What do I eat?

I was recently asked about what I eat, how much I eat, and how often I eat by a friend... I wrote quite a lengthy response, so I figured I'd share it here.

Calories:

• Typically 2000 calories is the standard, but you need to adjust that up or down based on your goals, current activity level, and then it's really a moving target once you start. I have played with my caloric intake for the last year or so, going up and down anywhere between 1300 cals and 2200 cals depending on my activity level at the time and how heavy I was lifting. There are great calculators online for determining what your basal metabolic rate is and using this as a starting point for determining caloric needs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basal_metabolic_rate
http://exercise.about.com/cs/fitnesstools/g/BMR.htm

The Basics:

• Eat every 2-3 hours (breakfast is a MUST, even if you're not hungry. It jump starts your metabolism)
  
• Drink LOTS of water. I drink about a gallon a day (128 oz). You pee a lot in the beginning, but your body gets used to it.
• Eat a good combination of foods at every meal - lean protein, complex carbs, and healthy fats.
• Steer clear of alcohol - slows the metabolism and lowers inhibitions, which leads to crap eating.
  
• Remember that liquid calories count just as much as solid - pop, juice, coffee, Gatorade, etc. Try and limit yourself to water and tea. Carbonated beverages (even calorie free) still cause bloat and discomfort. Plus, have you seen all of the chemicals in a diet pop?
• Eat clean - this means eating food as close to its natural form as possible. Try to stay away from things that are processed or have more than a handful of ingredients. If it contains something you can't pronounce or sounds like a chemical, stay away. This is probably the most important aspect of everything. People that adopt a clean eating lifestyle can lose weight without ever trying to work out. Your body's metabolism is slowed down by the amount of chemicals and processed crap that we put into it every day.
• Subset of eating clean/processed foods - stay away from anything WHITE. White bread, white flour, white sugar, etc. You can eat bread, just get whole grain bread. Anything that says 'enriched' is garbage. Sugar is the devil - it's so refined and overly processed - along with white flour. There are other alternatives to those. Whole wheat flour, for example. Or oat flour. For sugar, there are tons of non processed options - honey, agave nectar, and tons more natural types of sugar. Clean eating isn't about giving up the stuff you like - it's about eating it in a different way.
• READ LABELS!
  
• Pay attention to portion sizes. I bought a food scale and measuring cups and it's amazing to realize how our food portion sizes are so distorted. Just look at the massive sizes of cups, plates and bowls - compare these to the size of dishes 10, 15 years ago. It's eye opening to see how large a true portion is.
  
• PREPARE. This helped me SO MUCH in the beginning. On Sundays, I take an hour or two and cook some food for the week and plan out a meal list. That way I always have something handy and never have to give into the temptation to eat crap just because its quick and easy. That's no excuse.
  

Typical Schedule:
7:30 am: Breakfast
Mid-morning (10, 10:30): Snack 1
Between 12 and 1: Lunch
Mid-afternoon (3ish): Snack 2
6-7 pm: Dinner
9 -10pm: Snack 3

This is a pretty standard day, but can change a bit based on how often and when I work out. If I'm training at night, I'll break up my dinner into two sittings - something small about an hour before I train (lower fat, slightly higher carb - maybe a bowl of Kashi and milk) and then something small right after I train (3 oz fish and a bowl of soup or veggies, half sweet potato).

Examples of meals:

Breakfast:

• Protein oatmeal: 1/2 c quick cook oats and water, nuked. Add 3 or 4 egg whites and a scoop of protein powder, nuke again for a minute. Maybe add some cinnamon.
• High protein cereal (kashi go lean) and skim milk or almond milk.
• Scrambled egg whites w spinach and salsa in a whole grain tortilla.
  
• Lately I've been making protein pancakes - mix 1/3 c fat free cottage cheese, 2T ground flax seed, half scoop vanilla protein powder, cinnamon or pumpkin pie spice, and 4 egg whites (add the egg whites last so they don't get too mixed). Spoon onto a skillet and cook like pancakes. Mmm!
  

Snacks:

• Raw Almonds (Small handful - 20 or so)
• Celery with natural peanut butter (very important to have natural, no oils, sugars or salts added - I like the Trader Joe's brand (pretty cheap @ 2 bucks, or Krema Natural - make sure peanuts are the only ingredient)
  
• Apple w/peanut butter or almond butter (same rules apply to any other nut butter)
  
• Fat free Greek yogurt (Oikos or Fage - tons of protein) with a scoop of protein powder
• Fat free Greek yogurt with chopped apples and walnuts
  
• Sliced red peppers with hummus

Lunch:

• Chicken breast with broccoli (I grill 5 or 6 chicken breasts on Sunday - frozen ones in a bag from costco - and then put them in baggies for the week so I just need to nuke). I either get frozen broccoli or fresh and put it in a microwave steamer bag - 3 minutes and your lunch is done.
• Salads with chicken breast - I like spinach/onion/sliced apple/fat free feta, or romaine/black beans/salsa/red onion/low fat shredded cheese.
• Soup - there is a minestrone soup that I LOVE right now, I make it once on Sunday and eat it for lunch and dinner all week. It makes about 13 cups and it's super easy to make. (I'll have to post the recipe.)
  

Dinner

• Protein:

• Grilled chicken
• Baked tilapia (I buy individually frozen filets in a bulk bag from costco - they work out to a little over $2 a piece. They defrost in the sink in about 15 minutes and only take 10 minutes in the oven. It's my favorite white fish - not 'fishy' at all.)
• Grilled salmon (again, individually frozen bulk bag from costco)
• Steak (lean cuts)

• Veggies:

• Anything really. In the summer I like grilling asparagus, zucchini. In the winter I like doing sweet potatoes, spaghetti squash, red skins, or baked crispy kale. Or when I'm super lazy, I eat a cup of that minestrone soup.

You should aim to get in a lean protein (any lean meat, low fat dairy, egg whites, protein substitute if necessary), complex carb (sweet potato, brown rice, oatmeal, wheat pasta) and healthy fats (avocados, olive oil (teaspoon drizzled over veggies), nuts, nut butters, fatty fish (like salmon)) at every meal.

Whew! That's a lot of info. It's really just the HIGH level. I could go into so much more detail about the differences in carbs (high glycemic vs low glycemic), dairy vs no dairy, natural properties of veggies, supplements (which is a whole other discussion)... I could go on for days, but this is enough to get you started.

I have been reading about nutrition, exercise, and supplementation for the last year and a half. It has become somewhat of an obsession (just ask anyone who knows me). If you have any specific questions, or want something addressed in further detail, just let me know! You can email me at sarahmcook@gmail.com.

Good luck!