Yesterday while indoor climbing with a friend, I mentioned two thoughts related to writing this weekly tip.
The first thought was that I’ll be out of the office for somewhat extended periods a few times this summer climbing mountains and really need to get ahead with writing these tips.
The second thought was that I’ve written a lot more about thinking and training over the past year than I have about nutrition, mostly because, as told her, “I find nutrition annoying”.
I’ll save the longer discussion for another time. For now, nutrition is simultaneously detailed and complex (if you want to dive to a deep level) and not that complicated (if you just want simple, practical information that works). And I don’t want to spend time relaying complicated info that isn’t useful for most people’s goals or to sound like a broken record—or worse, to nag(!!!)—repeating the simple, although arguably not-easy, stuff.
She offered some helpful insight into past nutrition-related tips and a suggestion to send simple, tasty, and healthy recipes that can be prepared quickly and with minimal fuss for those days when you find yourself with not enough time and even less energy.
After sleeping on the idea and mashing it together with some other ideas this morning, I decided on a combo plan.
Below you’ll find three simple nutrition strategies that will provide more benefits (to both body composition and health) than you might imagine and that can be seamlessly applied to almost any other nutrition guidance you might read or receive. And in the Putting It Into Practice section, you’ll find links to some previous, more-detailed nutrition tips, including a couple recipes.
Next week I’ll offer a bonus strategy (to the three below) and an example of how I personally put that idea into practice. And over the next few months you can expect at least five or six tips that’ll contain recipes that fit the simple-tasty-healthy-quick-and-minimal-fuss bill.
With that all out of the way, let’s get to the strategies…
Don’t drink sugar
To keep things uncomplicated, I’m not going to delve into why we generally want to minimize sugar intake for better health (although reasons such as insulin tolerance and potentially reduced cancer risk do exist). Instead I’ll suggest we should avoid drinking it for two caloric-related reasons.
Sugar-laden beverages:
- Are “empty” calories that are digested quickly (see the link to TEF in the next strategy).
- Provide minimal satiety (i.e. feelings of fullness) benefits as compared to water and can even produce further cravings.
This goes for fruit juice as much as for soda, sweetened teas or coffee, etc. (The extra vitamins and minerals in the fruit juice don’t make up for the fiber and fewer calories that we’d get by simply eating the fruit.)
If weight management or body composition improvements are your goal (or even general preference), there are far more enjoyable and healthy ways to consume calories.
Eat real food
Besides the fact that real, minimally-processed food improves satiety while netting fewer calories than processed or man-made “food-like substances” due to the thermic effect of food (TEF), it also provides more nutrients (e.g. fiber, vitamins, minerals) required by normal bodily functions as well as fewer chemicals and colorings that we didn’t evolve to digest.
As for what’s considered “real food”… We could argue about the degree of processing at which a food product becomes “factory produced”, but I’ll suggest that it probably doesn’t count if it didn’t exist in your great-great-great-great-great grandparents’ era.
Need examples? How about: Cheetos, French fries, Crystal Lite, Pepsi, white (enriched flour) bread, soybean/corn/safflower/canola oil, veggie burgers (nothing against veggie protein… just not with the chemicals, fillers, and congealing agents added to make it “meat-textured”), or potato chips.
Note #1: I’m not suggesting you forego all of your hyper-palatable favorites all the time. I don’t do that myself! (Mmm… Almond Snickers.) Still, “real food” more often is a generally better choice for improved health and body composition outcomes.
Note #2: Better oil choices than the ones listed above include olive, avocado, and coconut. More detailed discussion another time.
Install an eating sunset
Numerous varieties of intermittent fasting (IF)—eating only during a brief period of the day—have gained popularity over the years. Of course, most of them come with a bunch of special, rather arbitrary, and distinguishing “rules” such as eating specific foods, in a specific order, or within only a 2-6 hour window.
This “eating sunset” strategy can technically be considered an IF strategy, but there are only two simple guidelines (other than eating real food and not drinking sugar).
In order to give the digestive system some uninterrupted time to repair itself and to improve your nighttime sleep quality, they are:
- Aim to fast for at least 13 hours. (Which, for any non-math majors, gives us 11 hours to eat.)
- Aim to finish your last meal at least two hours, but preferably three to four, before bed.
Put into practice, that means, for example, eating from 7 AM to 6 PM with a 10 PM bedtime.
If you struggle to make it that long without eating (and don’t have a specific medical condition that prohibits it), potential culprits include:
- Not eating enough at the final meal of the day. (This doesn’t mean eating until you’re stuffed though.)
- Potential metabolic flexibility issues. (See strategies #1 & 2 above.)
- Boredom. (This isn’t a reason to eat. Drink some water or herbal tea, or go for an easy walk.)
On the other hand, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that you sleep better, have more energy, and possibly even lose a few pounds (without implementing any other changes) if you put this strategy into practice.
Speaking of which…
Putting it into practice
As I said earlier, the three strategies above can be put into practice in conjunction with just about any other nutrition protocol you may be following.
Give them a try if they’re completely new to you.
And if you’re already implementing them to some extent, excellent! Stick with it (as if I really needed to suggest that) if you’re happy with your results. Or consider where you might be able to make a tiny improvement to a single strategy, give it some time, and repeat until your goal is achieved.
Last but not least, here are a handful of past tips if you want to take a slightly deeper dive into nutrition details: