Cheap food, high price.  That’s the bane of our generation.  We’re cursed with an overabundance of so-called “food products” mass produced at low cost but it is our health that pays the premium.  We’re literally eating ourselves to death!

There is so much confusion around nutrition.  Let me simplify it for you.  Build your meals around whole foods, these are commodity products that do not come with an ingredients label.  Whether you eat steak or asparagus, when you buy them they should have no additional ingredients.  100% steak.  100% asparagus.  Those are whole foods.  Make them the foundation of every meal. 

Next, every meal MUST have protein.  Aim for at least 30 grams of protein in each meal.  Meals with less than 30 grams of protein will fail to signal your muscle-building mTOR pathways and instead of storing calories in muscle, you will store them as fat.  Yes, every protein-deficient meal you eat is going directly to your fat cells:(

There’s two simple rules to get you 70% of the way there:
1) Build your meals on whole foods
2) Anchor every meal with 30+ grams of protein

Will this be the perfect diet?  No.  But it is far better than most people are doing right now.  Forget about gluten free, sugar free, fat free, supplements, fasting, cleanses or superfoods.  If your meals aren’t based on protein and whole foods, everything else you do is like slapping a coat of paint on a rusty car.  Don’t major in the minors.  Get the important things taken care of first.  The rest is just polish.

That belly flab hanging over your waistline isn’t because you are eating too much, it’s because you are under nourished.  Get your 30 grams of whole food protein per meal first and it will begin to melt away without going hungry, without starving yourself.

Most people crave variety.  I thrive on routine.  It’s fortunate for me because most days I can eat the same thing every meal.  In fact, I prefer it.  Based on my habits I did a quick inventory of my annual eating habits and here’s some of the results:

Proteins per year:
57 lbs of salmon
70 lbs of lean ground beef/bison
365 chicken breasts
1095 eggs
57 lbs of Jarlsberg cheese

Carbs per year:
260 lbs blueberries

I eat other things of course, yogurt, kefir, nuts, seeds, lettuce, olives, baby tomatoes, guacamole, salsa, HEAL, protein powder, etc but these quantities are a bit harder to calculate with any meaningful level of accuracy.  I did think it was cool that I eat much more than my bodyweight in berries each year (Livewire can confirm this - he’s my berry dealer).

What’s the point of all this?  Every time you sit down to a meal, you have an opportunity to improve your health or damage it.  Instead of grabbing whatever is at hand, take a moment to invest in yourself.  Don’t over complicate it.  Prioritize protein and whole food sources at every meal.  If you get those two pieces right, the rest of your diet doesn’t need to be perfect.  You will look and feel better without needing to pursue perfection.  Try it and see.

Friday Make Up Day

1) Empower Reset #34
3 mins Navy SEAL Breathing

30/30 sec head nods/rotations

3 rounds:
1 min Deadbugs
1 min Glute Bridges
1 min Windshield Wipers

2/2 mins Upper/Lower Body Rolls

3 rounds:
1 min Scap Rocks
1 min Bird Dogs
1 min Elevated Rocks

3 mins Frog Rolls

3 rounds:
1 min Full Body Rocks
1 min Cross Crawl March
1 min Figure 8’s

2 mins Squat Hold

3 Rounds:
1 min Forward/Backward Bear Crawl
1 min Forward/Backward Crab Walks
1 min Side to Side Monkey Crawls

1 min each:
Egg Rolls
Rocking Chairs

2) Marguerita
50 reps:
Burpee/Push Up/Jumping Jack/Sit Up/Handstand

3) Complete as many rounds and reps as possible in 10 minutes of:
6 lateral burpees over a dumbbell
12 dumbbell front-rack lunges
24 double-unders      

4) 7 rounds:
Every 3 minutes:
1 Power Clean
1 Hang Power Clean
1 S2OH

Score = Total volume add the load used for each of your 7 sets