Desert Sage
Breakfast – carbs and proteins (perfect time of day for a Shakeology)
Mid morning snack – proteins
Lunch – carbs and proteins (feel free to mix in some vegetables here)
Mid afternoon snack – proteins
Dinner – proteins and vegetables
Optional night time snack – proteins and or vegetables
Visit my Healthy Grocery List page to find the BEST Carbs, Proteins, and Fats for your Daily Eating Schedule.
We tend to make our nutrition really complicated because of the vast amounts of data scientists have accumulated over time. If that sort of thing interests you, you could take a more scientific approach but if you are like most of us who just want to know how to eat right to live better then just learn a little bit about the three macro-nutrients, timing, and portion controlling your meals. That’s all it takes to eat right!
The three macro-nutrients you should know about are carbohydrates, fats and proteins. These are the only nutrients that contain calories, so partitioning and portion controlling them plays an important role in planning your diet. Proteins are the building blocks of all the bodies cells. They are also a major component of enzymes, hormones, and antibodies. Protein is the multi tasking nutrient! Carbohydrates do many things such as help utilize fat for energy, enhance brain and nerve health, provide dietary fiber etc. but their main roll in planning your diet is that they increase insulin levels which in turn deliver needed nutrients to the bodies cells. Fat is the chief form of energy in the body, provides fat soluble vitamins, insulates and protects organs, and can enhance the health of your heart and blood vessels or create fatally unhealthy heart and blood vessels depending on the quality of fats that dominate your diet. The most important modification to ones diet one could make is the quality of the fat that dominates ones diet. To learn more about choosing foods with higher quality fat sources for optimum health visit my page on “Cholesterol, then fats and triglycerides”
Timing your nutrients plays an important role in how you plan your meals because different nutrients cause different physiological occurrences in the body. For example, ideally for breakfast you want carbohydrates and protein to get your blood sugars and metabolism in check after eight hours of fasting. This will set the tone for the rest of your day! The easiest and most effective way to do that is to drink a Shakeology which will set the stage from the beginning of your day to eat good and feel good all day long. For lunch, ideally, you want the bulk of your food to be proteins and carbohydrates to facilitate your blood sugar levels and to provide fuel for the bulk of your day that still remains. For dinner the bulk of your nutrients should come from proteins and fresh vegetables. Carbohydrates are no longer needed in bulk because you’re day is coming to an end. Any extra carbohydrates that are not burned by your activity will be more easily stored as fat.
Time your nutrients for your workouts as well as for the time of day! This is important regarding when to consume specific kinds of carbohydrates. There are fast absorbing carbs (high glycemic) and slow absorbing carbs (low glycemic). Save your fast absorbing carbs for breakfast and immediately following a vigorous workout. Eating a fast absorbing carb for dinner will spike your already stable blood sugar levels too much too fast. You’re body will probably not be able to metabolize that much in such a short amount of time resulting in an overflow of nutrients to be more likely stored as fat.
Eat at least five or six times per day. Every three hours is ideal. If you wait four hours between meals you are weakening your metabolism because by that time your body automatically switches into starvation mode by breaking down muscle cells to extract protein for energy instead of glucose and fat (the bodies intended sources of energy).
The most important variable in having control over your body weight is calories in are equal calories out. If you burn more calories than you eat you will loose weight and vice versa. If you portion control your meals you can have more control over your ability to loose or gain weight. A generally accepted safe caloric deficit to loose weight is 10%. If you’re daily caloric needs to maintain your current weight is equal to 2,000 calories then an 1,800 calorie per day diet is ideal to loose weight at a safe rate. If you don’t already have an idea as to how many calories you should be consuming daily then figure that out first on this Fitness Calculator. Recalculate once per week. As your body changes your calorie requirements will change.
Take the time and put forth the sometimes tedious effort to learn how to apply good nutritional habits that work for you and the desired results you’re going for. In time it will become second nature! Once you have conquered that task it’s an invaluable education you will take it with you for the rest of your life and even teach others how to do the same for themselves. Priceless!!!
– Tom
Get Shakeology – The Healthiest Meal of the Day