Diet Procrastination: Nutrient Choices and Quality

A nutritional diet

Myth: good quality food is always more expensive.

Fact: you are clueless!

Yesterday I drove down from Oklahoma City towards Houston. Whilst there, I stopped in Dallas for a coaching call from Germany. As time was limited and my office sits across from Trader Joes, I saw there is no warmer welcome to a healthy lifestyle than having the store sit right in front of your office. Once inside, I had a clear goal within the scope of my Keto diet I grabbed the following:

• 1 Avocado

• Smoked Salmon

• Small Brie Cheese

• Bottle of Pellegrino water

• Dark Chocolate Bar

These are all good fats and high in protein. The plus side was that I got the large bottle of sparkling and dessert for under $13 USD.

Pretty sure it was gluten free also! BONUS!

But what does dark chocolate have to do with Keto? Well if you didn’t know dark chocolate is filled with antioxidants and has caffeine.

Firstly, you cannot confuse the two (cocoa and chocolate) Chocolate which is created by mixing it with additives, like for example milk for milk chocolate. Cocoa is the basic ingredient of chocolate, which comes form the cocoa seeds. Dark Chocolate has a higher content of cocoa than milk chocolate does. On a keto diet, it is encouraged to have dark chocolate as it contains cocoa butter and healthy fats as the additive. This raises the fat% vs. sugar (dark chocolate, under 20 grams of sugars) vs (milk chocolate, +40 grams of sugar). This makes dark chocolate, specially if mixed with nuts of coconut an awesome choice for ketoers.

The keto diet

The reason for adding the chocolate to my diet is that I have been eating chocolate regularly to maintain my current weight and by adding calories that are still healthy. Last month, I decided that I wanted to maintain my weight between 215-217lbs, around the same weight I was in high school, while then playing basketball and training every day as an athelte. This was a little daunting as I kept losing weight from my 236lbs at the start of the year and had to add more food to my diet, whilst also ensuring it was of high quality. On a work trip to Moscow, I decided to eat whatever I felt like and not worry about keto for a week and see is that would give me some weight maintenance. Still all grains are out of my diet.

• I have been training my body the last few months to switch and stay in ketosis.
• I have been fasting from 9pm to 1pm nearly every day, which my body has gotten used too and now natural part of my lifestyle.
• I have stopped eating when it is appropriate and chosen to eat when my body tells me too. This means I usually eat between 1-2 decent sized meals each day.

These types of food are clean and high-quality sources, such as fish, vegetables, and healthy fats like avocados. This process has helped re shape my food processing organs and reduce my stomach walls, which are made of muscle. This in turns curves my appetite further. I also take a plant-based multivitamin with minerals and probiotics to make sure I’m getting everything that food may not provide.

Training yourself

When I have a choice of rice or pasta I am never one to get overexcited anymore, I avoid them, same a starches. These foods are fillers that expand in your stomach to make you feel full. They were populated years ago to curve appetite in periods of hunger since they are cheap and energy intensive. In keto diet, you can eat less while still getting the same amount of calories given that healthy fats have more calories per gram vs sugars.

When I returned from my trip to Moscow I measured at 210lbs after fasting on the 16hr flight via Dubai. My last scale measurement placed me at 209lbs (95kgs). By sticking to my current healthy food plan my energy levels are great and I feel more productive. I exercise a few times a week but not excessively. I have had a lot of body movement and metabolism changes, however, the greatest change has been in my mind and the way I approach food.

We been told that we need to eat 3 times a day, most likely by our parents or society itself. Make no mistake, this is a schedule set up when industrialization came about and then Henry Ford developed the production line and had to schedule the workers to provide the most efficient work. The production line concept spread like wild fire around the world and it is today the main industrial system for production.

However, the intense manual labor we were doing 100 years ago is no longer here and has been outdated by about 30 years by computers while we sit in an office with them or even additional machines and tools for us to do the job. However, the eating schedule has not been updated to reflect on our current industrial processes which has been producing an epidemic of weight gain around the globe and in special in the US.

Listen to your body and eat when you are hungry. Get rid of the oppression of sugars, which are now found everywhere and are beginning to be considered, studies and handled as a drug.