Transitioning to a healthy diet can seem like a daunting task when you’re just starting out, but it doesn’t have to be.
Growing up I was incredibly picky. I lived off of chicken tenders, fries and pizza. No fruits. No vegetables (besides potatoes and corn). Nothing green. If a restaurant garnished a dish with parsley I had to pick off every single piece or I wouldn’t eat it. It was extreme. Looking back on it, I don’t know how my parents let me get away with it.
I was very active throughout my adolescence. I played football and basketball growing up. When we weren’t in season we were training or participating in a spring or summer league. There was no such thing as an off-season.
My activity levels combined with a fast metabolism allowed me to stay lean year round despite my poor diet. I drank soda, juices, and ate tons of junk food. During my Freshman year of High School, most of our football team (myself included) used to walk across the street and eat Wendy’s as a pregame meal. No wonder why we lost so many games.
I didn’t learn about proper training and diet until my Sophomore year, when my High School hired the Nebraska Football Team’s Head Athletic Trainer, Derek Clark, to be our school’s Athletic Trainer. I was very injury prone throughout my athletic career and spent a lot of time in the Trainer’s office. Derek was one of the few role models in my life and was a tremendous positive influence.
At this point in my life, I started to clean up my diet but it still wasn’t very healthy by any standard. It wasn’t until the end of my Freshman year at the University of Pittsburgh that I decided to start a healthy diet. I ate garbage throughout my entire Freshman year. The ground floor of my dorm had a Taco Bell and across the street was a Pizza Hut, both of which took meal plan ‘dining dollars’.
Despite not playing a sport in college, I remained active. I played pick up basketball 3 days a week and lifted weights occasionally in the evenings. I didn’t gain the Freshman fifteen but I definitely gained some fat in my midsection. I was still relatively lean and had visible abs, but I could see the direction I was heading.
That summer in 2012, I started to get serious about resistance training and decided to clean up my diet.
I’ve accumulated a list of the steps I took to start eating healthy.
They are not listed in any particular order. Some of the points will be easier for you to follow than others. I suggest starting with whatever point you view as the easiest, to build momentum. Then, slowly adding more of the tactics, one by one, until you’ve incorporated them all.
I’ve had great success following these steps:
No fast food
Probably the easiest thing to avoid on the list. Everyone knows how unhealthy fast food is, but the convenience draws people in. That can be fixed with some foresight. If you know you have a busy day ahead of you, cook a little extra the night before and have leftovers. If you hate leftovers like me, you can pop into your local grocery store and get a rotisserie chicken. Costs $5 and you get a couple pounds of quality lean meat.
Don’t drink your calories
You’d be surprised how much of a difference eliminating sugary drinks from your diet will improve your health and weight goals. Sodas are terrible. Fruit juices are terrible.
There’s a misconception that a glass of orange juice for breakfast is healthy. Your body can’t tell the difference between 40g of sugar coming from concentrated fruit juice or a can of soda. Skip the juice, eat the actual fruit.
Start drinking your coffee black. If you don’t have a problem drinking alcohol you shouldn’t have any problem drinking your coffee black. It’s an acquired taste but you get used to it.
Drink water. It’s refreshing. Your body needs it. You are ~60% water. Yeah, it gets old at times but get over it. You need to move past instant gratification if you want to make progress.
If you get sick of water you can switch it up every once in awhile with MiO or another water enhancer. They’re 0 calorie. You could also drink sparkling water, which can be found in an assortment of natural flavors. Or slice up a lemon and put it in your water. There are healthy ways to switch it up.
No fried food
Cutting out fast food should have eliminated most of the fried foods you consume. This means no French fries, fried chicken wings, fried Chinese food, etc. A significant amount of fried foods you get from restaurants are cooked with trans fats, vegetable oils, and seed oils. Do your best to avoid those like the plague.
At this point in cleaning up your diet, you should be able to notice how bad you feel after eating a large meal with a lot of fried foods.
No junk food/ ultra-processed food
No potato chips. No crackers. No Cheetos. No Oreos. Stay away from all that shit. They’re addicting. Easily craved. Not satiating. It’s not real food. These foodstuffs are made by hundreds if not thousands of scientists and entire research and development teams that manipulate the ingredients to have the right amount of sugar, fat, and salt (aka bliss point) to keep you hooked.
Food addiction is real. And these foodstuffs don’t help the cause. Best way to deal with them is to cut them out completely.
Some people say, “Use moderation”or “Pour a serving into a bowl” so you’re not inclined to eat the whole bag. But that doesn’t even work. You’ll still crave them. My trick is to not buy them. If it’s not in your house you won’t have anything in your kitchen cabinets tempting you.
No sweets/ added sugar
Stay away from cake, cookies, pies, and ice cream. They taste great but are garbage calories that do nothing to help you. Stay away from the instant gratification of these desserts. Best strategy, again, is to keep them out of your house.
I have a huge sweet tooth. If there’s a pint of Ben and Jerry’s in my freezer, I’ll eat the whole thing in one sitting. If I’m out I usually don’t have a problem turning down sweets. But if it’s in my home and I have to see it every time I open the fridge it’s not going to last very long.
The first couple days you avoid sugar, the cravings for sweets will be strong.
“Available evidence in humans shows that sugar and sweetness can induce reward and craving that are comparable in magnitude to those induced by addictive drugs”.
-SH Ahmed, University of Bordeaux via PubMed
In my experience, the cravings will subside after a week or so and you will no longer be tempted by the sweets.
It doesn’t take iron will, it just takes some foresight and the discipline not to buy it. When you keep it out of your house, you’re forced to make a healthy choice.
If you’re not hungry enough to eat an apple, you’re not hungry.
Save your alcohol intake for the weekend
I know a cold beer or a nice glass of wine after a long day of work is relaxing, but they’re wasted calories and it disrupts deep sleep cycles. You’re better off limiting your drinking to the weekends. Alcohol makes my skin breakout and I get bad hangovers, so I keep my drinking to a minimum. I try to save my alcohol intake for special occasions and celebratory reasons.
Drink your greens
Even though I’ve been eating healthier for some time now, I’m not the biggest fan of vegetables. Something about the texture turns me off. I eat broccoli just about everyday but I still wont eat most salads. I’d much rather blend up my greens and drink them.
Green smoothie recipe: 2 handfuls Power Greens mix (kale, spinach, chard), 1 banana, 1/2 cup mixed frozen berries, and 1 cup water. Goes down pretty easy.
Limit your carbohydrates
I limit my carbohydrates to fruits, vegetables, rice, and oatmeal. You can eat as much fruit and vegetables as you’d like. No one has ever gotten fat eating too much fruit.
Stay away from simple carbs. They are inflammatory foods. There are a slew of chronic inflammatory diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus, multiple sclerosis, and many others. Your diet can help prevent such diseases.
I’m not a ketogenic or LCHF (low carb high fat) zealot but there is a definite benefit to limiting your carbohydrate intake. Especially, if you’re interested in fat loss and a healthy body composition.
Increase your protein intake
When following a resistance training program, it is important to get an adequate amount of protein in your diet to aid in recovery and help build muscle mass. I recommend somewhere between 0.7g – 1g of protein for every pound of bodyweight. This isn’t just broscience, it’s backed up by actual science.
These are the guidelines I used to form my healthy diet. This isn’t an exhaustive dietary bible. This is simply what works for me and I’m confident it will help you with your own health and fitness goals.
When you are just beginning to eat healthy, it’s important that you follow these guidelines strictly. Once you get to a certain level of health/ fitness you can get away with bending some of these rules. If you’re active and eat well 80% of the time you won’t have a problem breaking your diet on occasion.
I got frozen yogurt Saturday night. I’ll still eat pizza on occasion. These foodstuffs taste great, but I feel worse after eating them. Breaking the diet, at times, reinforces why I choose to eat healthy and reminds me how much the food I eat affects my mental and physical well-being.
As I mentioned in a previous post, sometimes the things you aren’t doing are more important that what you are doing (aka via negativa). Eliminate ultra-processed foods, sugar, fried foods, vegetable and seed oils, and you’ll be on a healthy path.
Stick to real, whole foods: fresh fruits, vegetables, and high quality meats.
You are what you consume.
Talk again soon,
Shane