The Story
Well it's been over a time I've been asked by different friends what to eat, how to eat, when to eat, how much to eat and similar questions. In general a questions about the mystical word "diet". I prefer more the term "feeding culture" (in german "ernährungskultur"). Also, the name of the article looks like arbitrary thrown words, but is it really like that? Are these term somehow related?! I like more the style of telling story so I'll do that again.
First you go to the shop to buy some food!
Everything there is categorized so there are no mixed food standing on same place. So this is very good because you are about to forget about the snacks category! This just doesn't exists anymore for you if you want to be in physical condition. (to be honest I don't like even the taste, I like real grill steaks so much more than stupid potato chips with steak flavor of course). Yeah skip the instant food too ;-) I know it's easy to make instant food and if you are lazy you'll like it, but here comes the surprise - lazy people have bad physical condition! So prepare your food like someday you are supposed to train yourself! (I like to cook, even have a degree for a cook ;-p)
Ok, assume you skipped the snack shits and also the instant vomited foods and you are now in front of the fridge area. There you already see mixed stuff but in some small scale - cheap vs. expensive food! First of all don't read the labels. They are all the same - "number one manufacturer", "oldest in the country", "best flavor"... However the labels are important! The more the labels hide the actual product, the more you are about to skip buying this product, like meat or cheese or whatever. So transparency is important criteria!
So let us think you've found a nice transparent product and you are about to meet the decision - should I buy?! What to look? At this stage you usually look at the price as biggest criteria! So far for the "feeding culture" yeah... In other words - where's the profit! Let us assume you are right, but what you gonna do with the more money you have from the buying - you'll buy some cakes and snacks?! Superb! Or cheap alcohol - even worse! So even if you were right about your so precious money, you screwed yourself up. There was a nice title of some movie I watched year ago "WAL-MART: The High Cost of Low Price" and I'll like to take the second part as real truth. What is the high cost of this low price and how do you pay for it by profiting with some cents, what is the damage to your body?! I'll hit once again by saying that you actually profit nothing and even more - your body is screwed. This doesn't means that you shouldn't take into consideration the last sentences! Now I'll put some argumentation for both statements - "no profit" and "screwed".
Let us first consider these two images of different meat products:
Some shit wurst and the real deal (click to enlarge)
Now put in practice what we've just read about shopping!
1. The shit one is hided really good. Even when parts are shown, they are however wrapped, so you cannot really look inside. You can of course enjoy the nice titles like "oldest in the country" or "Delicatess"... On the other side we can see a transparent product where shit talking is spared.
2. Despite the first impression that I usually make, you will usually look at the most important thing for you - Price / Weight factor. So let me look at that as well.
In the first case we have 500 gram for 2,19 euro, which makes 1 kilogram for 4,38 euro. Your calculation shows 100 gram for 0,438 euro - great! Lets buy!
However, I count something else for important. I firstly look at the protein contained in 100 gram. In the first case we have 12 gram per 100 gram and in the second case 35 per 100. This means we should eat 300 gram of the cheap shit to eat so much protein like in the second, where we eat just 100 gram. The price for this 300 gram is 1,314 euro. In fact it differs only by 38 cents, or 22% of the price. Ok, now lets look at the calories - in the first case we have 295 per 100 and in the second 200 per 100. So as we said, we must eat 300 gram of the cheap shit to equalize the protein levels of the second one. This means we must 885 calories to get some 35 gram of protein, where we need to take only 200 in the first one! You got my point?! What is cheaper now?!
You might ask yourself - who the fuck cares about protein and calories and shit?! Well in this case I don't really know why are you reading this article at all, or even why did you learned to read? Maybe to be able to check your emails for "15 kilograms in 1 week" spam?!
Anyway, I'll go even further by looking again the table given for the cheap shit. 1 gram fat equals 9,3 kcal, which gives 251,1 kcal for 27 gram. 1 gram protein equals 4,1 kcal, which means 49,2 for 12 gram. 1 gram carbohydrates equals also 4,1 kcal. So if we sum up (251,1 + 49,2 + 4,1) we are getting 304,4 kcal! It was written 295 kcal right?!
Also to keep in same tone we know that the pork meat is about 20 gram protein per 100 gram (don't we?!). So if we have 12 gram protein, this means 12 / 20 = 60% meat in the cheap shit! And "the oldest manufacturer" written it is 80% or something - WHAT A LIE!!! Another question is - what with the rest 40%?!
Even something you wouldn't find for a fact, but I know people that work in these factories and they told me really nice things going on, like old meat returned from the market, directly remixed and chopped - so there you go! Such a nice job can be done of course by the hands of "experienced" manufacturer, like the oldest one ;-)
So for those, who though that the movie called Earthlings is just a science fiction, I'll tell them, that it's not! And I would say that there is some difference in the treatment, that the "oldest manufacturer" has and some more respectful people. Or at least a little difference! Like once it was told to me - "sometimes we cannot choose between good and bad, sometimes we have two bad things and we have to choose the smaller one". Well I lost myself a bit and this actually was for point 3. or even 4.
5. Check out the expiration date too. The manufacturing date is skipped, of course... As an example, the expiration date for one can with fish is about 4-5 years, so if the can expires in 2-3 months, you can think about that the fish inside is at least 4-5 years old ;-)
We have some fundamentals now!
After making the initial consideration while buying something we already built some fundamentals of the diet. I mean my fundamentals - don't know about yours. And my fundamentals are based mainly on protein level. For example I weigh in at 69 and make it 70 for the easy calculations. So as a wild youth I'll need some 1.4 gram protein per kilogram weight. That means around 100 gram protein. Further knowledge is that not all the protein you eat is digested by you body the same way (e.g. you have some lost - for milk you take about 95%, while for nuts about 60%). So I should eat about 120 gram of protein to have my body in good regeneration. Well now I also know that I have to eat about 3600 kcal for the activities I do (check top picture). So I would have some coefficient of 3600 kcal / 120 g protein, or
30 kcal / 1 gram protein
So everything that I eat should somehow fit into this model. And it's super easy. Let us consider the nice product with 220 kcal and 35 protein. Well this is some extreme example, so lets consider normal meat with 20 gram protein and 200 calories. So you have coefficient of 10 / 1. So you take some bread with mayonnaise (yeah mayonnaise!) and have some coefficient there of 37 / 1. The weight will be about 3 : 1 (bread + mayonnaise : ham). So you'll get about 30 / 1 in the end. Got my point?! And you don't need to be that exact of course - this is just for the example. I never calculate stuff that much, just rounding all the time :)
What about some liquids?
Friend of mine reminded me to write couple of sentences for liquids as they are important too. Ok, lets start! Cola - forget it! Coca-cola - forget it forever!!! Forget Pepsi too!!! Forget everything that contains carbonic acid, just like you forgot the snacks! Cola is even worse because drinking 250 ml means you just ate 10 spoons of sugar! Normally this amount of sugar will make you vomit, but guess what - cola has the nice ingredients, which disables your natural body mechanism to vomit after taking so much sugar ;-) And also think about that coca-cola has no coke anymore, so you really don't need to torture your body for some cheap sugar and artificial flavor taste. Aah and to get back to carbonic acid - very bad for all organs between your mouth and your ass ;-)
About alcohol - you shouldn't drink! I know it's impossible so drink less ;-) And drink a lot of water while drinking! Drink a lot of water when drinking some diuretic liquids like coffee. Drink a lot of water anyway - it's good! Not joking at all.
Almost forgot! The 100% juices, that have one year expiration dates! I'll leave you here to think about if it is really possible for 100% fruit juice to hold on one year as it is ;-)
Popular diet myths
First of all I'll say some words about the cheese myth. It is said that cheese has 45% fat or whatever, so you shouldn't eat that! Well, well... It also has 25 - 35 grams protein per 100 gram. So hmm - not bad. The kcal levels are about 250 - 350. So you have coefficient of 10 kcal / 1 g protein. So think again!
One more line to drop here is about a very effective diet with high fat foods. You eat a lot of fatty foods like nuts and cheese. Then a little bit before the performance days, like boxing battle or climbing hard, you just cut off the fat immediately and you body starts eating with your own fat, and you can drop 2-3 kilos of fat and be really ripped! Example when I was boxing I was about 71 kilos and I got under 69 (welterweight) for my fights. And I am not the fat type. Now I am still kinda 69 kilos, but I think training with one kilogram more is a bit better, for better regeneration and also if you drop even 1 kilo it makes huge difference!
Second myth was something like - cakes are bad do not ever eat cakes! Oookayy, consider the cake we made with friends last time. Oh, yeah - a cheese cake!
I'll make some better picture next time!
So lets take a rough look at the ingredients there and check the myths:
(first ignore half gram vanilla and salt or whatever small stuff)
200 g butter - 1400 kcal / 0 g protein
6 eggs - 432 kcal / 39 g protein
200 g sugar - 900 kcal / 0 g protein
150 g flour - 500 kcal / 15 g protein
1000 g curd - 660 kcal / 120 g protein
Bottom-line: 3892 / 174 = 22.4 kcal / 1 g protein
Seems actually perfect :)
Next myth to bust is are the fruit jams. Well the myth says - do not eat them or you'll be cursed to be fat!!! Well the truth holds only for the stupid made jams. Consider the following two pictures and click them to see the actual kcal levels per 100 gram product.
The one in the left is created from 63 g strawberries per 100 gram product and the other one from 100 g strawberries per 100 gram product, which makes overall percent of 50% fruit in the first one and 75% - 80% in the second
Aaah well, also keep in mind that the strawberries have more vitamin C than the oranges or even the lemons ;) (this is a footnote, but keep eating lemons and oranges as well!)
Small tips
It is dangerous to keep cold beer in your fridge, especially in the summer. Imagine yourself in a hot day opening the fridge and seeing sweaty beer...
Read what is glycemic index and eat foods with high GI before aerobic training (like boxing) and during power training (like bouldering). After training eat foods with low GI.
Read what is potential of hydrogen and take care to have it balanced (click).
That reminds me that when you cut some food you should always look at the big picture and you should look at that food as a whole (not only calories or vitamins levels). So beware of missing some "good" ingredients and compensate them when cutting some "bad" ones.
Eat less chocolate! I know you don't care about children slavery, but it will help you also with your weight plan!
In the same manner be at least a little bit respectful and think a little bit that carrying fat and eating more than you need makes you a swine! (not sorry about that word at all)
Never buy ready protein or creatine or whatever supplement shits. All you need is in the food! And it's no joke! Eating pure protein and pure creatine or whatever makes your body to be accustomed and later on your body stops extracting all these "features" from the natural food and then don't be surprised when after small boost effect in the beginning you'll find yourself completely broken in later stages! Like one sportsman once said, he needed a lot of money to buy all this shit and to win some particular events, but later in his life he needer much more money just to care about his health, than he "earned"... If you don't believe read some uncorrupted literature, watch some movies on that subject like Bigger Stronger Faster or ask your friends in later stages. If you still don't believe go for it, but try not to whine like a bitch later on!
Don't lie yourself while doing diet!
Think about the phrase, "sugar is the drug of the white people".
Think about the other phrase, "you are what you eat".
Don't laugh like an idiot to what other people from other cultures are eating - learn from them! Even beer drinking may be important (beer in the sauna after training has extremely boosting and regeneration effect for example). And in the same point just to mention - snacks and fast food are in no way part of some "culture" ;-)
Refectory is for the mediocre people! Prepare your own food as much as you can!
Read about the so called E number and in general know that any sugar substitute is even worse than sugar itself! Yep - "diet cola" or whatever is much worse than the normal one, that you should forget anyway. And "aspartame" is something that your eyes should see first if it's written on the label even if it's written on the back side with small characters!
Be inside the events. Do not only watch how the people are fighting or climbing or whatever. Watch behind the scenes. Watch everything! In the particular article, how and what they eat! It was kinda interesting for me to see in the last boxing event, what the champions eat and do and what the loosers eat and do. There was a quite difference. Besides that, do you think that the fact that every performance athlete has own nutritionists is an accident or just for the good image? You heard, that Michael Phelps eats lasagna, but do you think it is the same instant shit you buy from the supermarket? Recently, Anderson Silva being sponsored by Burger King, but can you really imagine him eating there?! Can you imagine the US Golden Gloves boxing team jumping in to McDonalds for a "big meal" before the Olympics, excluding maybe Gary Russell collapsing before the weigh in ;-)
Well this is not Michael Phelps at young age...
(Source: http://www.bruceongames.com/2009/03/09/video-games-kill-children/)
In the same sense you can not only watch the people - you can watch the garbage on the streets. Or even better - watch the garbage in the park! I bet you won't find there any of the better products packings. You'll rather see some cheap wurst packings with some cheap beer bottles around. Some snacks and fast food packings fly around too - just to make things "beautiful". Of course I assume that throwing waste is something bad for you. So implicating that the waste on the streets is thrown by someone (in my humble opinion by some idiot). So just look around what the idiots are leaving behind, see their shit on the streets and think about that shit, whether you should "consume" that shit as well. You may even become so sick watching this, that you may want to throw their shit leftover in the waste, but don't worry - this is a good "sickness"!
I know you've watched enough fancy commercials. Now watch at least Super Size Me, Bigger Stronger Faster, The Future Of Food, Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price, Food Inc., and some more if you like...
Next time when you ask google for "diet", ask google to exclude words like "buy", "purchase", "shopping cart", "offer", "pills", ... In general, exclude all words related to the "diet industry" and read some articles about real diet.
Ready to start
Okay, these are some tips and I may update this article, as I certainly forgot a lot of stuff to write, but I think most of the important points of my food culture are mentioned!
Supplement
I wrote an article with a simply diet samples called A Simple Dinner! (click)