Happy Gilmore

In keeping with my New Year's Resolution, for the next several weeks I'll be making at least one post a week that details changes in my life and their effects. Leave some of your own ideas for topics or some comments. I'm going to kick this off with an important topic to me, and that's healthy eating and nutrition.

I've covered this topic a couple times now. Nutrition is an important topic to me, because unlike a lot of my friends, I never had amazing metabolism growing up. I had to work my ass off in soccer, football, and baseball just to stay slim. As soon as I got out of school and into the working world, things went south pretty fast. Like I mentioned in the other posts, 2001-2004 or so I ate pretty well, and continued to maintain my weight. My friends at UNT were great, but they definitely passed some bad eating habits to me in 2005 and 2006, causing my diet to consist mostly of Whataburger, Krystal, Taco Bueno, and Chipotle. Not a good diet if you feel like staying on the better side of 200 pounds.

Fortunately for me, I already know how to eat healthily. I'm surprised when I talk with people how they don't know the basic rules of healthy eating. I'm going to detail some more pointers that weren't in the previous two posts and hope that it helps a few people out. I am currently doing everything that I am about to write. If you want to feel like you have more energy, lose some weight, clear up your skin, fix digestive issues, or a myriad of other benefits, look at this and the below pointers.

• Eat six meals (or more) per day. Growing up in the United States, I was taught to eat breakfast, lunch, and a big dinner. The more meals a person eats during a day, the faster their metabolism. When the body knows that it can expect more food, it's not as likely to store all those extra calories in big meals as fat. There is a limit. Eating 23 meals per day isn't going to give you lightning metabolism, but generally the more meals you eat in a day, the higher your metabolism.
  
• Smaller portions. This point was always hard for me to wrap my head around. Even back when I was eating the right foods, I was still only eating breakfast, lunch, an afternoon snack, and dinner. Fewer meals meant that I was packing my plate full of food, with my dinner usually peaking at 900-1200 calories. By eating six small meals a day, this is no longer an option. If you're wondering what kind of small meals I'm eating, here are some examples: soup & a salad, turkey sandwich, oatmeal with fruit, beef nachos, spaghetti with side salad, BBQ chicken (Stubb's) with green beans and mac & cheese, 2-egg omellete with turkey bacon and 2 waffles, etc. These are all normal meals, just using ingredients and portions that limit each to 450 or fewer calories.
  
• The right ingredients. This is possibly the hardest concept for people to grasp. The foods that you should be eating consist of: whole grains (whole wheat, oats, brown rice, etc), fruits, vegetables, healthy cuts of meat (white meat on poultry, and lean cuts of pork and beef), with sparing use of healthy oils such as olive oil. With meat you have to realize that the USDA recommends eating between 5 and 9 ounces a day. If you are serious about being healthy, the internet is a wealth of knowledge on the subject. Personally I read a lot of information on WebMD.
  
• This is for life. When you make a decision to eat right, it isn't going on a diet. 'Dieting' is something from the 90's, and doesn't ever work. Even if someone manages to take a few pounds off, they'll be right back where they started once they resume their 'normal' eating style. There are healthy ways to make practically any dish you currently enjoy, so don't think of this as saying farewell to favorites like Tex-Mex and pizza.

For more information, look back at the posts I made previously or hit up our good friend Google.

Unfortunately beyond telling you that I feel amazing and wide awake during the day now, there isn't much that I can do to show the effect this is having on my life. In a few months the results may be a bit more obvious.

Labels: nutrition

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