I devote a decent amount of posts on this blog to telling readers about what NOT to eat. I've done posts on how to frind what's hidden on nutrition labels, the dangers of eating saturated fats, bread, fast food, artificial sweeteners, throwing out processed food, why you shouldn't drink diet soda, why food dyes are bad, and most recently...why Nutella is terrible.
I very rarely talk about what I think you should eat. I've mentioned that we don't eat very rarely eat processed food and that we try to buy local and organic when possible...but I've never really given you a glipse into my typical daily diet. Are you excited yet??
So about two weeks ago I decided to log everything that I ate for a full week. I used a website called Calorie Count, but there are others out there that do the same thing. The website has a pretty extensive list of raw veggies and fruits, restaurant fare and processed foods. But for someone that eats as much home-cooked meals as I do, the site made it difficult to track my calories and nutrients very accurately. They have the option of creating your own meal and plugging in all of the info yourself, but I simply didn't have the time to do this. So I used the existing list of foods that were on the site and tried to find something as close as possible to what I actually ate. I also took a screen shot of some details on what the site had to say about my diet for that day. The calorie count might be a little off, but the distribution is probably pretty accurate.
So here is a complete list of everything that I ate during this seven day span:
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| Thursday, June 13th |
Breakfast (post workout)
- Cultured Coconut Milk (yogurt)
- Quinoa porridge with blueberries (made with almond milk and honey)
- Earth Fare Trail Mix with Dark Chocolate (about 2 hand-fulls)
- Pulled Chicken BBQ
- Green Beans
- Pinto Beans
- Garden of Life brand Protein Powder mixed with Coconut Milk
- Grilled Chicken Breast topped with feta cheese
- Plain Sweet Potato
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| Friday, June 14th |
Breakfast (post workout)
- Oatmeal with Raisins and Apples
- Ezekiel Sprouted Grain Cereal with Coconut milk
- Earth Fare Mixed Nuts (about 2 hand-fulls)
- Grilled Chicken Asada soft tacos
- Guacamole
- Piece of dark chocolate
- Grilled Chicken Breast with feta cheese
- Black Bean burger
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| Saturday, June 15th |
Breakfast (post workout)
- Cultured Coconut Milk (yogurt)
- Banana with almond butter
- Blueberry muffin
- Homemade mix (almonds, raisins, honey)
- Grass-fed burger
- Greens salad
- Pasta salad
- Corn Chips & salsa
- Ham & Cheese Roll-Ups with Avacado
- Chips & Salsa Appitizer
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| Sunday, June 16th |
Breakfast
- Cultured Coconut Milk (yogurt)
- Egg Omelet with ham and avacado
- Baby Carrots & Hummus
- 1 scoop of Strawberry Ice Cream
- Country-Style Ribs (oh yeah!)
- Mashed Potatoes
- Mac & Cheese
- Corn on the Cob
- Fruit Salad
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| Monday, June 17th |
Breakfast (post workout)
- Cultured Coconut Milk (yogurt)
- Banana with Almond Butter
- Ezekiel Sprouted Grain Cereal with Coconut milk
- Earth Fare Trail Mix with Dark Chocolate (about 2 hand-fulls)
- Tacos Carnitas (BBQ pork & pickled veggies)
- Cilantro Rice
- Earth Fare brand Veggie Chips
- Grilled Chicken Teriyaki with roasted veggies over brown rice
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| Tuesday, June 18th |
Breakfast (post workout)
- Cultured Coconut Milk (yogurt)
- Banana
- Ezekiel Sprouted Grain Cereal with Coconut milk
- Earth Fare brand Veggie Chips
- Grilled Chicken Teriyaki with roasted veggies over brown rice
- Country-Style Ribs
- Garden of Life Whole Food Greens bar
- Organic Steak (top sirloin)
- Sweet Potato
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| Wednesday, June 19th |
Breakfast
- Cultured Coconut Milk (yogurt)
- Quinoa porridge with blueberries (made with almond milk and honey)
- Earth Fare brand Ginger Bliss Snack Mix
- 1/2 turkey sandwich
- Red Grapes
- Mary's Gone Organic Crackers & Hummus
- Small bag of cashews
- Clif bar
The only thing that I consumed not listed here are my daily supplements and my personalized herbal tea concoction that I get from Meridian Acupuncture & Herbal Medicine, which I will discuss in more detail in another post.
I also drank only water, with the exception of a beer while watching the UofL baseball game at BW3's. I also drank some hot tea one night before bed. I typically drink between 200-250 fluid oz. of water a day.
I also drank only water, with the exception of a beer while watching the UofL baseball game at BW3's. I also drank some hot tea one night before bed. I typically drink between 200-250 fluid oz. of water a day.
As I typed out what I ate, I realized that with Father's Day thrown in there, it wasn't a "typical" week for me. I normally wouldn't scarf down the meal that we had Sunday night; but it was a special occasion. I firmly believe that in order to stick to a good diet, you have to allow yourself to indulge once in a while. I usually save these meals for holidays and vacations.
Looking at the data from the Calorie Count website, I see that my typical diet consisted of about 41% carbohydrates, 22% protein and 37% fats. I used to go with a 55/30/15 mix of carbs/protein/fats, but I've done a lot a reading on the benefits of healthy fats, so I've swapped out some carbs for fats over the last 6 months or so.
My average daily calories were 2,305. I know that I would like to be between 2400 and 2600 calories per day. (resting metabolic rate is around 1800, plus I burn about 600-800 calories a day while training). So without ever actually counting calories, I was pretty close to my goal intake.
I also wanted to mention that I have a fasting period of about 12-13 hours every day (which I recommend for males). We finish dinner around 6pm and I don't eat again until after my morning workout, around 7am the next morning.
I didn't go into details on the homemade meals, but we get 90% of our food from two sources. First is our fruits, vegetables and some meats. They call come from a home delivery service called GreenBEAN Delivery. Every Tuesday we get a bin full of organic produce (from local farms whenever possible) delivered to our front door. On Sunday afternoons, when Jessica usually plans out our meals for the week, I get on the GreenBEAN website and customize our bin for the week - full of the produce we need for the meals she's planned.
Whatever produce and meats we don't get from GreenBEAN, I try to buy from Earth Fare. Earth Fare is a unique grocery store that I drive out of the way to go to. What makes them different is not what they do carry on their shelves, but what they don't. Nothing, I repeat...nothing in the store contains any of the following:
- High Fructose Corn Syrup
- Artificial Fats
- Trans Fats
- Artificial Colors or Flavors
- Artificial Sweeteners
- Artificial Preservatives
- Bleached or bromated flour
- Synthetic growth hormones
- Antibiotics
This means that I don't have to walk up and down the isles reading labels - like I have to do at Meijer, Kroger, Walmart or even Whole Foods and Trader Joe's. I know that everything I pick up, while not always healthy, is at least not full of artificial junk that is harmful to myself and my family.
As you can see, my diet isn't perfect. I strive for a 90/10 split. If I make good choices 90% of the time, then eating unhealthy the other 10% of the time isn't going to hurt me.
Feel free to ask me any questions or comment. I can talk about this stuff all day long!
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