So the last 9 days of The Strength and Badassness Christmas have all been geared towards the different training tools and methods you can use for total mass destruction.
But that’s not always the main solution…
So, for today’s focus, I wanted to change gears a bit and talk about NUTRITION and how you need to start putting a whole lot more focus in on it.
After all, nutrition should be the TOP PRIORITY for any athlete or serious trainee!!
Whether it be for performance or physique enhancement purposes – GOOD NUTRITION IS CRITICAL!
Have you ever heard the saying, “You can’t out-train a crappy diet??”
Well, I learned this to be 100% true back in college when I was playing football.
A typical week of nutrition looked like this:
Monday – $2 Burger Night
Tuesday – Pancake Feed in the Morning
Wednesday – $5 Medium Pizza Night (I would usually eat 2.5 of these!)
Thursday – WING NIGHT! Lots of added ranch with this!
Friday – Pre Game Meal (Pizza, Pasta, and Ice Cream)
Saturday – Game Day – I would feel tired and sluggish before the game and in warm ups…
I would always wonder why??
So, like many other athletes, I always thought that since I was lifting my ass off, playing football, and staying super active that all of that would cover up my extremely crappy diet.
You see, I was always in great condition for football but I wasn’t what you would call “Ripped” or “Shredded”. I know now that it was largely due to how I was eating.
So it wasn’t until between my junior and senior year in football that we had a professional certified nutritionist visit with our football team.
I remember all I asked about was which supplements to take and if the ATKINS diet would help. I was CLUELESS!
She bashed both of those things and talked about the importance of increasing your consumption of plant based foods.
I took notes and quickly changed my diet up.
What I learned shocked the hell outta me!
What I didn’t know about greens was crazy! I got a dumbed down version of what I learned.
Here’s 3 major things that hit me like a brick:
- Eating veggies and plant based foods help “alkalize” the body helping it recover quicker. Quick note on this, when we train and push our bodies, we get “acidic” and our bodies break down. To help battle this, we need plant based greens to help alkalize the body.
- Greens and Plant based foods supply more energy to the body. Since these foods are still “alive” and are not dead like meats and grains are, they supply the body with more nutrients and energy thus helping the body increase energy. Crazy but true! Try taking a few shots of wheat grass a day for a week and you’ll see the difference!
- Greens and veggies are a “free food”. This simply means that they are HIGH in nutrients but very low in calories. With this, you can eat pretty much an endless amount and not worry about getting fat. This gives me a good reason to pile up the veggies on my plate to add more volume to my meals without having to worry!
So with those points being learned, I fell in love with eating more greens and veggies!
I started eating more spinach, broccoli, kale, cauliflower, and cabbage in most of my meals.
I can remember my roommates always giving me crap for steaming my food and taking up most of the room in the refrigerator with my Tupperware full of cut up veggies.
But it didn’t take long before I could I tell a HUGE difference!
I was feeling more awake, my lifts went up, and I could start seeing the different in my body.
I was getting more cuts and feeling 100x’s more energized!
I took what I learned back then and have adapted into my life now.
I now focus on eating as many greens as I can with each meal during the day. I’m definitely NOT a vegan or vegetarian! Far from it!
I love my meat! So what I do to add in my greens is mix my meats and veggies together. So eggs and spinach, pepper, mushrooms, and broccoli in the morning. Steam veggies and chicken or turkey for lunch usually. And I always had a HUGE steamed plate of veggies with wither fish, chicken, or a nice steak in the evenings for dinner.
Talking about this is making my mouth water!
Which brings me up to the resource I have for you today!
It’s Jason Ferruggia’s new cookbook, The Renegade Recipe Guide
This just came out yesterday and I got it as soon as I saw it come out!
I don’t know about you, but I love to cook and try different meals.
It’s got 134 different Plant based recipes!
I’m pretty excited to try some of these out!
These two are looking like they will be my go to recipes since breakfast is my favorite meal:
Southwestern Style Eggs… Page 20
Breakfast Burritos… Page 21
As I mentioned above, I love my meat!
The only thing is about this recipe guide is that I’m a meat eater and there are NO meat dished.!
With that being said, since there are NO meat dished in this book, what I plan on doing is adding in some of the healthy snacks to my meat dishes.
Some of the BEST snacks I’m planning on making are these three:
Artichoke Heart and Pea Salad… Page 66
Eggplant and Lentil Salad… Page 67
Balsamic Mixed Bean Salad… Page 73
But, to be honest, the main reason I wanted to include this in on my 12 Days of Strength and Badassness Christmas is because I know the author, Jay Ferruggia delivers every time!
He had been creating this book for 3 years!
I know I’ll be having some fun throwing some of these meals together the next couple of weeks!
A lot of them will be new to me but I plan on seeing some good results as a bonus.
If you wanting to take your training and physique results to the next level, you gotta be aware that your nutrition needs to be top notch!
If you need a guide for some new healthy, kickass meals – I would check Jay’s new book out!
====> The Renegade Recipe Guide
It’s actually on sale until Christmas Eve for just under $20! Not bad!
I would grab it if you looking for something new and extremely healthy for your body!
Again, I can’t stress the importance of good nutrition and getting enough greens in your body!
If you’re used to getting sick and not having the energy you want, quit lying to yourself and change your nutrition!
Quit the EXCUSES!
Live Aggressive and Get Strong!
Travis
PS – Tomorrow it’s Hardcore Hundred time! BE READY!
PPS – Don’t miss out on Jay’s sale for his new book!
It’s on sale until Christmas!! ===> The Renegade Recipe Guide