Diet: Start with — well — your diet.

I was talking to a friend of mine about the perils of staying healthy as I find myself getting older and in the midst of spending every hour on growing my business and not my body. He apparently bumped into a friend of ours from collage that is now an MMA fighter and noticed how fit and in shape he seemed. My friend asked, this now professional athlete, for a short “intro to a healthy body ‘201’”, becuase, as he put it, we have all heard the “101” before. This is what he said followed by the email he sent to add some clarity. I figured it was postable. Some things you may know, somethings are just good to hear again and others may be new to you, so enjoy how ever you choose 🙂

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Basically diet is everything, not just important, but everything. And breakfast is more important then people realize even though they may hear “breakfast is the most important meal of the day”, all the time.

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As soon as you wake in the morning, you should consume 16-32 oz of cold water. You body is in dehydration and starvation mode at this time, so the water starts your metabolism by up to 33%.

You want to have something to eat within 30 minutes of waking up as well. I usually eat a bowl of oatmeal with a banana or egg whites. They are both easy to prepare and easy for the body to breakdown.

Doing these two really simple/very important things will have you on you way to being health, losing weight, and having more energy.

Two hours from when you eat breakfast you want to have a light snack. (Protein shake,health bar, powerbar, 10 almonds, pack of peanuts, yogurt, fruit, trail mix) Or some combo of the two.

This helps to sustain your metabolism in between meals, and aids you in not overeating during lunch.

You want to eat lunch 4 hours after breakfast.(Give or take 30 min)

2 hours after lunch you want another small snack.

2 hours after the snack you should eat dinner.

2 hours after dinner you should have a light snack before bed. (If you want, but not needed) But you should go to bed hungry.

So you are comsuming a meal every 4 hours and a snack every 2 hours in between. (This is VERY important)

You should be consuming plenty of water throughout the day. I drink at least a gallon of water, sometimes more. Water helps push everything through your system and aid in digestion. It’s a no-brainer, but people still don’t do it. And NO, you will not be drinking too much water if you consume a gallon, so don’t worry. However you will be going to the restroom quite often.

Stay away from fast food, fried foods, sweet snacks, candy, cakes, and other crap food. Once you start cleaning up what you eat, you’ll start feeling all the bad stuff you have in your food plan.

You do want to pick one day out of the week to have whatever you want. Pizza, Beer, wings, donuts….you get the point. I use Saturday’s as my cheat day and I go to town. Eventually you want to take this Cheat day down to just one cheat meal, but it’s a gradual process. Starting off cutting everything ‘cold turkey’ has negative results, so don’t do it.

Add this with a workout 3-4 times a week and you are off to the races. I’m including two meal plans my nutrionist had me on. You can switch foods around as you choose, but try to stick to the overall theme.