Logging Food - A Primer

People who log their food in some way, shape or form are more likely to be successful with their eating than those who don’t. This has been proven over and over through the years and it completely makes sense if you really think about it. Just the thought of having to write down that I ate a cookie is enough to make me only eat one instead of three or four! Fairly often, I have clients log their food so we can get an idea of whether they are eating too much or too little for their goals. It really helps when they have done a resting metabolic assessment so I don't have to guess!

There are a few ways to do log your food, and it can be as simple or as detailed as you like. The important thing is that you have a method that works for you. Here are a few ideas:

• Use a fitness tracker app like My Fitness Pal or Lose It.
• Write down what you eat in a notebook every day.
• Use a habit tracker app on your phone. You might not be tracking what you eat specifically, but maybe you’re tracking whether or not you got a certain number of servings of vegetables each day. 
• Hang a calendar on the wall and track daily habits on it. Don’t use your calendar for anything other than habit tracking.
• You can make a spreadsheet to track your habits. You can print it out and use it analog, or you can keep it on the computer and be fully digital.
• Take photos of the food you eat. You can keep them for personal accountability, but it’s usually helpful to have someone holding you accountable. This can be as big as putting it out on social media or as private as sharing with a friend.  Enter yet, hire a nutrition coach to help keep you on track.

Now let’s talk about how to actually make those methods work, because it’s one thing for me to just site here and tell you to do those things, and another thing to actually put them into practice. You can choose from these options, or if you think of something that might work even better for you, go ahead and use it.

• pre-plan and pre-log what you’ll have. This works really well if you have to eat out. It will help you stick to your plan, because you don’t want to have to re-log everything. 
• You can log food immediately after a meal. If we’ve already implemented mindful eating and have a good practice, taking an extra minute or two to record food intake should be no problem.
• Take your food journal with you everywhere. You can get a small memo notebook just about anywhere. If your journal is bigger, you can keep it in a bag or backpack. This is also where apps for your phone come in handy.

Try not to think of logging your food as a chore, but instead as a powerful tool that will help you stay committed and consistent!

Bonus: you can also log your exercise. People who log their exercise also increase their chances of success. When you record exercise, you can be as general or specific as you’d like. It could be “30 min cardio, 30 min weights,” or “2 sets of 15 goblet squats w/ a 25# dumbbell, 2 sets of 15 push-ups and 2 sets of 15 inverted rows.” You decide how detailed you’d like to make it.

Hope this helps. Happy logging! ;-)

Self Prop Alert

Self prop alert:

I’ve lost about 15 pounds since the beginning of the year. 10 of those pounds has been in the last 3 months, with an almost 7% drop in body fat. If you feel like reading today, my story is below. Otherwise, do me a solid and go to my Instagram account (@whichwaytothegunshow), and double tap the pic.

This is embarrassing to admit, but I didn’t notice the weight packing itself on as I crept closer to middle age. It is especially embarrassing because I work for a fitness company and helping people with this very problem is something I do all day. 
I was busy with family and work and didn’t notice how stressed my body was. None of the injuries, panic attacks, headaches or lost sleep tipped me off like they should have. This is gonna sound dumb, but I was just too busy to notice, and I didn’t feel stressed. I have always been a happy, energetic guy and I would have thought it would feel different. Basically, I was acting just like almost every person who came to me for help.

But the inflammation was wrecking my body. A lady came up to me one day and poked me right in the belly. "You're getting fat," she said. "You better do something." 
I laughed it off. 
"She's a character," I told myself. 
Last summer I found tumors growing throughout my upper body, which my medical team accidentally made me think was cancer for about a month. I had the tumors removed in 2 separate surgeries, because I found the second batch of them the day after my post-surgery follow-up.
Although this isn't even half as bad as most people who find themselves in my office for a come-to-Jesus talk about their health, here's how wrecked I was feeling.

My blood pressure was high and the nurse said it was probably just white coat syndrome (it wasn’t, because being a science nerd, medical pros don’t scare me).  Also throw in the fact that my blood pressure was consistently north of 140/90. Also there were headaches from my blood pressure being so high.
My cholesterol was high and my doctor tried to put me on Lipitor. My hormones were out of whack and I felt depressed all the time. I had to drag myself through my day and somehow figure out how to inspire and motivate people when I felt like liquid shit. I started having self-destructive impulses. for a former IV drug user, I think you know what this means. 
The main question that was on my brain was, "How did I go from someone who took back his life to a sad sack in just a few years?" 
It's so easy to see all the signs of chronic stress in everyone else. 

I turned 40 in January and pretty much the next day my give-a-fuck-meter broke. I just wanted to feel good again. And I was ready to take back my life. That was the best birthday present I could have gotten from the universe. I decided to cut out inflammatory foods like grains, legumes, nightshades and squashes. I gave up meat, except for fish and the occasional hamburger (so probably like how all vegetarians secretly eat). I started placing priority on my sleep and trying to follow my body's natural circadian rhythm. I started doing heart rate zone-based cardio and walking 10,000 steps every day. I started therapy and started doing yoga daily to help deal with stress. thanks to a salivary cortisol and DHEA test, my supplementation is on point, and includes adaptogens and nootropics to help me regulate my cortisol and blood sugar better. 

Like I said, I'm down like 15 pounds and 7% body fat. Props to me.

Hope this inspires somebody. Even people who teach others to be healthy fall off the wagon and need to pick themselves back up. Of course, I couldn’t have done all of this without the support and encouragement of my wife Elizabeth and my coworkers at Life Time. My hope is to lose 10 more pounds and fit into a really dope tweed blazer I bought on my last trip to New York. 

Avocado smoothie bowl

Avocado smoothie bowl

Not gonna bore you with 15 pictures of my smoothie bowl, and perfectly wrinkled  burlap napkins, rustic silverware and twine for whatever reason. Not gonna explain the process of making avocados into purée, or why it’s healthy to eat avocados. No, we are way past that, my friend. You came here for one reason only. And it wasn’t to look at Pinterest porn. 

One more thing before we get to the recipe:

My wife got me hooked on these, and my breakfast has never tasted so good!

-8 oz water

-1 avocado -1 scoop chocolate Life Time collagen peptides

-~1/2 c frozen spinach

-~1/2 c frozen beets 

Blend and top with:

-1 handful shaved coconut

-1 thumb walnut pieces

-2-3 tbsp açaí purée 

For a vegan version, sub the collagen for 2 tbsp cocoa and 2 packets of stevia. 

Hibiscus Lemon Gelatin

Why drink your tea when you can eat it?

• 2 cups cold filtered water
• 2 cups hot water (190-212f)
• 3 tbsp grass-fed gelatin
• 1/2 cup dried hibiscus
• 2-3 tbsp lemon juice
• 3 dropperfuls liquid stevia (estimated, go to taste)

Follow these steps to make it:

1. pour 1 cup water into a mixing bowl
2. bloom gelatin by sprinkling it evenly on the surface of the water - let sit for 5-10 min
3. add hibiscus to the hot water, steep for 5-10 minutes
4. strain the hibiscus out of the tea and pour it into the gelatin bowl, mixing together with a whisk
5. add lemon juice and stevia
6. cover and refrigerate 6 hours or longer.

Breakfast Seed Bowl

Don't worry, there won't be 50 food-porn pictures and and waaay too many paragraphs about the history and benefits of this seed bowl. Chances are you already know because I told you. My blog isn't that popular.

Here's the recipe.

• 1/4 cup flax seed
• 1/4 cup shredded coconut (dried)
• 2 tbsp chia seeds
• 3 tbsp hemp hearts
• 1 scoop Life Time Collagen Peptides (this is about 20g of protein if you are using a different kind)
• 8-12 oz unsweetened Ripple Milk
• 1 handful of berries (fresh or frozen)

Mix all the dry stuff together, then add the liquid. Top with berries. Tons of protein, tons of healthy fat. TONS OF FIBER SO DRINK LOTS OF WATER AND DON"T COMPLAIN IF YOU FART, JUST PRETEND THERE ARE DUCKS NEARBY.

Dairy-free Queso

Let's get right to the point (because Life is too short for me to take 9-15 perfectly-staged pictures of my cheese sauce. Nobody cares what it looks like in rustic tin dishes with antique bespoke spoon dripping it onto my vegan cheese fries. Kill me now.). Here you go.

• 1 cup nutritional yeast 
• 1 can coconut milk
• 1 tsp Himalayan salt (FYI there is no sea in the Himalayas)
• Salsa to taste

Heat, mix, serve, eat.

Also this is my wife's recipe.

Bacon Smoothie

You 10-12 oz. liquid (water/coconut milk/whatever you like for your Smoothie base)

2 scoops chocolate Vegan Max

1 Scoop Double Chocolate Life Greens

1-2 tbsp. Sun Butter

2-3 strips bacon (cooked of course)

1/2 cup spinach

Some ice cubes

Blend until you can't wait anymore and decide to just go for it, chunks and all.

You can get the VeganMax and Life Greens at http://shop.lifetimefitness.com

Use my discount code 114251 and you'll save a little bit of money, and I might get a nice kickback from it for my bacon fund.