Diet

I think it's important that we talk about the word Diet.

Most people think that diet means a limited way of eating, like the no-carb diet, or the all-grapefruit diet. When we use the word diet, it's not helpful to think of it that way. Instead, I want you to start thinking of the word diet a different way. Diet simply means what you eat. So, if right now, you primarily eat hot dogs and french fries, that is your diet. If you eat everything from every corner of the world, that is your diet. Your diet can change, to whatever you want it to, and all it means is whatever you tend to eat at the moment.

That being said, I want to talk to you today about my diet. I want to tell you what I am doing in order to become a healthier person, who doesn't waste food, and doesn't get repetitive. As I've said before, I like to mix things up!

My Diet
Most people eat the usual three square meals a day. I am telling you now that, no matter what you've heard, that's not the way it should be. When you eat your regular three squares a day, it causes spikes in your blood sugar. When your blood sugar goes up rapidly, the hormone insulin starts taking all of that sugar and storing it directly into your fat cells. What can we do about this?

I eat six meals a day. That's right, I eat six times a day. Studies have shown that by eating six meals a day (three regular meals and three major snacks), you are more likely to lose fat and build muscle. You can still lose weight on a regular three meal diet, however, more of that weight is likely to be more muscle. This is a pretty hard adjustment to make, and it wasn't easy for me. Sometimes I just flat out do not have the time to work in a snack. I also had trouble forcing myself to eat when I wasn't as hungry as I used to be when I would eat. However, my metabolism has adjusted to my new eating schedule, and I feel a lot better about it now. There are a lot of reasons why you will want to eat six meals a day, and I will be touching on all of them in the future.

Breakfast
Breakfast is an extremely important meal. It's basically a jumpstart in the morning for your metabolism. It lets your body know that it's time to start burning fat. Studies have shown that men who don't eat in the morning are 4.5 times more likely to be obese than those who eat breakfast every AM. During one such study, men who missed breakfast just one time increased their obesity risk by 34 percent. Another study showed that eating breakfast caused metabolism to go up as much as 10 percent! So eat breakfast! It's a great way to start your day with a lot of energy, and it will only lose weight and tone up in the long run.

I like to start my day off with a healthy sized bowl of oatmeal, topped with flaxseed powder, and a few berries mixed in for sweetness. You should only use the unsweetened, unflavored oatmeal, as the flavored kinds tend to have tons of sugar calories. Oatmeal is a great breakfast food for two reasons. Oatmeal has been shown to maintain your blood sugar levels longer than a lot of other foods, which means you get more of your insulin building muscle, instead of building fat, and also means you have more energy throughout your day. Oatmeal is also chock full of soluble fiber. You want to eat a lot of fiber, both soluble and insoluble. The reason for this is twofold. Fiber keeps you feeling fuller, longer, because it breaks down slowly in the stomach. Fiber also fights high cholesterol. Scientists believe this is because fiber binds with cholesterol based digestive acids and and these acids travel out of your body with the fiber, causing the body to pull more cholesterol from the blood to be used as digestive acids. Doctors recommend 25 to 35 grams of fiber per day.

By topping my oatmeal off with flaxseed I am not only getting a good dose of omega 3s, it gives the oatmeal a nice nutty flavor, making it a little less bland. I get even more flavor from the berries I add, and depending on the kind of berry, I get different benefits. Blueberries add more fiber to the meal, while raspberries add powerful antioxidants that fight heart disease and cancer. I cook my oatmeal with fat-free milk, which gives me a healthy dose of milk in the morning to start my day off right, with lots of vitamin C and calcium, as well as vitamin D.

I personally like to drink liquids while I eat, so I accompany my oatmeal with a glass of one part %100 juice cran-raspberry and one part seltzer. You can use whatever juice you want for this, but try to stick to something that is %100 juice, and not a juice cocktail. I prefer to use cranberry juice or some variation thereof because cranberries have extremely powerful antioxidants that have been shown to fight cancer. Adding the seltzer means I am getting fewer calories than if I were just drinking the juice, and it makes the juice taste kinda like soda!

I also previously mentioned the importance of taking a daily vitamin, and I pop those in the morning with my breakfast.

Mid-Morning Snack
I usually start to get hungry again around two or three hours after I've eaten breakfast (so when I eat breakfast at 8 AM, which I usually do, I tend to be hungry again around 10 or 11), so I like to tide my hunger over with a nutritious snack. Snacks are the easiest part of my day, because they can be almost anything, and I can usually find a snack from long-lasting food items I keep around the house. A snack can be a smoothie (a lot of different kinds of smoothies can be made from the majority of the ingredients I listed yesterday, that you should always have around the house). This page on the Men's Health website has a lot of great, tasty, easy to make smoothie recipes. All you'll need is a blender. My personal favorite snack is extremely easy to make. I take a bowl, throw two handfuls of almonds in it, spoon some plain yogurt on top of the almonds, and sprinkle a few raspberries or blueberries in, and eat the whole mess with a spoon. It tastes great and fills you perfectly.

Other good snacks include fruits and vegetableslike apples, oranges, melons, or some of your favorite vegetalbe, carbs like 1-2 slices of whole-grain toast topped with some kind of jam (black currant jam is packed full of powerful antioxidants that are great for you), protein like a few slices of low-sodium cold cuts, some peanut butter (alone or on top of celery or your favorite vegetable), dairy like a glass of milk with protein powder mixed in, a stick of string cheese, or even about 3/4 cup of low-fat ice cream. On workout days, I like to go with the glass of milk with protein powder mixed in, as studies have shown that taking in protein before exercising increases the amount of muscle you are capable of building while working out.

Lunch
Lunch is my favorite meal of the day. Most of the foods I like tend to be lunch foods. However, it can be really easy to overdo it at lunchtime, and eat too much. Eating too much causes a blood sugar spike, and can tire you out, instead of giving you the energy you need for the rest of the day.

Lunch can be difficult for the bachelor, as many of us are not at home for lunch. I like to make my lunch in the morning after eating breakfast, and bring it with me wherever I need to be. By making my lunch after eating breakfast, I'm not hungry, so I tend to include less food than if I made the lunch right before eating it. I tend to be at a good point for lunch between 12 and 1 PM. My current class schedule works out so that on tuesdays and thursdays I have a perfect time period after my mid-morning snack but before lunch to work out, and eating a meal after working out repelenishes your energy stores, and gives your body the essential vitamins and nutrients it needs to build muscle and burn fat.

Lunch is the best time of day for my favorite meal: the sandwich. Sandwiches are amazing, because they can be so versatile. As long as you're making your sandwich out of wholesome, healthy ingredients, it's pretty much a safe bet. I like to eat turkey sandwiches on whole-wheat bread, with a light layer of fat-free mayonnaise, and a slice or two of swiss cheese. Pick your favorite low-sodium cold cut, your favorite fat-free or low-sodium condiments, some lettuce, and some cheese, and you've got yourself a great sandwich. I like to accompany my sandwiches with a variety of different side snacks. If I'm at home, I eat it with a salad. Eating a salad before a meal, or with a meal, has been shown to fill people up and have them eat fewer calories overall, while still feeling just as satisfied. If I'm away from home, I like to take a yogurt cup and a plastic spoon, or some almonds and berries. A couple of good alternatives to the sandwich include a hearty salad topped with grilled chicken, a three-bean salad, heart-healthy lean meat sloppy joes, some grilled fish, or chili.

Water
Anytime during the day that I'm feeling hungry, but I don't think it's a good time to eat yet, I drink a full glass of water, sometimes two. According to some studies, a large number of Americans often confuse thirst for hunger. I personally did not used to drink a lot of water, and I recognize this in myself. Most of the time when I'm feeling slightly hungry, and I drink some water, my hunger goes away. The amount of water each person needs per day varies from man to man, so I'm not going to tell you to get a certain amount of water per day. Instead, try swapping out your soda for water, and try drinking water when you're hungry but aren't ready to eat. It's made a tremendous difference in my life.

Mid-Afternoon Snack
The mid-afternoon snack is very similar to the mid-morning snack, although I tend to lean towards fruit, as the fructose in the fruit gives me that extra kick I need to finish out my day. An apple or two gives you a good amount of calories and nutrients to carry you until dinner.

Dinner
In my opinion, dinner is the enemy of the bachelor lifestyle. If it's one thing bachelors lack, it's time. Most bachelors don't have time to cook. Besides the lack of time, most dinner recipes call for ingredients for 4-6, and sometimes even 6-8 servings. Dinner is the meal I have the most trouble with.

I hate to cook. I think it's boring, and I'm so afraid of screwing everything up, that I usually end up freaking out and screwing it up anyway. Most recipes have steps that seem simple, but when laid out in front of you, can be daunting and difficult. I once tried to make meatballs, and let me tell you... that did not end well. I ended up making very sloppy joes. The recipe seemed simple enough, but it called for me to do things that simply were not within my capacity to properly do. If you don't know how to cook, following a simple recipe can be very difficult.

I have good nutritious advice for dinner, but I don't yet have a good way to work this meal properly into the bachelor lifestyle. One way I plan on changing this is to write my own recipes, with servings of one (so no pesky leftovers), and detailed instructions so that it's harder to screw things up. Another problem the regular bachelor can run into is the matter of how many dishes cooking can create. I will attempt to write recipes that minimize the number of dishes you use, so you spend more time eating, and less time cleaning.

For dinner, if you've stuck to the six meals a day plan so far, you should be hungry, but not ravenous. You want to cook meals that are full of lean meats, vegetables, and a good carb or two. I like to cook different chicken dishes, as I find chicken to be pretty easy to prepare, and mix those up with some salad, or beans. Baby brocolli, or brocollini as it is sometimes called, is great to include with dinner, as it packs a huge punch of vitamins and minerals, and it tastes great raw, or slightly cooked. Be careful not to overcook brocolli, as you will end up getting rid of a large portion of the vitamins in the cooking process. Another great vegetable that can be easy to cook and store (in the freezer) are beans of different kinds. Green beans, peas, kidney beans, garbanzo beans, and lima beans are all great tasting vegetables to include in your dinner.

Post-Dinner Snack
You don't want to go to bed hungry, because it can become difficult to fall asleep. Eat a snack about 2 to 2 and 1/2 hours before going to bed, to keep yourself satiated without stuffing yourself. If you planned your meals right, this snack should land roughly 2 to 3 hours after dinner. I like to eat an apple before bed, as it's not very much food, and it keeps me feeling full until I'm sound asleep. If I'm not in the mood for fruit (or if I don't have any around), I eat a handful of peanuts or two. I always like to accompany this snack with a glass of water, as studies have shown that drinking water with any meal can keep you less hungry for longer.

Changing your habits to eat six meals a day is not easy. Even now, I struggle to stay on the schedule. However, I can feel myself adjusting, day by day, and I feel better for it. I eat more food overall, but in smaller portions, and more healthily. My metabolism is getting better and better, and as that happens, I burn more fat, and build more muscle every day. I urge you to try the same.

Tip of the Day

Tomatoes are a great source of lycopene, a powerful antioxidant that fights cancer. Studies have shown that 30 milligrams of lycopene a day is a good amount to have in your diet. A single serving of marinara sauce can contain that much and more! Find a way to work tomatoes or tomato products into your every day lifestyle.

- BreadMan McGuire