{"id":102,"date":"2008-04-03T10:01:53","date_gmt":"2008-04-03T15:01:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/noelfigart.com\/blog\/?p=102"},"modified":"2008-04-03T10:01:53","modified_gmt":"2008-04-03T15:01:53","slug":"eat-real-food","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/noelfigart.com\/wordpress\/2008\/04\/03\/eat-real-food\/","title":{"rendered":""Eat Real Food""},"content":{"rendered":"

I read an interesting article called Unhappy Meals<\/a> recently.<\/p>\n

Do you eat real food? When is the last time you chopped up a bunch of veggies on a bed of dark greens and sliced some tasty protein source over that (eggs, beans fish, meat)? Little olive oil, some garlic, OM NOM NOM NOM NOM…<\/p>\n

Breakfast? Did you eat it? It’s a good time to get some whole grains in.<\/p>\n

Now, I eat five small meals a day. It’s what works for me, but I’m not saying everyone has to do this for optimum health. (In fact, I’m quite a fan of the sensibleness of the No S Diet<\/a>).<\/p>\n

So, this is a fairly normal day for me:<\/p>\n

Breakfast<\/strong>: Cottage cheese pancakes (1\/2 c. cottage cheese, 1 egg, 1\/2 c. raw oatmeal. Whizz it in a blender, cook it like a pancake). It’s a good pre-workout meal. Some people mash a banana on it. I could see doing that if you like bananas. I don’t. I actually salt them, rather than add something sweet.<\/p>\n

Second Breakfast<\/strong>: Apple, 1T natural peanut butter.<\/p>\n

Luncheon<\/strong>: Dark lettuce leaf salad with red peppers, mushrooms, carrots, celery, 1T chopped bacon, 1T olive oil and red wine vinegar dressing and 2 boiled eggs.<\/p>\n

Tea<\/strong>: A dip made from 1c cottage cheese mixed with 1\/4 c. chopped olives and some soy sauce. 1 whole sliced red pepper as dipping veggie. (Could be anything, but it’s what I had on hand that sounded good. It’d be tasty with almost any veggies).<\/p>\n

Dinner<\/strong>: 2c. Homemade chicken soup (chicken carcass soup. Leftover chicken carcass cooked all day with water in a crock pot, take the meat off, toss the bones, then add some carrots, celery, garlic, fresh ginger, and salt) and a small sweet potato with a pat of butter. I could have added some brown rice to the soup, but was craving the sweet potato.<\/p>\n

(A large male should probably add “Supper” and eat like a real hobbit. I’m just five two, so five meals is plenty for me).<\/p>\n

Yesterday was heavy on the eggs and cottage cheese. Some days it’s tuna — depending on my mood. But the point is that it’s “real” food. Obviously, I don’t exactly believe in going hungry and because I lift, I try to get some protein with every meal. The apple and peanut butter weren’t ideal, but not bad, either. I was having a sweet craving.<\/p>\n

My basic nutrition plan is to make sure I eat five small meals a day and have some protein and really complex carbs with either veggies or fruit for each meal. (Breakfast was a fail for this day). My complex carbs tend to be things like oatmeal or brown rice or sweet potatoes. (Nothing wrong <\/em>with white potatoes in moderation. I just happen to like baked sweet potatoes a lot). <grin> It’s a reasonably easy way to get your “five a day”, if that’s what you’re shooting for nutrition-wise. I also, you notice, do not do as many weight lifters do and use MRP (Meal Replacement products) very often. Oh, sure, I’ll chug a protein drink on days I teach just because it’s not practical to stop the class to sit down to a salad at Second Breakfast. But, I consider that sub-optimum.<\/p>\n

I think real food is best. I think it satisfies better than the plethora of low-fat, low-carb “products” out there. I also think starving yourself is unhealthy. I think shopping the outside aisles of the grocery store is a good habit. Obviously I hadda go down the cereal aisle for the oatmeal. But I think that trying to make sure that most of what you eat is stuff that grows, rather than has been processed all to hell is a good idea.<\/p>\n

When you want a treat (I have one about once a week), have something “real” again. Go ahead and buy a freshly made doughnut. Have a serving (1\/2 c. by the way!) of Ben and Jerry’s. Have the really good <\/em>chocolate truffle. I had a wonderful cannoli on Sunday as my treat, as well as a glass of wine with dinner and it was delightful! Life’s too short to eat crap food.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I read an interesting article called Unhappy Meals recently. Do you eat real food? When is the last time you chopped up a bunch of veggies on a bed of dark greens and sliced some tasty protein source over that (eggs, beans fish, meat)? Little olive oil, some garlic, OM NOM NOM NOM NOM… Breakfast? … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “"Eat Real Food"”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-food"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/noelfigart.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/noelfigart.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/noelfigart.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noelfigart.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noelfigart.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/noelfigart.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/noelfigart.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noelfigart.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noelfigart.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}