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Beautiful Badass Nutrition Principles

• Posted 11/09/2011
• Tags:
  beautiful badass, diet AND nutrition.
• 30 Comments

Two weeks ago I revealed My Battle with Disordered Eating. If you haven’t read that yet, I highly recommend you do because it will provide insight into the following nutrition information.

And last week I posted the first follow-up to that article where I revealed Beautiful Badass Strength Training Principles. While at first glance it may not seem like training had anything to do with my recovery from disordered eating, it was a huge piece of the puzzle. Don’t miss that article; in fact, I recommend you check it out before continuing with this article. Go ahead . . . I’ll be here waiting when you’re done.

As mentioned in the disordered eating article, many of my current nutrition principles developed in response to that experience, and primarily out of necessity to heal my relationship with food and to keep myself from tail-spinning back into disordered eating patterns.

Because someone will inevitably argue with my guidelines, allow me to start this off with a disclaimer – the following information may not be appropriate for everyone. Just because it works for me and the vast majority of my clients does not mean it’s the best option for you.

I don’t believe any nutrition method is the end-all and be-all for everyone, and my guidelines are no different. I truly wish there was one simple fix for people with bad food relationships, or a single set of nutrition principles that worked easily and flawlessly for everyone, but that’s just not the case.

With that out of the way, I will state that my guidelines are simple and straight to the point; but simple does not necessarily mean easy, at least for everyone. If your current nutrition strategies are polar opposites of the information in this article, then it may definitely take some effort on your part to make the transition, at least in the beginning stages.

My Nutrition Goals

My nutrition goals, and those of my clients, are very simple and straight forward.

• The less I/we have to think about food (preparing, types of food to eat, etc), the better; follow nutrition strategies that are as stress-free as possible and flexible
• For me and the majority if my clients, simplicity paves the way for success when it comes to nutrition adherence
• Follow principles that allow me to achieve (and maintain) my health, body composition, and performance goals

Those points are the driving force behind my current nutrition strategies.

I want to eat in a way that keeps my mind and body healthy and performing at it’s best. Beyond that, I definitely want to look good too, and so do my clients.

I also want to be able to enjoy some of my favorite foods like ice cream, pizza, burgers, homemade desserts, and other “not-so-healthy” foods without being riddled with guilt afterwards.

In my opinion, and that of my clients, there are more important things in life than stressing over food, meal plans, and anything else that has to do with food. Instead, we build and ingrain a few simple nutrition principles.

With all of that in mind, let’s move forward.

What I Do Not Focus On

To keep everything short, simple, and organized, I am going to lay out in bullet points the things I do not focus on or do when it comes to nutrition.

• Don’t count calories
• Don’t eat several small meals every few hours throughout the day
• Don’t completely avoid “unhealthy” foods like ice cream and pizza
• Don’t have “forbidden” or “off-limit” foods (unless you have an allergy)
• Don’t berate myself for eating pizza or ice cream each week. Indulging in a few pieces of pizza won’t ruin my results overnight just like a day of eating “perfectly” won’t cause me to wake up a lot leaner the following morning. If I enjoy those “not so healthy foods”, I don’t feel guilty or have negative thoughts afterwards.
• Don’t have “cheat meals” or “cheat days”. Find out why here: The Dark Side of Cheat Days.

• I don’t snack. Why? Because I don’t know how to “just have a snack”. When I eat, I like to feel full afterwards. Because I like to feel satisfied, I like to eat larger meals. In that past I would attempt to have a “snack” of a handful of almonds or an apple with peanut butter. Well, it would become a bag of almonds or two apples piled high with peanut butter.

Why don’t I do any of those things listed above? Because I have done all of those things in the past, and they left me frustrated, stressed, and overly obsessive compulsive with food and eating habits.

What I Do Focus On

Now that you know what I don’t do, it’s time to share what I do focus on when it comes to nutrition.

• First and foremost: eat primarily real food for the majority of meals (90-ish percent throughout the week). What qualifies as real food? If it can rot or spoil fairly easily, then it’s most likely real food (meat, eggs, veggies, fruits, nuts). Items that have a long shelf life are usually not (crackers, processed foods, etc).
• Eat protein. This isn’t something I truly focused on until fairly recently. By making sure I consume at least one gram of protein per pound of bodyweight, I have seen positive results, namely greater satiety and improved performance in the gym. Yes, it means I had to track my protein intake at first, but after a couple of weeks it’s completely effortless. (My favorite protein sources are organic free range eggs, grass fed beef and bison, chicken, turkey, and fish, just to name a few).
• Fruits and veggies – eat them. I have a few staple veggie dishes I’ll eat frequently such as steamed asparagus or brussels sprouts with lemon, mixed greens salad with goat cheese, sautéed mixed veggies, etc. The trick, at least for me, was to find ways to make vegetables taste good. If they don’t taste good, I’m not going to eat them. And I keep experimenting with different recipes and vegetables as well.
• Learn to feel true hunger, if you’ve forgotten what it feels like. This was definitely the toughest thing to learn, and the most intimidating. When I was in the midst of my disordered eating, my body signals such as “full” and “hungry” were completely out of whack. I used intermittent fasting for this, and I’ll discuss it further below.
• Guidelines must be flexible and allow for freedom. If some friends want to go out to eat at a local restaurant or pub, I want to be able to join them without getting stressed out over food options and choices.
• Eat foods that don’t fit into the “real category” post workout. When I do eat things like pizza or ice cream, I prefer to do so after a training session. For example, after a deadlift workout I may fill up on French toast and ice cream. This way I get to enjoy my favorite foods and put all of the extra carbs to good use. Note – this is actually something I have been experimenting with over the past few months. The results have been great, and so the days I want to eat ice cream or other “junk food”, I will do so after a training session.
• Have some go-to meals. Some of mine are bacon and eggs with asparagus, fresh rotisserie chicken purchased from the local deli, my fajita bowls along with some other quick and delicious meals. Accept the fact that some days you just won’t want to cook or plan a meal, so have some go-to meals or foods on hand.
• Enjoy the foods I do eat. Whether I’m eating a grass fed steak with vegetables or my favorite pizza, I make sure I enjoy the food I eat with no guilt afterwards.

I Like Intermittent Fasting

There is a reason I prefer intermittent fasting methods such as Brad Pilon’s Eat Stop Eat and Martin Berkhan’s Leangains. (More information on these methods can be found here: Three Methods of Intermittent Fasting).

Those methods of intermittent fasting are:

• Very simple to follow on a daily basis and sustain long term
• Very flexible (Want to enjoy pizza and ice cream? No problem)
• Allows you to eat in quantities that let you feel full (This was always an issue when I ate 5-6 small meals; I never felt full and that was very annoying)
• Don’t have “forbidden foods” that you must avoid (unless of course you have an allergy)
• No rigid guidelines that cause unnecessary stress

The first method of intermittent fasting I experimented with was Brad’s Eat Stop Eat. This is the method I used to re-learn the feeling of hunger. At first I was very nervous about going 24 hours without eating. But doing so allowed me to get in sync with my body signals once again.

The first few times I did the fasts, I kept think I was going to feel like I was starving as the day went on, but it never happened. Sure, I did get hungry as I continued the fast, but that feeling no longer scared me once I got used to it.

The 24 hour fasts also allowed me to discover times when I would ordinarily eat for some reason other than true hunger. For example, even though it was my originally “scheduled lunch time”, I wasn’t hungry. These fasts really helped me to get in tune with my hunger signals. (Note – sometimes I would cut the fast a little short, around maybe 20 hours or so if I was very hungry. I just prefer to listen to my body and keep things flexible and not force myself to fast for exactly 24 hours).

As I’ve talked about before in A Day in the Life of Nia Shanks: Nutrition, I naturally gravitated towards other forms of intermittent fasting as well.

Random Tips and Information

• Be very cautious of fad and popular diets. It’s easy to get caught up in the “next big thing”, but make sure you do what works for you, allows you to achieve your goals, and doesn’t cause unnecessary stress. If what you are doing is producing the results you want, why switch to something different?

• Don’t demonize any food or entire food groups (unless you have an allergy or problem with certain foods/food groups). For some people, going Paleo, primal, or following some other specific diet that excludes food groups may work for them. Personally, if I have to put certain foods or food groups entirely off limits, I have problems. For example, I may go weeks without eating grains, but I won’t intentionally put them on a “forbidden food” list; it’s entirely mental, but it works for me.

• When I overdo things (eat too many sweets, too many processed foods, etc) I tell myself to just accept it and move on. I try not to beat myself up because in reality, it’s no big deal. Just like one whole day of “eating clean and perfect” won’t cause me to wake up drastically leaner the next morning, indulging in pizza once a week won’t cause me to pile on body fat overnight either. I do my best to keep things in perspective and realize there are far more important things in my life to do and concern myself with than feeling guilty about eating too many pieces of pizza.

• I suggest you check out a couple of “eating challenges” that I present in Part 1 here and Part 2 here. Those helped me out as well.

In Closing . . .

I must admit that I was quite reluctant to share this follow-up article. So many people struggle with similar disordered eating issues that I revealed in the first article, and I know they desperately want a way out. And because “I’ve been there and done that,” I feel a tremendous amount of pressure to provide useful information that others can put to use.

With that said, I am worried that it could make things worse for some individuals. Why? Because as I always say, one thing will not work for everyone. The nutrition strategies I used to defeat my disordered eating habits may not necessarily work for you.

It is a fear of mine that this information may not help some people, and therefore they may lose hope in fighting this battle. If this information does not help you, I strongly encourage you to look elsewhere. Talk to a qualified professional, seek out other information that could be beneficial. Whatever you do – do not stop trying to win the battle against disordered eating habits or eating disorders.

The battle can be won; I am proof along with numerous other men and women. However, your way out may be different than my own. Please keep that in mind.

Note – I will have a third and final follow-up article with stories from some of my fellow fitness friends where they share the struggles they had with food and what they did to get on a better path.

UPDATE – be sure to check out the stories from other ladies here: Food Struggles & Victories.

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