[foodness]

One of my friends recently asked about the way I eat and why and how they could make steps in a healthier food direction. In typical Emily fashion, I jumped at the chance to pour the past two years of research and my edible opinions all over them.

Here's what I wrote:

Dear ________________,

I'm so excited you asked about my healthy eating and living and hope this information dump doesn't freak you out. I love strategizing and encouraging people to make positive changes in their personal, business, and fashion lives, and I've been working on this email for two days hahahahahaha. Thoroughness is why I'm awesome and it's my biggest vice. ;) But all of this passion is because I love God so much and am constantly amazed at how our bodies are creatively and wonderfully made! Seriously, since I started researching health my worship and gratefulness and awe over God's craftsmanship have grown exponentially! This body and the way it holds my spirit is a huge gift and I want to always value it!

Let me know if you have any specific questions or if this is helpful or if you can't even get through it all because it's a freaking textbook. :)

So here are my top 5 tips for eating healthier and a sample meal plan!

1. Don't buy the food that isn't good for you. When you go to the grocery store, skip the chips, leave the bread & bagels on the shelf, no more buying cereal EVER, skip anything that you have to microwave to eat, skip cans of things, don't buy anything with "hydrogenated oils," say no to things pre-assembled. Buy only food that looks like food.  That way when you want a snack, you HAVE to choose carrots because the chips aren't there. If I buy unhealthy food, I eat it. Quickly. It's crazy how fast I knock off a bag of chips or bottle of wine if it's in my house. If it's not there? I don't even think about it. (False! I do. But then I tell myself I don't have any and to quit whining. Which I do. Usually.) Save your chips for when you're out at a taco shop with friends, save cereal breakfasts for when you're on a camping trip, save the six-pack of beer for when you've got a specific group of people coming over to drink it all for you etc. I'm not saying you can't ever have those things again, but do not buy them for your cupboards/fridge. This will reduce 95% of eating them!

2. Plan ahead. I know, I know, it's lame. But it's actually not! You save time, money, and billions of hours at the gym working off your coma-inducing fast food if you do a little planning. Use your business strategy skills. Make it a treasure hunt. Whatever mind tricks you have to play on yourself to get out of the "only women can cook healthy" mindset and into the "everyone has to eat, therefore everyone can learn how to cook healthy!" mindset! Make it fun! Don't get stuck hungry on the road! I have an INTENSE social schedule. Like, seriously intense. Often times during the week I have 10 minutes to change, grab food, and get somewhere else. But you know what? I always take time to figure out what I want to eat, shop for it, and prep it up for a few hours on Saturday or Sunday and have all my ingredients ready so I can whip up something amazing and healthy in 10 minutes when I get home from the gym and head out to a friend's house or party or bible study or volunteering. I cook meat on weekends, hardboil eggs, chop veggies, portion lunches out, etc. Those 2-3 hours are fun and save me so much time and money during the week. I only buy lunches at work if I'm meeting a friend.

3. Invite a friend to dinner and try a new recipe. Whenever I get bored or bogged down with making the same old food, I trick myself into making something new FUN by adding people I love! Or, ask them what they've cooked recently. You can do a dinner party for cheap, too. Tell everyone you're grilling chicken and ask them to bring a salad, someone else to bring veggies, someone else to bring sparkling water and lemons. TELL everyone that you're having a healthy dinner party. If you MUST have dessert, just ask someone to bring fresh fruit, skip the cool whip. Food + Community are absolutely MFEO.

4. Stop thinking of meals as a dish with a name with a specific name like "spaghetti" or "burritos" or "pizza" and start thinking of every meal as "vegetables & meat." Your body doesn't need you to eat "breakfast foods" in the morning, "lunch foods" at noon, and "dinner foods" at night. All of the "breakfast foods"/"dinner foods" training is marketing. And screw the marketers! Your body is yours and God's, not Advertisers! You will not die if you eat broccoli & chicken for breakfast, an omelet for lunch, and a smoothie for dinner.  This, in fact, is how MY body works best. TMI, but I'm a huge morning eater but have no problem just having a few veggies or a protein smoothie later in the day when I'm winding down to sleep in a few hours anyway.

5. Learn that fat doesn't make you fat. Sugar makes you fat. Most of being healthy involves retraining and reforming your patterns. It is hard work! We are told by advertising reps all over the place that fat makes us fat, but a basic understanding of biology and anatomy and chemical processes informs us that this is NOT true. Fat (the good kind. There IS bad fat) makes you feel full. It doesn't store around your gut. SUGAR is what turns into the fat that hugs your organs and abs. Read up on this in anything by Gary Taubes and Mark Hyman. They have blogs and books, depending on your attention span. There IS a lot of "out there" alternative information, but both of these men are producing quality, logical, reasonable information about food and health and wellness. Being fat isn't WHY you're unhealthy, it is a sign that you ARE unhealthy. In my English major understand, sugar (or simple carbs like processed wheat, etc) spike your insulin levels, which through a series of events leads to insulin resistance in small amounts which makes you gain fat instead of muscle, and ultimately stops insulin production = diabetes.

BONUS: Food isn't just calories: it's information. Every molecule and amino acid chain that you consume will TELL your body what to do with it. Eat the food that gives you good information: vegetables, good fats from avocados, coconut oil, and humanely-raised animals, and protein.

Here's my typical diet:

First things: Large glass of water with a fresh squeezed lemon. This is like a giant hug for your liver, which does all the hard work of processing toxins all day. Livers aren't replaceable and they work REALLY hard. It's important to take care of them! It also gives me a lot of energy in the morning and is just refreshing! If you want to get crazy, add a dash of cayenne pepper to boost your circulation, too. Before you add food to your body in the AM, add lemon water! (If I ever run for political office, which I won't because that's super lame, my slogan would definitely be Love your Liver. Because everyone should! Also, this is why I wouldn't get elected.)

Breakfast: Eggs + Veggies. I saute mushrooms, spinach, kale, greens, zucchini, peppers whatever I have on hand (and usually what is already cut up!) into a saute pan with some organic butter. When it's cooked I put it on a plate and then fry an egg. Put the egg on the veggies. Add a pinch of good quality sea salt and some pepper, OR top with a quarter of an avocado and hot sauce. Amazing and it takes 5 minutes! I do some variation on this basically every day. Sometimes it's a spinach/egg scramble. Occasionally just an egg. On weekends I add bacon or sausage since I have a little more time for a luxurious breaky. I feel SO good when I eat veggies and protein in the morning!

Snack: Raw unsalted almonds, pecans, cashews, etc. (Not peanuts. They're not a nut and they do similar harm to your body the way dairy does. Your tummy will be happier!) You pretty much have to buy them at Trader Joe's or Whole Foods to get good quality. If you can't stand raw at first, at least get the ones with reduced salt. I have a big jar of mixed nuts I keep in my desk drawer at the office. Sometimes if I'm crazy I'll add in some organic dark chocolate chips. Skip the dried fruit, it'll spike your insulin and tell your body to store fat. Stick with proteiny snacks and not too many. They're just to hold you over until you fill up on meat and veggies again, they're not your meal. You could totally keep a jar of nuts in your car!

Lunch: Leftovers: veggies and meat. Today it's broccoli and salmon drizzled with plenty of lemon and some good quality olive oil and I'm seriously looking forward to eating it. :) Sometimes it's a coleslaw or salad type meal (although both of those things are titles which can turn people off. I just usually stick with saying it's veggies and meat.)

Snack: Beef jerky. Not the kind you get at a gas station. That's made from sad, abused, cows filled with more antibiotics than your local pharmacy. Trader Joe's has great natural, pasture raised beef jerky for a reasonable price. Again, it's expensive, but it's not your primary meal. It's a snack to get you to your next plate of health! Or get some really high quality salami. I find that a piece or two of that is fatty enough to satisfy me for a while!

Dinner: Skillet Goodness. Again, there's no real recipe. I just cook up all the veggies and meat that I have in a big skillet with plenty of spices and then eat it. Last night's skillet (half of which went into the freezer, some of it I had for breakfast this morning with a fried egg on top, and the rest will be tomorrow's lunch) had onions, organic ground beef, mushrooms, kale, red pepper, zucchini, spinach, garlic, salt & pepper, ground mustard, cumin, and red pepper flakes and then I topped it with half an avocado. DEEEEEEEELISH.

Treats: I try not to every day, but if I do have a treat, it's usually a few organic dark chocolate chips or a few spoonfuls of coconut milk ice cream. (It's creamy and delicious and you don't get dairy tummy!) I still enjoy treats but I try to really savor a little bit rather than just mindlessly consuming a bunch.

All of this may sound crazy at first, and I don't ever want to force you to change, but healthy living is a PRIORITY value for me. Like I said, it feels like worship, which I guess it is. In Him we live and move and have our being, and doing the best I can with the body I have is a reflection of how GOOD I know God is!

It's all about retraining what you've been sold or slid into out of laziness and I promise you, once you do the hard work of building new habits, this is easy. It's not a diet, it's a lifestyle. A few changes I made abruptly, like cutting out all gluten and dairy, but a lot of the rest has been a process over the last year as I've learned how to make changes that stick. You may have to retrain your tastebuds, but it's totally doable! I even like cauliflower now, I just had to figure out a way to prepare it that actually tasted good! (Most people hate vegetables because they were never exposed to fresh ones made well!)

Cheers to your next health steps! (That's cheers with sparkling water and fresh lemon)

-EM