Filed under: Nutrition, Recipes
I will admit, I have been absolutely swamped today, so I wasn’t able to pull together the awesomeness that was going to be my blog post today. However, it will be done for tomorrow, so keep your eyes peeled!
I guess that is the one downside to going on vacation – the absolute mountain of work to tackle when you get home.
Anyway, I didn’t want to leave you guys hanging, so check out this new article I had posted over at getprograde.com!
5 Quick and Easy Lunch Ideas
I pulled together some of my very own original recipes, as well as tips and ideas on how to give yourself the quickest and easiest ways to have a healthy lunch every day. I know I say it all the time, especially to my clients, but food prep is king!
While I wouldn’t recommend spending hours per day preparing your food, set aside 5-10 minutes everyday to make and or pack yourself 2 quality meals. It is amazing how much more consistent your intake will be when you do this, and consistency is key to long-lasting results. Period.
So check it out.
Plus don’t forget Prograde is having a 14% off sale on ALL of their products. Just a small reminder for those interested.
Filed under: General Health, Nutrition
I just wanted to give you guys a quick heads up that Prograde is offering a 14% discount on ALL of their products over the next few days.
Jayson Hunter’s daughter is turning 4, so to celebrate her birthday they are offering this tremendous discount!
To get the discount, click HERE <———
I particularly like their multivitamins, so be sure to check those out! I will also note that if you sign up for their Smart Ship program (where the item is shipped to you automatically every month), you save the most money by far.
Filed under: Nutrition
I recently posted a new Day in the Life blog about what my diet looks like on a non-training day. A reader asked in the comment section how this would differ on a day where I was training, especially since I have cut down my intake to 4 meals a day, rather than 5.
To be honest it is not tremendously different. If I was trying to gain some mass, or get leaner then that might change things a bit, but since I am just maintaining my current state, most of my days look relatively similar.
In addition I thought this would also be a good time to point out that you will notice I don’t eat immediately before or after I train. Insane nutrient timing protocols are highly overrated, and newer research, especially in trained persons, is finding them to provide no extra benefit.
This isn’t to say that you shouldn’t bookend your training with high quality proteins, carbs, fats and produce, I am simply pointing out that the exact timing pales drastically in comparison to overall intake.
Anyway, on to the good stuff!
Wake @ 5:15
Breakfast @ 5:30
- ½ tbsp grass-fed butter from a local farm
- 5 whole pastured eggs from a local farm
- 1 Ezekiel sprouted grain English muffin, toasted
- 2 tsp Betsy’s of Maine Organic Apple Butter (organic – apples, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves)
- 1 banana
- 2oz POM Wonderful pomegranate juice
- 1 glass water
- 10oz black coffee
- 1 multivitamin
- 2,000IU vitamin D
- 1 tsp Carlson’s fish oil
- 1 probiotic Read the rest of this entry »
Filed under: Nutrition, Training
There are always interesting new developments in the research world, and I wanted to share a few fun ones with you guys today.
Many of you know how I dislike unstable surface training – ie. training on a Bosu ball or physioball, etc. EC’s Master’s thesis showed that unstable surface training actually decreased strength in athlete’s who were only using it for a very small percentage of their training.
Bosu for the Core?
Well, many people argue, these exercises are not about strength, they are about increasing the activity of your core and improving balance. However, Spanish researchers recently tested this theory and they found that performing total-body movements on an unstable surface (Bosu in this case) actually worked the core muscles less than doing the exercises on the floor. This was due to the fact that doing the exercises on the Bosu ball forced the exercisers to use less weight, requiring the core to work less hard.
If you want to read more about this, check out EC’s Truth About Unstable Surface Training.
Read the rest of this entry »
Filed under: Nutrition
Grilled cheese is an American staple. Who didn’t love a super buttery grilled cheese on white toast, with gobs of Kraft singles when they were a kid? It was delicious!
Unfortunately, white bread, Kraft singles made from dubious sources, and butter with annato (added to provide color because corn-based diets don’t provide adequate nutrition to do so) don’t exactly make for a top-notch health statement. Neither did adding several slices of poorly produces, massively processed deli meat.
However, last night I was determined to make a healthy grilled cheese where I felt satisfied enough in its integrity to feed it to my pregnant wife.
Using a local grass-fed butter, I buttered up our grill pan and set to work. I dropped in 4 slices of Ezekiel sesame bread and let those toast for several minutes. I flipped them for a minute to get both sides a little action.
Read the rest of this entry »
Filed under: Nutrition, Training
EC sent me a Pubmed link to a pretty interesting study recently performed at the Human Performance Laboratory at The University of Alabama.
In this study they took six highly trained endurance athletes and had them carb load for several days prior to testing.
First the group was given its extra carbs for the loading from Gatorade. Then a few weeks later they were given half of their loading carbs form chia seeds, and the other half from Gatorade. Both of the treatments had their carb-loading based on subject bodyweight, so that their intakes were isocaloric.
Read the rest of this entry »
Filed under: Nutrition
Jim “Smitty” Smith, creator of Accelerated Muscular Development, will be running a 6 part series of nutrition tips and guidelines from yours truly on his fantastic blog.
You guys can check out the first tip right HERE.
Alright, I am off to do some more thesis research on fructans in wheat!
Filed under: Nutrition
I have had several requests recently from readers to comment on the Paleo diet that seems to be all the rage in many internet nutrition communities these days.
First lets try to define what the Paleo diet is, as there seems to be several variations of it.
According to Wikipedia:
“The modern dietary regimen known as the Paleolithic diet (abbreviated paleo diet or paleodiet), also popularly referred to as the caveman diet, Stone Age diet and hunter-gatherer diet, is a nutritional plan based on the presumed ancient diet of wild plants and animals that various human species habitually consumed during the Paleolithic era—a period of about 2.5 million years duration that ended around 10,000 years ago with the development of agriculture. In common usage, such terms as the “Paleolithic diet” also refer to the actual ancestral human diet. Centered on commonly available modern foods, the “contemporary” Paleolithic diet consists mainly of meat, fish, vegetables, fruit, roots, and nuts, and excludes grains, legumes, dairy products, salt, refined sugar, and processed oils”
Read the rest of this entry »
Filed under: Nutrition
It has been a while since I posted one of these, and I also wanted to share an example of a day when I don’t train. Most of my other examples have been on training days.
In addition I am currently playing around with eating only 4 meals per day, rather than 5. It is working out very nicely so far, and allows me to spend a little less time on food prep, which is also nice.
Wake @ 5:15
Breakfast @ 5:30
- ½ tbsp grass-fed butter from a local farm
- 5 whole pastured eggs from a local farm
- 2 slices Ezekiel sesame sprouted grain toast
- 2 tsp Betsy’s of Maine Organic Apple Butter (organic – apples, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves)
- 1 banana
- 2oz POM Wonderful pomegranate juice
- 1 glass water
- 20oz black coffee
- 1 multivitamin
- 2,000IU vitamin D
- 1 tsp Carlson’s fish oil
- 1 probiotic
Read the rest of this entry »
Filed under: General Health, Nutrition
I like to post these Digging Through the Archives blogs from time to time, as I know it can be easy to forget stuff you have read before, or maybe you missed some of these posts. Unless you read my stuff religiously, it can be tough to keep up!
Plus, it is often a good refresher for me, as sometimes even I forget some of the things I have written about in the past!
Snacks from the Past – this is a simple but often forgotten snack that I think more people would love to put back in their diet – Ants on a Log! I not only provide a recipe, I give you all of the health benefits associated with each food.
Why Eggs Prevent Heart Disease – this is one of my best blog posts ever in my opinion. While not a comprehensive review of the health benefits of eggs, that would go beyond the scope of this blog, it delves into several components of eggs and why the prevent heart disease.
More Good News for Grass-fed Meat – I discuss some sweet research showing that consuming grass-fed meat compared to grain-fed meat was able to raise levels of omega-3′s in the participants. Many people try to claim that difference in omega-3 content between the two meats is negligible, this study proved them wrong.
Posted on March 24th, 2011 by Brian St. Pierre
5 Comments »