Transforming Taste Buds

If you're like a lot of people, I can talk about healthy foods all day and you'll still imagine a nasty taste in your head.  What's he talking about, tomatoes tasting good?  Butternut Squash being absolutely delectable?  Steamed broccoli and cauliflower hitting the spot?  It may be completely foreign to imagine such natural, raw, bland foods to taste so good.  You'd much rather stick with your heavily spiced up food with sugar and salt, because that actually tastes like something!  But I emplore you, give these more natural foods a chance.  I can 100% guarantee that through a little bit of practice, you can make those foods taste as good as I think they do.

So what are you doing wrong?  Nothing really, it's just the habits you've been supporting.  You may eat the processed  overly sweet stuff on a regular basis.  So guess what?  You've come to accept it as the norm.  If you think that chocolate cake tastes sweet, think of how it tastes to me, someone with a very low sugar diet.  Think of it like, albeit a little depressing, a drug addiction.  You've become addicted to food that packs an extremely powerful sodium, sugar, and fatty punch.  All three of those things taste great to you because your instinct is to consume things that your body can run on for long periods of time and give great energy (fat and sugar.)  Your body doesn't really know any better that that mayonnaise smothered quizno's sub is wayyy overkill.  Yup, it's an addiction of sorts, so like a powerful drug addiction, anything less potent won't get you that "high."

How can you break the addiction?  Well, like anything, it takes time.  First things first, DO NOT GO COLD TURKEY.  An extremely raw veggie, plain meat, clean diet will absolutely kill you if you try to switch all at once.  Your food won't taste like anything, and you'll give up in a couple days, maybe a couple weeks at most. Your taste buds are extremely adaptable, but only if you introduce new flavors slowly.  There's a reason why we learn to accept new tastes as we get older.  Children don't often like vegetables, but grow into the taste (or maybe they don't, as is the case with many adults I know.)  

In my personal opinion, there isn't much of an excuse not to like healthy food.  If you say it doesn't taste good, you usually either haven't given it enough of a chance, or haven't cooked it right.  Some foods may take 9 or more tries before you really start to appreciate them.  

Try these tips to slowly get yourself into eating healthier:

Mix veggies into food you already like:  Who doesn't like macaroni and cheese?  Or maybe a big heaping pot of beef stroganoff, or a plate of crispy nachos?  What these all represent are prime opportunities to start mixing vegetable flavors into already delicious foods.  Try some diced tomatoes on those nachos, or some broccoli in that cheesy mac and cheese.  Put some carrots or onions in that beef stroganoff.  Heck, if you're having a big ol' burger, put a couple more slices of tomato on it than you normally do, and maybe another piece of lettuce.  Slowly pull those natural tastes into your diet, just a little at a time.  Each time you do it, maybe take out a little of the main flavoring (and probably unhealthy) ingredient.  Add a little less salt in your food, put only a tiny skim of mayonnaise on that burger, use a little less cheese in that macaroni.  Try to emphasize the vegetable taste just a little more each time. 

Vegetable side dishes:  Don't do these plain at first, use some kind of a healthy additive.  Saute your veggies in a tasty oil, or spread a little salsa on them.  Sprinkle some cayenne pepper on them for quite a kick, or just regular black pepper might do as well.  Try to use frozen veggies, or the ones that steam in the bag.  Canned usually has a little too much sodium, and they don't taste as good anyway.  At first, steam your veggies pretty aggressively.  Make them soft, chew-able, so they melt in your mouth a little easier and don't fight back with a harsh crunch.  And try to put at least a few on your plate at every dinner.  You don't even have to eat them all.  If they're there, you're more likely to at least give them a shot.

Less sauce on the meat:  This one's pretty self explanatory.  If you put BBQ sauce on your chicken, next time you have the chicken make a conscious effort to maybe put about a third less sauce on the next time.  Then a little less the next time after that.  You don't ever have to completely get rid of it if you don't want to, but try to emphasize the flavors of the meat above the sauce.  Another good idea is to have sauce every other or every third time you have the meat, as a rare treat.  I bet this'll make it taste better anyway, and you won't take that BBQ sauce for granted.  

Cook meat with care:  If you're going to put less sauce on, you might as well try a little harder to cook that chicken so its as tender and delectable as possible.  Make your dinner meats taste great by themselves, and you'll be less likely to top them with all sorts of crazy, unhealthy toppings.

Replace your snacks:  I've mentioned this one a few times.  To help your taste buds to adjust a little quicker, try replacing your afternoon potato chips with a banana, or a bowl of strawberries, or an apple.  Fruit is sweet, so you'll still get that sweet tooth satisfied.  It's also more satiating, so you'll be less likely to eat as much.  Just replace one snack at a time.  Take it slow.

Drink the pure stuff:  There is a LOAD of sugar in most soda, and believe me a glass of mountain dew will NOT help break your sugar addiction.  I suggest drinking more water, or maybe a glass of milk, or 100% juice.  Try your best to get those soft drinks out of your diet though.  Soda doesn't help anything, of that I can assure you.  If you're dying for a sugary drink, try a zero calorie drink sweetener.  

To close this article, I'm going to say this one more time.  To break a processed food/sugar addiction, you need to do it gradually.  If you do, your taste buds WILL adapt.  Give them time, and don't give up.  The younger you are, the faster it will happen.  Set goals for yourself.  Try a few more veggies every meal.  A little less ketchup, a few less potato chips, maybe fruit for dessert a few nights a week.  MAKE IT HAPPEN!!!!

Don't give up, you will adjust, and you'll be incredibly grateful that you did.  It's fun to watch someone wince as you munch on a tomato in absolute and genuine happiness.  Good Luck!

Don't Destroy your Salad

I love salads.  All my friends will vouch for me on that one.  There's nothing like finishing up a delicious entree then finishing off the meal with some greens.  I bet many of you will agree that salads are delicious.  And they're healthy too, right?  I mean all those vegetables in one place, it's like the holy grail of bodily nutrients.  But hold on.  I'm here to tell you that your salad might not be as healthy as you think.  You may be accidentally creating a meal that's got a lot of unseen unhealthy elements to it.  Here's a few tips to make sure that your salad is liberated and can do your body the good it deserves.

No Dressing:  Ah!  Madness!  No dressing on a salad?  That doesn't sound too good, does it?  Hold on a minute.  I eat my salads plain every single day, and I can promise you not one of them is ever dry, bland, or distasteful in any way, shape or form.  What's my secret?  I use very juicy vegetables!  Every one of my salads is piled high with juicy yellow peppers, red beans and chickpeas, cucumbers, and my favorite, tomatoes.  Mix those around a little bit and your salad will take on a natural dressing that is actually quite tasty.  And once you pop a bite into your mouth and crunch into a fresh and juicy grape tomato, you'd never know there was no dressing.  I suggest you guys give it a try!

But why do I prefer not to dress my salad?  Well I'll tell you a little something.  That pile of ranch on top of your salad probably has at least twice the calories as the actual salad itself, along with a lot of artificial ingredients, sugars, saturated fats, and things of the like.  In my opinion it's a LOT of calories you don't need.  In fact only two tablespoons of traditional ranch has about 150 calories, and I see lots of people put on two to three times that amount.  That's just ridiculous.  The natural flavors of the vegetables are masked, and any sort of nutrient benefit from the salad is being overshadowed by the shear caloric weight of the ranch.  This goes with all sorts of dressings, just read the nutrition labels.  Thousand Island, italian, you name it, a lot of it will most likely be more than you bargained for.

But don't despair you dressing addicts.  Salad dressing is not inherently bad, and there are a lot of very healthy alternatives.  Let's discuss a few, and how they can make your salad absolutely delicious without adding many calories or other undesirables.

Salsa:  Yes, that spicy, chunky, juicy, delicious tomato paste with peppers and beans.  Salsa is VERY low in calories (10-20 calories for two tablespoons) and VERY flavorful.  It can add a lot of character to any salad, and there are hundreds of varieties to choose from.  In fact you can usually have your salad as spicy or sweet as you like with salsa.  It's a great alternative that I highly suggest.  Just watch out for the sodium, it tends to be pretty high in salsa, but 1-2 servings won't kill you.

Mustard:  Same deal here, high amounts of flavor for low caloric density.  Dijon and yellow mustard both can really give those greens a big kick, and will only add a few extra calories to the dish.  It's all about amount of flavor for very little cost.  Try it out!

Healthy oils:  There's been studies that have proven that many nutrients in salad are FAT SOLUABLE.  So you can kiss those low fat, high fructose corn syrup dressings goodbye.  In fact low fat dressings can actually be worse for you than their traditional counterparts.  But if you want great flavor and a lot of healthy, unsaturated fats to fully absorb nutrients from your bowl of veggies, I suggest either olive oil, or balsamic vinaigrette.  Both are delcious and high in healthy fats which will do nothing but good for your body.  Don't go overboard on the olive oil though, it's still high in caloric density, so measure out your portions.

Meats:  I love me some salmon.  And chicken.  And shrimp.  And anything of the like.  And what an amazing way to make your salad more enjoyable!  Stick some lean protein in there, make sure it's fresh and moist, and I guarantee you will NOT miss dressing for one second.  That is if you decide to have it plain.  I would also suggest trying any of the above dressing styles with meat, especially if you're looking to get some more protein in your diet.  Again though, don't go overboard, and make sure that the meat is lean, fresh, and juicy.  My all time favorite is a salmon salad, though shrimp and chicken are close seconds.

Portioned Traditional Dressing:  Like I said before, the salad dressings you're used to aren't inherently bad!  The shear amount of them is sometimes what kills you.  If you want that ranch, go for it!  Absolutely!  But take the time to measure out the serving size.  Heck, try half the serving size, and see if you can get by on it.  Sometimes if you just take a little more time to appreciate the flavors of the food, you'll realize you didn't need so much dressing to begin with.

It's up to you, but I'd suggest experimenting.  Try it plain, like me, and load it up with some juicy veggies.  Then try some salsa, see if you like the kick.  Then try the mustard, then some healthy oil.  The same old thing gets boring anyway, right?

Dress lightly, love those greens, and good luck!

The Basics of Clean

So, I'm going to introduce you to a new diet, and in all honesty, it'll be the only diet you'll ever need.

It's not radical, crazy, and frankly, it's not new at all.  It's been around forever.  It's called:

CLEAN EATING.

This term, unfortunately, means a lot of different things to a lot of different people.  And again I'll be honest, there's no way to determine the exact definition of what "eating clean" really mean.  But it's extremely easy to get the gist of it.  In fact by the end of this post, all of you should have a good idea of what clean eating really means in its broadest sense.

Here's my personal definition of clean eating:
  Eating food that has high nutritional value in correct, balanced quantities.

Pretty simple eh?  It really is, however a lot of people like to over-complicate it.  To make things a little easier, lets look at some different food groups (or components), and how to eat cleanly in each one.

Carbohydrates:  Eating cleanly in terms of Carbohydrates seems to be the place where most people really struggle.  Carbs are everywhere.  Bread, cheetos, veggies, fruits, desserts, cereal, etc.  They hide to some degree in all the food you consume.  I'll let you in on a secret though.  Carbs are NOT your enemy.  For some reason, many people think they are.  That's a flawed way of thinking, because your body needs Carbs for it's main energy source.  It's the fuel to that human engine of yours.

To keep things simple, let's establish first that there are two main types of carbs: Simple carbohydrates, and complex carbohydrates.  Simple carbs are called monosaccharides, or simple sugars.  When they are consumed, they are digested quickly and easily, and are readily used for energy.  Or at least, they should be. However, how many times after dessert have you actually expended all the energy which that sugar loaded brownie contained?  Not often, I'm guessing.  And that's where carbs come back to haunt you.  Unused Carbohydrates equates to wasted energy.  And guess where wasted energy goes.  That's right, your midsection.  


Complex Carbohydrates are Carbs that your body has a more difficult time digesting, and therefore the body will take a longer time and expend more energy digesting them.  These are "long acting" carbs that give you full, sustained energy for a long period of time, without the characteristic "sugar high."  Such carbs include vegetables, whole wheat breads, and oatmeal.  These carbs, overall, tend to be a little more "flexible".  When in doubt about carbs, it's usually safe to assume that complex carbs will be healthier in the long run.  Because they are digested over a long period of time, they do not as readily turn to fat.  Again this IS NOT ALWAYS TRUE, I'm purely making a broad generality.  Learn the rules first, then the exceptions.

So are simple carbs bad?  Absolutely not.  Fruits are comprised of mainly simple carbs.  They give you a good hit of energy without spiking blood insulin (I'll discuss this, the GI scale, and all related topics in a later post) to a high degree.  On a hike?  Bring an apple.  Tired at work?  Eat a banana.  Craving something sweet?  Have an orange.  Can you go overboard eating fruits?  Sure, but that's true for most anything.  It's pretty safe to say that if you're dying for a snack, a fruit is a very healthy, clean option.

Proteins:  Here we go guys.  MEAT MEAT MEAT.  Being an avid weightlifter, I for one am an enormous protein consumer.  We all know meat has protein, and protein builds muscle.  And at this point, I won't get any more into than that (who wants to hear a boring speech about amino acids and protein synthesis anyway right?).  I like to characterize the quality of a protein source with a few questions:  How dense is it (grams of protein per serving), how lean is it (how many calories per serving along with saturated fats, trans fats, and other undesirables come with that nice protein punch), and how readily is the protein absorbed by your body (whey protein has greater absorption than soy, etc.).

So without getting into too much detail, let me list a few of the best, readily available protein sources:  boneless and skinless chicken breast, turkey breast, lean cuts of beef, salmon, tuna, swordfish, whey, venison, and egg whites.

Some of the less optimal sources: cheap cuts of beef, pork, ham, soy, and basically any meat smothered in sauce and marinade.

I'm going to go back to fish for a second though.  I personally believe fish to be the best form of readily available protein.  Why?  Because there is a huge amount of protein per serving, with very few calories.  One can of chunk light tuna has 26g of protein at a hundred calories.  That's more protein per serving than my special "Wheybolic extreme 60" protein powder I drink after every workout and spend a fortune on every month.  Good old tuna has got most other meats beat.  Same with salmon.  Fish is loaded with lean protein, Omega 3 fatty acids, low cholesterol, and about a million nutrients that will do your body well.  Looking for some good meat?  Grab some fish for dinner and grill it up nice (obviously don't fry it, as much as I know you'd like to.)

Fats:  AH!  FAT!  GET IT AWAY!  That's the right response, many food companies would claim.  And they'd be 100% wrong.  I'm going to tell you another secret (I've got a whole bunch) FATS DON'T MAKE YOU FAT.  In fact, those "low fat" oreos you're eating aren't any better for you than the regular ones, and might actually be worse.  Fats do our body well, especially the unsaturated fats present in nuts, peanut butter (all natural, of course), olive oil, most fish (omega 3 fatty acids), almond milk, avocados, and the list goes on.  Unsaturated fat should not ever be avoided outright, but like anything, eaten in moderation.

Unsaturated fats actually do a lot of good for you.  They reduce bad cholesterol, help the body absorb fat soluble vitamins,and increase the good.  They can slow down nutrient absorption into the muscles,  which is great for athletes who want to prevent going catabolic over night.  There are many other benefits to fat as well, but hopefully I've convinced you enough at this point.

Saturated fat is what you want to cut down on.  As with anything, a little in moderation may have benefits, but in general the average person consumes wayyy too much saturated fat.  This is the fat that usually increases bad cholesterol and narrows your arteries.  In other words, it makes your heart work way too hard, and that's never good.  The recommended saturated fat intake for a 2000 calorie diet (which is by no means the diet for everyone) is about 20 grams, which also happens to be about a third of your daily total fat intake.

Trans fats are a HUGE no-no.  I'll devote an entire separate post to those though.  If you see trans fat on the nutritional label, and it has any number other than "0" next to it, I would suggest putting it back.

So there you go, the basics.  Understanding those three components of food is a huge step in becoming a "food guru."  Now, the next step is finding what foods are "clean" and would easily fit into your daily diet, and how to balance your diet so that you get a good ration of these three components: carbs, protein, and fat.  Onward and upward!