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If we have such a high percentage of these organisms living symbiotically with our bodies, you would think we would need to treat these bacteria as though they are a part of us, right? However, most people completely neglect gut health altogether. This can be a dangerous practice, since these gut bacteria can influence digestion of food, absorption of nutrients, control over cravings, and many other cognitive functions. At the risk of turning this post into Sci-Fi, we basically have a colony or microscopic organisms living in our digestive system controlling our bodies and our thoughts.
If you are learning about gut health for the first time right now, no need to panic. There are ways you can improve your gut health right now. It will not be an overnight fix, of course, but there are some long-term habits you can begin building that will keep those little guys happy, and in turn extend your life.
Probiotics come in many different shapes and sizes. They are foods which are typically fermented, and they contain good bacteria in them which populate your gut and help promote a healthy colony of the good stuff in your digestive system. My favorite foods here are kombucha (a fermented tea drink), kimchi (fermented cabbage, usually spicy), and sauerkraut.
Probiotics also come in supplement form, but those are not always as effective. Typically, you want to get these from food sources if possible.
This is something you should be doing anyways. Not only should you eat a lot of vegetables, but you should eat a lot of different kinds of vegetables. There are plenty of different strains of bacteria in your gut, and they feed off of different types of nutrients. Mixing up veggie types will keep all the different bacterias healthy and thriving, and allow them to work when they’re supposed to and get out of the way when you don’t need them.
Processed foods, however, promote the growth of the bad bacteria. One of the worst things that can happen is the bacteria can travel higher up in the digestive system in search of more processed foods (which are typically digested earlier in the digestive tract) and begin to populate even as far up as your stomach. Once there, they can eat away at the lining of your stomach and cause some serious damage. We don’t want this, so avoid processed foods as much as possible.
I am sure you have heard that eating sugar causes more sugar cravings. Even people with sweet tooths tend to notice that it goes away if we ignore it for long enough to get past the cravings. It is very clear that sugar is addicting. People addicted to sugar have been shown via brain scans to crave sugar more than heroin addicts crave heroin (Sidenote: heroin is another thing you should avoid).
Similar to processed foods, these sugars are like, well, candy for the bad bacteria in your gut. They love it so much that they will travel up in your digestive tract in search of it as well. Furthermore (and this is where it gets creepy), there are so many of these bacteria in your body that they are actually able to send signals to your brain and influence thoughts. This is where the cravings come in. Your insatiable desire to eat more sugar is coming from your gut bacteria sending signals to your brain looking for more. It is truly a remarkable process.
And artificial sweeteners are no better. They are low in calories, but they cause the same type of response from the gut microbiome. Which means they can be equally as dangerous, and not do much to prevent future cravings.
. . .
Ultimately, this is an area science still needs to do a whole lot more research on. I am certain that we will learn a lot more about gut bacteria over the next few years, and it will likely be one of the biggest nutrition trends of the next decade. For now, the things we know is that these bacteria are incredibly important, and they can be managed based on our dietary choices. So do yourself a favor, suck down a kombucha and eat a little kale. Your body will thank you.
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]]>The post Constructing the Perfect Meal, a Step-by-Step Guide first appeared on .
]]>Although nutrition is largely a personal endeavor, there are some foolproof ways to make sure you are hitting the basics with your meal construction. That being said, this is a step-by-step guide I have developed to figure out how to build the perfect meal for you.
Step 1: Establish Goals
This is the most important step. Everything else hinges upon the decisions made in this step. Are you trying to lose fat? Gain muscle? Optimize for brain health? Optimize for athletic performance? Increase energy? Many times a few of these goals can be tackled at once, but it is important to determine priorities first.
Once your goals are established, you can make a few general decisions. For example, if your goal is to lose fat, you know your portions for meals need to be a little smaller, and definitely reduced in EITHER fat or carbs. If you are interested in gaining muscle, you will need to increase the quantity of food, specifically protein and carbs. For brain optimization, fat should be increased. For athletic performance carbs should be increased.
Step 2: Estimate Portions
Some people measure or weigh their food. This is ultimately a waste of time, since even the most accurate calculations can still be up to 30% off in total calories. There are many flaws with the concept of counting calories. Instead, ballpark estimates of portions for various macronutrients work best.
The three macronutrients are protein, carbs, and fat. When setting up a plate, the default should always be to think of a plate divided into thirds. One third should be protein, one third should be carbs, and one third should be veggies (veggies are often “carriers” for fat, since they are often cooked in olive oil, coconut oil, butter, etc). If each third is roughly the size of your closed fist, you will have a solid meal in place.
Now, if you take into account your goals, some of those ratios may change a bit, and adjustments should be made accordingly. Maybe your portions are a bit smaller, maybe they are a bit larger, and maybe a solid dose of healthy fats gets added on top. However, when in doubt, dividing the plate into 3 fist-sized portions of protein, carbs, and vegetables will never steer you wrong.
Step 3: Focus on Nutrient Density
After goals and portions are determined, we need to now look at the quality of the ingredients Getting the macronutrients set is a great first step. When we figure out how to eat the right amounts of protein, carbs, and fat, we can control our weight effectively and manage overall intake. However, if we then want to begin optimizing for overall health, we need to look at the lesser-known components of our food: the micronutrients.
Beyond protein, carbs, and fat, our food is comprised of many other nutrients; vitamins A, B, C, D, E, and K, magnesium, selenium, zinc, copper, iron, and others all fit into this category. Certain foods are significantly more dense in these nutrients than others. For example, you could get two foods with identical macronutrient compositions but vastly different micronutrient profiles. For example, you could make a salad with enough ingredients that it fits the same protein, carbs, and fat pattern as a Big Mac, but the salad will still be considered “healthier” since it will be loaded with micronutrients.
The perfect combination, however, would be finding a way to achieve the proper macronutrient combinations while also maximizing the total intake of diverse micronutrients. These micronutrients really cannot be monitored or tracked closely like a macronutrient, so it is tougher to manage. What people typically focus on with micronutrients is what is called “micronutrient diversity.” The goal is to make sure a wide array of different micronutrients are consumed relatively regularly. The best way to practice this is to eat as many different colors as possible. (Note: This does not mean foods that areartificially colored differently. It means foods that are naturally different colors). So when you are in the produce section of the grocery store, get some orange carrots, purple cabbage, green kale, red tomatoes, yellow peppers, and so on. This helps ensure that a wide array of nutrients are consumed regularly.
Step 4: Add Supplements (Optional)
There are a variety of supplements that can dramatically improve health, but it is important to remember that they are add-ons to an already healthy diet, not band-aids for a poor diet. So if steps 1, 2 and 3 are properly executed, and the meal is arranged in a way that optimizes overall health, it could then be advantageous to add supplements on top of that.
Some examples of supplements here could be fish oil (I typically take 1g of fish oil with all three meals I eat during the day), various vitamins in supplement form (many people are deficient in Vitamin D and could benefit from supplementation), or other supplements recommended by a doctor or nutritionist. There are many health food supplements out there, and a lot of them are scams, so it is important to be careful when selecting any supplements to add to a nutrition plan.
. . .
If you follow these four steps consistently when putting meals together, you will find that any issues you have had in the past about nutrition being too complicated to gradually ease up. Each step here is relatively simple, and if we keep the concepts of nutrition as simple as possible, it will be much easier for us to maintain consistent and healthy practices.
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So after we binge and go off the handle a bit, how do we bounce back and get ourselves going again while minimizing the total damage done? The one thing we want to avoid more than anything else is an all-or-nothing mentality. This line of thinking is incredibly common among people who struggle to stick with a nutrition plan. The basic line of thinking is that you need to either be all-in on a meal plan and firing on all cylinders, and the slightest bit of cheating will throw a wrench in the whole system and cause you to go off the deep end and spiral out of control.
Clearly, this is not the goal of any nutrition plan. This typically happens because people have a tendency to try to rely on willpower to get them through difficult nutrition situations, but willpower is rarely as strong as people think it is. It is important to understand this point: systems will always prevail when willpower fails. That sentence is worth re-reading to drill it into your head. Systems will always prevail when willpower fails. Practically speaking, this means the best way to prevent a binge happening in the first place is to put systems in place in your life that avoid binging. If you know chocolate is your weakness, don’t keep chocolate in your house. If you know there’s a certain friend that always convinces you to put the diet on hold and eat an entire cheesecake with them, spend less time with that friend. Or make a no cheesecake rule with them.
However, if it is Monday morning and you are looking back on your weekend in horror thinking there is no way to possibly recover from the thousands of calories you consumed, and you have no idea how to bounce back, there are some actions you can take, and some actions you want to completely avoid.
What to Avoid:
What to Do:
These three methods are the most effective ways to bounce back after temporary lapses in previously-established habits. However, it is important to not get into a habit of being a weekend warrior and allowing yourself to fly off the handle every Friday night, knowing that you are able to pull in the reigns again come Monday morning. This is simply a strategy for undoing some of the damage that comes from the occasional over-indulgence.
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]]>The post How to Make a Big Change first appeared on .
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As usual, I see this breakdown as an 80/20 breakdown. In regards to fitness and dieting, 20% of the results come from gathering proper information, and 80% of the results come from developing and maintaining positive habits. Well-established fitness entrepreneur Mike Vacanti just came out with a shirt that has “Consistency / Perfection” (“consistency over perfection”). The idea being that being able to consistently maintain a pretty good diet is so much more important than crashing and binging repeatedly on a “perfect” diet that will ultimately fail.
So with habit change being as important as it is, let me go over two strategies that both seem to work pretty well for different people. Both have their pros and cons, and they require an understanding of yourself to properly execute.
Strategy #1: The Lead Domino
What is it?
The “Lead Domino” strategy consists of finding a small area of change that will ultimately have reciprocal benefits. By focusing attention on this one small change, you don’t burn yourself out by having to worry about a variety of different health principles, and other areas of health ultimately fall into line naturally.
What is an example?
An example of this would be focusing all your attention on getting 8 hours of sleep per night. While this has plenty of benefits in itself, it will also likely result in less late-night binge eating, less caffeine consumption, increased energy to workout during the day, and so on.
Another lead domino could be making sure your breakfast is as great as possible. High in protein, fiber, and with a little bit of healthy fats, this breakfast could have the benefits of jumpstarting your metabolism, beginning to burn body fat right away, but then also keeping you full and satiated for a longer period of time, reducing the risk of a calorie surplus.
What are the negatives?
This process is relatively slow-moving, and is not for someone who is impatient. If you are strong-willed but impatient, this strategy may frustrate you too much in the short-term to be sustainable in the long-term. These types of people should look to the second strategy for success…
Strategy #2: The Grand Intervention
What is it?
This strategy is more or less the opposite of the first strategy. With a grand intervention, one is essentially deciding to make a whole host of changes together. This is also referred to as “piggy-back changes.” This results in many different habits changing simultaneously.
What is an example?
The examples here are endless. Sometimes I see it when people join our gym and get their introductory nutrition consultation. They realize that there is a lot they are doing that could be improved, want to make the most out of their time in the gym, and hit Whole Foods ready to completely restructure their diet.
For these highly motivated people, I like to try to limit their piggy-back changes to smaller groupings (we call them “Tiers”). For example, we’ll encourage them to try to get a lot of sleep, drink a lot of water, and have a high-quality, high-protein breakfast every day. Once those three are established, we will build upon those habits with another grouping. This seems to be pretty effective.
What are the negatives?
The biggest negative here is decision fatigue. It is difficult for many people to make such dramatic changes on the fly. Often times, the old habits begin to seep back into their daily lives, or they just burn out from the hard work involved with eating and training right. These people run the risk of getting into a “yo-yo diet” trend, where they go all-in and see great improvements, then go into a binging period where they get out of shape until they get fed-up and go all-in on a diet again.
. . .
Choosing a Strategy
To effectively choose which of these strategies may work for yourself, you need to audit the way you typically make decisions. If you are the type of person that can patiently make one thing a habit, and then build upon that gradually over a longer period of time, then you should begin looking for a lead domino. You will likely have lots of success in the long-term, since this is a far more sustainable strategy. You will be more likely to lead a life of sustained health and well-being.
If you lack that patience, but know you are capable of practicing strong will-power, then you may want to make a grand intervention in your diet and change a few things up at once. Furthermore, if you are only interested in a short-term fix (such as looking great for a trip next month) and don’t really care about the longer-term, then this could be another effective strategy for you. You would only need to stick out the big changes for a short period of time, and likely won’t run the risk of burning out on it.
Ultimately, you may use both strategies at different periods of your life. I tend to operate this way. I can pile a handful of changes up at once, and use them to strengthen each other, but I know that I will burn out within a few months. At the point I begin to experience burnout, I default back to the basics, and search for the lead domino that will keep me healthy and functioning while other habits may begin to waiver a bit. This way, I control myself from ever going too far off the deep end. However, it took a few years of trial and error with different strategies before I was able to fully understand that this was how I operate best. And for that matter, there may still be a better way for me to go about it that I have yet to find.
The key here is to pick a strategy and hammer it for at least two weeks to see if it works for you. If it does not, it may be time to reconsider and try another one. Both strategies can be incredibly effective if done correctly.
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]]>The post What is the Deal with the Ketogenic Diet? first appeared on .
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What is it?
First and foremost, let’s cover what keto actually is. If one were to subsist off a diet which causes their body to mimic the state of fasting for a long enough period, their body’s form of producing energy would shift. The goal is to get the body to stop relying on stored glucose (which we get from consuming carbohydrates) for energy production, and instead utilizing a fuel source called ketone-bodies.
In order to turn to this alternative fuel source, someone would need to consume a diet comprised of roughly 65-70% fats, 20-25% protein, and 5-10% carbohydrates. After maintaining this diet for a long enough period (typically 7-10 days), the body begins turning to a ketone-based fuel method, which we call “ketosis.” If someone is intentionally inducing ketosis through nutrition, we call that the Ketogenic Diet.
What is the point?
Some people’s bodies respond really well to a ketone fuel source. There are a variety of different reasons for this, but they are incredibly complex. However, for those who do respond well to ketosis, the process of mobilizing ketone bodies as a fuel source helps burn fat, gain muscle, and increases cognitive function. Which are all good things.
Successful keto dieters typically experience a leaner, more muscular physique, a surge in energy and testosterone production, and clearer, more focused thoughts. It is because of this that people who succeed on a ketogenic diet make so much noise about how amazing the diet is. This is not the case for everyone, however.
Should I try eating keto?
As mentioned before, this is not a simple answer. Without very extensive (and very expensive) bloodwork, there is no way to immediately know whether or not your body will respond well to a ketogenic diet. Therefore, trial and error is the only way to seriously find out how it works for you.
I have seen two people close to me go all-in on trying keto in the past few years. One quickly got into the best shape of his life, had his chronic headaches (which had been going on for 15 years) completely go away, and he approached life with a newfound vigor. The other saw almost no change physically, chronically felt depleted of energy, and felt as though his immune system was weakened. Two different people, same exact diet, drastically different results.
One thing I can say for sure, however, is I do not recommend experimenting with a ketogenic diet if you are an athlete. Although “increased energy” is often reported with successful keto dieters, the type of energy is a more sustained, long-term, slow-burning energy. This type of energy is advantageous in day-to-day life, but not particularly advantageous in most sports, and certainly is not ideal for athletic strength training. Most athletes will perform best on a traditional carb-adapted diet.
Exceptions
As with any rule, there are exceptions. The one exception I find to be particularly interesting in these circumstances is that of the cyclical ketogenic diet. Anyone who read the post about carbs and carb cycling may notice that this practice is relatively close to something we do regularly with our athletes. The concept of the cyclical ketogenic diet is: eat like you are on a ketogenic diet nearly all the time, and then introduce carbs in times of high intensity exercise. Essentially, this is carb cycling, a strategy we recommend to nearly any athlete trying to get lean without losing a step physically.
However, the cyclical ketogenic diet takes things one step further. Instead of simply avoiding carbs on off days, it requires a hefty dose of healthy fats throughout the day, and a very specific and concentrated dose of carbohydrates with a workout.
The reason these carbs would not influence ketosis is because your body uses glucose first if any is available for energy. If the carbs are dosed appropriately during a workout, they will all be used up, and none will be stored in the muscle or liver as glycogen. Therefore, once the energy is depleted, the body would automatically switch back to a ketone-burning process.
So, who should try a cyclical ketogenic diet? Again, it is important to keep in mind that ketosis simply will not work for some people based on their physiology. However, people that may want to experiment with a cyclical ketogenic diet are: very active people who train regularly but could afford to lose some body fat (ie. me), or athletes who are overweight and could perform better in their sport if they were leaner, and can afford to lose a bit of muscle along the way. Notice, this is a very small percentage of athletes. That being said, I am currently experimenting with a cyclical ketogenic diet, and I will keep everyone posted on how it works out for me.
. . .
Conclusion: Ketosis is cool, but not for everyone, and definitely not for nearly all athletes. Furthermore, it is very easy to mess up a ketogenic diet, and the slightest slip-up can cause any work you put into the diet to be rendered useless.
That being said, if you are very driven, open to experimentation, willing to pay too much for groceries, and can afford to possibly deal with the negatives if it doesn’t work out for you, the cyclical ketogenic diet seems like a pretty solid general fitness alternative to a traditional carb-dense diet.
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]]>The post Will You be Ready? first appeared on .
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Whether you care about this particular storyline or not, the message we can take from it is incredibly important. Tua showed preparedness, resilience, poise, and mental toughness in the time he played on Monday night.
Tua was a star in high school, and he entered college expecting to play. He thought he had the skill set to be a starting college QB. However, he found himself in a situation where he was spending nearly all his time on the bench, behind a player that had the ability to potentially start for another 3 years before Tua got his shot.
Many of you reading this will be able to relate to this feeling. We see some of our athletes go from being a superstar in high school to receiving a bit of a reality check when they get to the college level. With a clean slate, a higher playing level, and a tougher physical and mental demand, prior success goes out the window, and sometimes “superstars” have to swallow their pride and accept that they need to do their time on the bench before they get to jump into the bigger pond that is college sports.
This adjustment is not easy. We have seen incredibly talented athletes grow discouraged and quit their sport because they are not prepared to sit on the bench when they don’t think they deserve it. Other times, even if the discouraged player remains playing the sport, they experience a form of complacency, and they rest on their laurels, compromising their athletic development.
Clearly, this is not what happened with Tua. A college football season is long. The Alabama football team has been practicing and playing together for 7 straight months now. Jalen Hurts was the clear starter throughout the season. Sure there’s always the possibility of him going down with an injury, so Tua knew there was a chance he may need to get thrust into the QB position at some point.
However, on Monday night, he showed that not only did he remain serviceable during his time riding the bench, but he continued cultivating and honing his skills to the point that he was able to come off the bench at halftime in the National Championship and shred one of the best defenses in the country.
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So now the question that arises is, will you be ready? If you are reading this, chances are you are an athlete. But even if you aren’t this extends beyond sports. When your moment comes, will you have developed the skill set necessary to fully exploit that moment for all its worth?
Most of us will not find ourselves with a football in our hands preparing to throw the national championship-winning overtime touchdown throw, but we have our own versions of successes that we will have the ability to obtain when the moment comes.
This blog ultimately does not have the answers, and it does not give any practical advice as to how to directly cultivate the skill set necessary to be ready to hop off the bench in your sport, or your life, and squeeze every last drop out of the situation. But rather, this blog promotes a mindset switch.
Here’s the take-home message: If you feel like you’re on the bench right now, don’t hang your head and blame external circumstances for your lack of success. Go to work making sure you master your craft, whatever that may be, to the absolute best of your ability. That way when the external circumstances finally do align such that you have your shot at success, you are more prepared than anyone else to make the most of that moment.
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If you rate yourself on a 1-10 scale (1 = eats candy for breakfast, 10 = grow your own kale and raise grass-fed cattle to slaughter and eat in your backyard) as a 7 or higher, this post is for you.
This post is going to breakdown one particular method of intermittent fasting (IMF). This form of caloric restriction has become very popular recently, and is something we are all fans of here at Compete. As a practice, IMF exists in many shapes and sizes. I have found a method that works for me, and that is the one I will outline in this post. Just know, it is not the only nutritional fasting protocol that exists.
First and foremost, I want to briefly discuss the proposed benefits of IMF.
Benefits
Without getting too into the weeds with science, there are three main benefits of fasting that I particularly care about:
Even if fasting weekly only moves the needle a little bit in any of these categories, it is worth it. Because beyond the physical benefit, there are also amazing mental benefits, which I outline in this post.
These effects are not 100% scientifically proven, since nearly all research has been done in animal studies, and humans do not always follow the same patterns as monkeys or rats. However, it is safe to assume that at least some of these benefits translate to humans. And even if they don’t, it’s a gamble I am absolutely willing to take.
So here is the breakdown of what my fasting protocol looks like
Breakdown
Saturday Night (7:00PM) – This is my largest meal of the week. It is important to get some high quality fats in this meal (butter, avocado/guacamole, animal fats, etc) as this will help fuel the initial bout of your fast. Additionally, despite being a proponent of carb cycling on non-workout days, I like to use this as an exception and eat a type 2 carb during this meal. Sweet potato, quinoa, or beans are the carbs of choice.
As soon as this meal is finished, the fast is underway. Nothing besides water should be consumed for the remainder of the night.
Sunday Morning (7:00AM) – Thanks to a nice 8 hour sleep, I’m 12 hours deep in a fast by this point, and feel perfectly fine. I then make one of the following concoctions:
The combination of healthy fats and caffeine will light your brain up like a Christmas tree. As you start moving into the latter parts of the fast, you will occasionally notice a slight mental fog. Of course, not wanting to sacrifice optimal performance, you need to find a way to feed your brain while keeping caloric intake super low. The medium-chain triglycerides (MCTs) and omega-3 fatty acids in grass fed butter and coconut oil are devoured by your brain like a steak thrown to a pack of wolves.
Sunday Evening (3:00-7:00PM) – Depending on the day, my fast lasts from 20-24 hours. Some days I feel great and make it to 24 easily. Other days my performance is being hindered and I cut the fast down to 20 hours. At this point, I need to pay attention to what my body is telling me. Whenever I decide to end the fast, I make a meal that somewhat resembles this:
It’s tempting to eat a huge meal here due to excessive hunger. Through trial and error I have found that eating a large meal post-fast will result in an assured stomach ache. It works best for me to eat a small meal and let my digestive system ease its way back into the process of breaking down food, instead of throwing massive quantities of food at it while it’s coming off a rest. Then 2-3 hours later I eat a full meal that looks like this:
And that’s it. It’s a fairly simple process. Once a week I don’t eat food. As opposed to other intermittent fasting methods where intake is restricted 2+ times per week, this method front-loads the process to one singular weekly fast.
Perhaps counterintuitively, I find my Sundays to be incredibly productive while I’m in a fasting state. I know mentally that if I sit on the couch and watch football I’m going to feel hungry, so I get myself up and accomplish tasks to get my mind off of food. Before I know it, 7:00 rolls around and I’ve put together a very productive day.
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]]>The post A How-To Guide for Crushing 2018 Resolutions first appeared on .
]]>And so, if you are properly maintaining this 80/20 mindset, and you are at a low risk of yo-yoing, I am all for New Years Resolutions. I am a big self-auditor (another thing I wrote about on this blog) and the beginning of a new year is the perfect time to call your medium-term goals into check.
A goal is no good if it just exists ambiguously in your head. Furthermore, a goal is no good if it is vague and not actionable. So allow me to show you the process I go through when creating, reviewing, and auditing my yearly goals.
Step 1: Review Previous Goal
If you had a yearly goal at the beginning of last year, revisit it and see how you did. If you’re feeling ambitious, journal about it for 20-30 minutes and really break down how/why you succeeded or did not succeed at the goal you set for yourself last year.
If you did not set a yearly goal at the beginning of last year, you get to skip this step.
Step 2: Create SPECIFIC New Goal
Again, not a super complicated step, though it requires a bit more up-front work. For starters, you need to do a little visualization. Place yourself at the beginning of next year. Where do you want to be? What do you want to have accomplished at this point? What do you want to look like? What do you want your surroundings to look like? By answering these questions, you should be able to formulate a specific, actionable goal/resolution for the next 12 calendar months.
Here is an example of a bad resolution: Lose weight
Here is an example of a good resolution: Lose enough weight to fit into the pair of jeans I used to look really good in.
Here’s another bad one: Start going to the gym consistently again.
And another good one: Start a 2x/week training program for at least 1 hour per training session. Record all workouts and weights used during the workout.
Step 3: Write your Resolution Down
On paper. With a pen.
I like to use notecards. You can use anything besides a computer. Perform the physical act of writing words down on paper by hand.
Step 4: Create Actionable Steps for your Goal
This is why I like to use a notecard. Across the top of the card, I’ll write the goal in large lettering. Below it, I’ll either use numbers or bullet points, and list out the 3-5 steps that will be required for my resolution to be achieved. This is the most important step. If you can’t think of at least three action-steps for your goal, then go back to “Step 2” and reconfigure your resolution, because it is either not specific enough or it is too specific.
For example, let’s revisit the sample resolutions from before. If my resolution is “lose enough weight to fit into my old jeans” then my action steps could be:
Now I have a clear action path to my goal. After all, goals are worth shit by themselves.
Goals + Action = Results.
Goals + Inaction = Wasted time and energy.
Step 5: Put Your Goal on Display
This is the final step, and it can be done in a number of different ways. Some people are best motivated by public accountability. For these people, it may make sense to post their goals on social media. This way their friends and family can help make sure their actions stay aligned with their goals.
For those that are more intrinsically motivated, place your goal (written on a notecard or sheet of paper) somewhere you see it often. In the past I have taped notecards to my mirror, used them as a placeholder in my daily planner, taped them to my bedside table, and taped them face-up on my desk. All have been effective in their own way.
Not only will displaying your goal help you remember what it is you are trying to achieve when motivation gets low, but it will help you repeat this cycle with “Step 1” when the next year comes around.
. . .
If real habit change is your goal, this form of annual auditing can be incredibly helpful. By using these methods, you can give yourself a leg-up on people who are setting meaningless resolutions that will never be actualized.
Sure, the concept of a “New Year’s Resolution” can seem a little hokey or silly, but if you have a big change you are trying to make, why not use this opportunity to finally act on it? Nearly everyone who reads this will have Jan. 1st off from work. So take an hour, do some soul-searching, set a 1 year goal, and lay out the path you are going to take to annihilate that goal.
“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.” – Chinese Proverb
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]]>Every time I go to a holiday party the following situation happens: 1. Someone comes up and offers me a Christmas cookie from a platter 2. They immediately recant the offer and assume they’ve offended me since I’m a “nutrition guy or whatever” and cookies aren’t healthy 3. I aggressively grab the cookie from their plate and eat it without breaking eye contact.
That being said, I don’t go to a lot of Christmas parties. And I don’t eat a lot of cookies at those parties. And chances are I ate salmon, quinoa, and asparagus for lunch before the party. The way I apply the 80/20 Principle here is by allowing a roughly 20% lapse in “perfect” nutrition in my diet. This seems to be the sweet spot for being able to maintain a consistent level of quality nutrition. As well-known strength and nutrition coach Mike Vacanti always says, “consistency over perfection.”
There have been periods of my life where I have eaten more or less “perfect” for extended periods of time; however, they were inevitably followed by prolonged binges and a complete de-emphasis on nutrition altogether. Conversely, there have been periods of my life where I have allowed the pendulum to swing too far the other way, and I have allowed too many “cheats” or “lapses” in my nutrition and I did not get the results I was seeking.
The perfect happy medium lies in the ability to remain dialed in for roughly 80% of the time, and relaxed for the remaining 20%. The results have been amazing, and I will list the main benefits out for you below.
1. Sustainability
The key to any solid nutrition program is being able to maintain it for a long period of time. A perfect nutrition program that tracks macronutients, varies micronutrients effectively, embodies nutrient timing principles, and is never followed is a terrible nutrition program.
As Gen. George S. Patton put it, “a good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week.” Essentially, creating a nutrition program that you can and will actually keep up with is way more important than getting every little thing correct.
2. Lack of Cravings
One issue I always had when I was eating as “perfect” as possible for extended periods of time was the insane amounts of cravings. I would find myself dreaming about eating things I love (like Christmas cookies) but was restricting myself from.
In a diet following 80/20, you get to build in the allowance of some of these foods that you love, and the cravings are mitigated. And this point leads right into the following….
3. Improved Relationship with Food/No More Binging
In a very restrictive diet, you can begin to view food as an obstacle. You ascribe value judgments (good vs. bad) to foods without allowing for context. This can create negative feelings toward some foods (“ugh I haaaave to eat this broccoli”) and unhealthy infatuations with other foods (“I would saw off at least three toes for a slice of pizza right now”).
And this relationship can easily become a slippery slope. You catch a whiff of melted cheese and spiral into a pizza-filled frenzy from which you do not emerge for 48-72 hours. I’ve seen it a million times.
In an 80/20 diet, the occasional exposure to a slice of pizza here and there, establishes a relationship where you are in control of what you are putting in your body, and the pizza has no power over you. This is huge for mental health as well as physical health.
4. More Experiences
Eliminating some restriction from your diet allows for more life experiences without feeling guilty or like you’re cheating. I know that if I find myself out at a nice Italian restaurant, I can eat all the pasta I want and experience what that restaurant has to offer. There were times in my life where I would have ordered baked, skinless chicken and extra broccoli at that restaurant, and ate it miserably while I watched those around me slurp down spaghetti like the world was running out of it.
Most importantly, this practice allows you to remain present during these experiences. Generally speaking, it is better to spend less time worrying, and more time living. A measure I often use for success while reflecting on days, weeks, quarters, etc. is to retrospectively analyze how much time I spent living in the present moment without worrying about causations or implications. Less time worrying about food allows for more time to be spent in the present, and that’s what is most important.
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A few final notes that are important to mention in the context of this blog:
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Currently, the whole nutrition world seems to be against carbs. Mythical stories of Lebron’s “Carb Free Summer” circulate around, paleo guys talk about ketone bodies like they’re the food-form of Jesus Christ, and nearly anyone looking through a menu at a restaurant comments on the fact that they’re “trying to cut back on carbs.” The fact of the matter is: carbs are GREAT for you. And in this post I am going to outline why that is.
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If you’re an athlete, a former athlete trying to stay in shape, or a recreationally active person, chances are you will have relatively high energy demand. And if you’re like most human beings, you receive your energy from the food you consume. Everyone at least roughly knows that the food you take in is ultimately converted to energy, but it is not too common for someone to know how this happens. So let me try to break it down for you.
Our end goal with energy production is ATP. Essentially, think of ATP as energy. At any given time, our body stores roughly 100g of ATP. However, the average person (non-athlete) will use somewhere around 130 lbs of ATP in a day. A competitive athlete will use much more. Therefore, if we want sustained energy throughout the day, we need to be eating the right foods to allow our bodies to continue generating the necessary energy.
Technically, all three macronutrients can be used for energy. Protein, carbs, and fat each play their role in energy production. For the sake of this conversation, however, I’m just going to discuss the roles of carbs and fat.
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Our bodies utilize three main energy systems. That is to say, there are three processes our body uses to turn food into energy. The first energy system is for short intense bouts of energy (think 10-20s of hard work). This is called the ATP-PCr system. The second energy system is a little more complex, but can be utilized for much longer. This is called the glycolytic pathway. The final energy system is the most complex, and can be sustained for the longest, but it requires a much slower pace (think jogging). This is called the oxidative phosphorylative pathway.
These energy systems are complex, and learning how they work takes a lot of time, but to put things very simply, the first two energy systems require glucose, and the final system requires triglycerides.
To put it even more simply, we need carbs for hard exercise, and fats for longer, sustained exercise.
Our bodies prefer to run on these glucose-based energy systems. They are more efficient, more effective, and are easier to maintain. Our bodies are very good at breaking carbohydrates down to glucose, and converting that glucose to glycogen for energy. The process of using triglycerides for energy is expensive to the body, and incredibly difficult to maintain.
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In practical terms, how does this help you as an athlete, or someone interested in fitness? For starters, it should entice you to utilize carbohydrates as an energy source. We sometimes hear about athletes succeeding on a ketogenic, or fat-adapted diet, but these athletes are the exception, not the rule. As an experiment, lacrosse player and Compete guy Martin Bowes recently tried to shift himself to a fat-adapted diet to see if it would improve his play, and he simply could not meet the energy demands his body required from training and playing lacrosse. Upon shifting back to a carb-based diet, he felt a noticeable shift in his training, playing, and daily life nearly immediately.
To get even more granular, we can learn to start using carbs at the right times. On game days, hard practice days, and training days, our diets should consist of 60-65% carbohydrates. This doesn’t necessarily mean to start crushing bread and pasta and cookies on these days, as these simple carbohydrates are less effective for sustaining energy. Instead, we should look to implement complex carbohydrates into our diets on these days. Examples of complex carbohydrates are:
There are times where it makes sense to mix simple carbohydrates into your diet, but that takes into consideration factors such as body type, exercise goals, nutrient timing, and more. However, as a general rule, any athlete will benefit tremendously from implementing a wide array of these complex carbohydrates into their diet.
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