Special guest post by OCR superstar Ryan Woods
Hello reader. Thank you for reading written words. I’m here to tell you that you eat like shit.
I do too. I’m no registered dietician or anything but it’s a safe bet that your diet sucks. It’s why despite all your working out you still aren’t reaching your potential.
You’re slower than you’d like. You’re weaker than you’d like.
Hell, you’re uglier than you’d like (unless it’s all stored is a juicy booty). You step on the scale and you know you need to be 5lbs less. No, not 5lbs? 50lbs? 500? Guess what though… it gets better with age. Ha, just kidding. It gets way worse. Don’t worry though, I’ve figured it all out and I’m about to share with you the Woodsy diet for a small fee of $1,000. Per word. This is on the honor system, but I expect your checks are in the mail.
The first step to being not so much of a big fat fatty is to know what’s healthy.
At one point in my life, in my 20’s, spaghetti and pizza where my healthy meals. Ahhh how I long for those days. Now between the sodium and the carbs the next morning the scales rocket up and my chiseled physique has turned dad bod.
So, what’s healthy now? I subscribe to the anti-inflammatory diet. It’s like paleo and a bunch of other fads. It’s essentially lean, preferably wild caught, meats and veggies. Stick to the outside of your grocery store and buy the food that goes bad. Why? Because processed foods have a lot of sodium and shit. Water follows salt. Also, those foods have lots of grains and other inflammatory thingies. So, you’ll be way more inflamed. Science.
It goes something like you need a 3:1 omega 3 ratio but the modern diet has people at 20-1 or higher. Honestly, I don’t remember the details but the take-home message stuck. Thus, chronic inflammation and diseases like heart disease, diabetes, and cancer. Blah blah blah I think because I had a class 12-15 years ago and vaguely remember stuff being said. Don’t quote me though on this shit.
So, here’s what I do. First, I identify my healthy meals, my not so healthy meals, and the garbage meals that I just can’t say no to. Here’s breakfast. If I’m being my healthiest, I’m usually having some hard boiled eggs fed a natural or high flaxseed diet. If I’m doing my not so healthy thang… well, it’s a bagel or a granola cereal.
And then there’s the complete shit version. Donuts, Toaster strudels, pastries, and biscuits. God, I love biscuits. Country ham biscuits, sausage and gravy biscuits, sausage egg and cheese biscuits, Cajun filet biscuits, blueberry biscuits, cinnamon biscuits, biscuits and jelly and now they’ve created classy biscuits like where the biscuit bread is gourmet and then they do some crazy shit like put fried chicken on it and then pour honey and tabasco on it. Holy shit. Sorry, I’ve gone off track.
So, I know me and know I’ll eat what I’m around. So, I don’t bring that shit into my house forcing me to eat more of my healthier options. The more good days I have the more routine it becomes. Then on special occasions, like when I’m hungover or depressed, I’ll treat myself to a biscuit. Or three.
Breakfast is easy though because it’s more of a routine.
It gets more difficult at lunch and dinner. I can’t help with you sandwich-loving lunch folks. I train at lunch and am addicted to my protein smoothie afterward. Fruit, whey, and creatine every day. So damn good. It’s the highlight of my day and it’s super healthy. I will also graze more at lunch and predinner time on nut butters. It used to be Nutella. Get that shit out of your house. It’s worse than crack. I could eat a tub in one sitting. ‘Woodsy is on the 10,000 calories a day Nutella diet when he died of a heart attack’ reads the headline.
Dinner is the game changer for me
I can’t do grains and fast food anymore. At 40 years old my metabolism just isn’t the same as my college days. It’s still damn good but I see the writing on the wall. What awaits me at 45? 50? 60? Besides all the biscuits I can handle. So, my dinner plans are meat and veggies. About 5 nights a week. I can eat a ton of it too. And it’s good when prepared well.
Now my cheat meals are my college days healthy meals… Lasagna, pizza, burritos, beef stroganoff (yea, it’s awesome) or going out to dinner. I also make sure to not stack cheat meals on top of each other. If it’s biscuits for breakfast, then it’s baked chicken and broccoli for dessert.
That’s how I stay balanced to not be such a big fat fatty. Well, that and an insane amount of exercise. BUT WAIT, there’s more! Did you think I forgot about booze and desserts? Oh hell no. Near this time last year, I found myself with a bit of a beer gut. Why? Because I drank a lot of beer. And even more wine. Turns out that without realizing it I had turned into an everyday drinker. It wasn’t a lot, but it was 2-3 glasses. It added up. Even with all my exercise, I wasn’t keeping myself lean and fit. So, I set a realistic goal. I’d only have 2 or fewer drinks up to 3 times a week. I’m proud to say I’m still on that path with a super high success rate.
Then there’s dessert
Damn, homeboy here would have his 2-4 glasses of wine and then flush it down with dessert. Every night. If we didn’t buy dessert, then there was going to be a fight. Just like with the booze we set the same realistic goals. We also switched out desserts from tubs of fudge and boxes of brownies to just a chocolate bar. Two tubs of Ben and Jerry’s became one shared tub. Sometimes I make Casein pudding for dessert. Who the hell have I become!?! We also don’t pair a booze night with a dessert night unless there’s a fancy dinner involved. Those desserts are small anyway.
Here’s the takeaway
We all could tone up a bit. Unless you’re clinically anorexic then please disregard. Instead of a crash diet that will work for a month then leave you binging on cookie dough and Nutella try to set more realistic goals. Focus on making a few more of your meals “cleaner” while minimizing your vices. Force your routine meals (like breakfast and lunch) into being healthy by not bringing junk in the house. For every bad eating decision try to pair it with a good one. All I am saying is just eat like shit a little less.
