

1b. Weird extra tip about eating crap.

Last time, I recommended you to eat marshmallows whenever you feel like getting your hit of sugar.

That evening, after writing the post, I discovered an even better one.

Buy a can of raspberry jam.

Then eat that.

Yes, directly out of the can.

With a tablespoon.

Disgusting?

Well, maybe kinda. But that’s just a societal construct.

It’s not so disgusting for your body. You see, raspberry jam only has something like 250 kcals per 100 g of jam. That’s mostly sugar. By contrast, typical candy has something like 350-500 kcal, per the same mass. That’s also mostly sugar, with less or more fat thrown into the mix.

And candy, you can easily eat a ton. Or at least a pound.

Raspberry jam? A snowballs chance in hell. After two or three proper spoonfulls, you’ll definitely decide that’s enough sweets for now. The fourth one makes you slightly sick.

Kind of puts candy in perspective, doesn’t it?

N.B.

I’m not saying sugar is inherently very bad, let alone toxic. It’s just the fact that candy – along with most industrial foods – are designed to make you overeat, to sell. That simply makes you overeat in calories. That alone probably explains 90 % of our current health problems.

Cook your food yourself, and you’ll be 80% fine.

That’s all for today. The next post‘ll only concern some minor details, but the one after that is big!

See you there!

-Antti

Diet tips, part 2