11 Eating Commandments – Gain Muscle and Lose Fat

Organic food spending has grown by at least 20% each year for the last two decades.  That kind of exponential growth shows that we humans care about eating healthy food.  After all, people vote with their money more than anything else.  However, when you get started, the ‘challenge’ of healthy eating can seem overwhelming.  It turns out that eating to stay healthy, lean and strong is a lot easier than most people think.  We’ve boiled healthy eating down into a sweet reduction of eleven easy to follow steps:
1.    Eat every 2-3 hours. By eating regularly, you’re going to keep your body’s insulin levels more even.  Avoiding the insulin spikes that come with large meals means you’re going to store less fat.  Eating smaller meals more frequently also makes it easier to eat healthy foods.  Imagine trying to eat 1500 calories of chicken breast and asparagus twice or three times a day.  Rather than throwing up at the thought, you can easily stomach a single chicken breast along with a few spears of asparagus plus some brown rice and/or milk.
Eating small meals on a regular basis also increases your metabolism.  Increased metabolism means you’re going to burn more calories every day and get leaner, faster.  When you realize that you can actually eat more food and still lose fat because eating regularly stimulates and increases the metabolism, you’ll find the choice a no-brainer.  I’ve been doing this for about five years now, and I can tell you what time it is without a clock, because around hour three, I know I need to be near a refrigerator.
2.    Eat breakfast. Just as eating regularly is important to keep the metabolism fast, eating breakfast is a critical step to a lean, healthy lifestyle.  After eight or so hours of sleep, you’ve essentially been fasting for a third of the day or more.  Especially for folks who train with weights, it’s important to end this fast by taking in a good mix of protein, complex carbs and healthy fats.  By eating breakfast, you’re more likely to continue eating healthily throughout the day, maintain your energy levels, and avoid binging.
3.    Eat protein with every meal. Depending on your body weight, you’ll need 20-40g every time you eat.  Protein builds and maintains your muscles, which in turn keep you strong and burn body fat.  Get into the habit of planning meals around your protein intake.  Once you meet your goal of 20-40g/meal, you can fill in the rest of your caloric requirements with a mix of healthy fats and complex carbs.  In all, shoot for at least 1g protein for each pound of bodyweight every day.
4.    Eliminate simple sugars and refined carbohydrates in favour of complex carb sources. You’ve read ‘complex carbs’ a couple of times above, and that’s because we want to avoid foods that make you fat by using sugar or refined flour and other processed ingredients.  Complex carbohydrates take longer for the body to process, so they cause less of an insulin spike.  Other than immediately after training, insulin spikes generally cause fat retention, so keeping blood sugar consistent by eating complex carbs along with protein and fiber will help keep you lean.
5.    Eat fruits and vegetables. Not only do they taste delicious (even veggies are good when you learn to cook them correctly), but they have innumerable health benefits.  After all, the entire cycle of life on this planet begins when plants capture solar energy.  When we eat these plant foods, we’re getting tons of phytochemicals, vitamins and minerals that are essential for maintenance and growth.  The fiber and water in fruits and veggies helps to keep you lean by providing a sense of fullness and filtering out toxic waste products.  Buy organic whenever you can (afford to), since the are typically farmed in conditions that produce favourable micronutrient content when compared to those farmed with ‘traditional’ mega-farm agriculture.
6.    Eat healthy fats. Despite what your grandma may have told you back in the early 90’s, consuming fat does not make you gain body fat.  Now, it’s true that you should avoid eating too much saturated fats and trans fats should be avoided at all costs, but healthy fats are, well, healthy.  Sufficient intake of healthy fats improves circulation, joint lubrication and even helps to burn body fat.  Omega-3, 6 & 9 fats are required for all kinds of body processes.  Eating foods like nuts, peanut butter, avocados, olive oil and taking supplements like fish and flax oil will help to ensure you’re getting enough fat in your diet.
7.    Eat whole foods. We already discussed avoiding simple sugars and refined foods, plus how important it is to consume complex carbohydrates and a variety of vegetables and fruits.  The easiest way to take care of these needs in one fell swoop is to eat as many whole foods as you can.  Whole foods are the basic ingredients like raw meats, fruits, vegetables, eggs, milk, etc.  A good rule of thumb is to shop the perimeter of your local grocery store.  The stuff in the middle is typically heavily processed junk that you can avoid.
8.    Eat a variety of foods. It’s far better to eat a large number of different foods than just a few.  An extreme example is tuna fish.  Canned tuna is an incredibly efficient and cheap way to get lean protein.  However, recent studies have suggested that the mercury levels in these fish might be harmful if they’re eaten too frequently.  Aside from critical cases like this, it’s important to eat a variety of fruits and vegetables to ensure sufficient intake of vitamins and minerals.  A good rule of thumb is to try to eat as many different coloured foods as possible.  Add in the fact that you’re more likely to stick with healthy eating when you can get a wide variety of food and the choice is clear.
9.    Drink plenty of water. It has no calories, vitamins or minerals, but water is the very source of life on this planet.  Without food you can last a month or more, but take away water for even a couple of days and you’re in big, big trouble.  Drinking water provides the essential ‘juice’ for all of the body’s processes.  In sufficient amounts, it helps to cleanse the body of all the toxins we’re exposed to and that we create just from living.  I like to shoot for around a gallon a day.  I’d say no less than 96 oz. no matter the situation, but you can try up to 2gals. if you don’t mind going to the bathroom somewhat frequently.  Another good idea is to not drink whilst eating.  Instead, drink 16oz. or more 15-30 mins prior to eating.  When I’m at a restaurant, I drink a glass or two before my meal arrives.  This hydrates the body, plus it primes the intestinal tract for smooth, efficient digestion.
10.    Use (few) supplements. Right now, the strength training world is awash in useless supplements marketed with pseudo-science.  The fact is, you don’t need most of this junk, and aside from the possible placebo effect, they’re mostly a total waste of money.  There are a few standbys that have been proven to work well, including whey protein, creatine monohydrate, multivitamins and fish oil.  Whey is a great way to cheaply increase your protein intake, but be careful with it and don’t use it to the exclusion of whole foods.  Whey digests in about an hour, so if you were to take some every three hours as your meal, the other two hours in between, your muscles would be wasting away.  We’ll have plenty more about which supplements to consider and which to stay away from in future articles.
11.     Cheat. That’s right, cheat on your ‘diet’ every once in a while.  Actually, this is not a ‘diet’ . . . it’s a sustainable lifestyle that permits you an unending variety of delicious munchies.  Every once in a while, you’ll want to indulge in something like cheesecake or pizza, so go for it.  Not only will eating less healthy meals relieve some of your stress, but the increased caloric intake will boost your metabolism and actually improve your fat burning, lean lifestyle.  Don’t get carried away though.  I’m not saying to eat sloppily every meal or even every day.  I shoot for 90-95% clean food intake.  If you’re eating every 3 hours, that’d be around 40 meals a week, so don’t eat junk more than 2-4 times.  If you’re trying to get very lean (under 10% BF for men and 16% for women), consider cutting this back to 1-2 times a week, but even then, you’ll need to eat larger meals every week or so to push your metabolism back up (we’ll discuss this in depth in an upcoming article).  Do your best and if you can follow the 90-95% standard, your results will be excellent.

So there you have it.  Follow these eleven steps and remember that this is a lifestyle and not some get skinny fast program, and you’re on your way to a healthier, leaner, sexier body.