Category Archives: Health

I’m constantly tweaking my diet, so I might as well write about it.

Food, Health

The Italian Diet Problem

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I’m pretty sure the genetic cards have been stacked against me when it comes to diet.   Okay, maybe not genetic, exactly, but close enough.

Any real, useful, lasting diet I’ve ever heard of requires a certain amount of boredom. Dr. John Berardi says if you examine the diets of the world’s top performing athletes you’ll find over and over that they eat the same thing all the time.  They keep just a few boring, but balanced and nutritional, meals in rotation.  And they eat to live, they don’t live to eat.

Well that would just be a smack in the face to my heritage. In an Italian family when you’re sad, you eat. Happy? Eat. Birthday? Eat. Football game on TV? EAT! Columbus Day? Parade, then eat.  Death in the family? Pray, then eat. New Baby? Feed it!  It’s Tuesday? How ’bout a nice lasagna?

This is a losing battle.  And I have chocolate.

BJJ, Health

The Worst of Me

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I switched to decaf at least a month ago to help control sugar cravings. I’ve also been trying to avoid diary to help with my allergies, and avoiding deep fried food to keep my weight in control.

And then today happened.

I drank nothing but coffee (no decaf), I had lunch at Steak and Shake (wow, that’s awful), and followed up lunch with a Cookie Jar Blizzard at DQ (amazing).  Then, just about completely dehydrated, I trained.  I held down the blizzard through warm ups (and for the rest of the night, for that matter) but I spent the entire night fighting off cramps.  My legs were cramping like crazy.  In sparring I was terrible, even for me.

Start over tomorrow.

Food, Health

Just 7 Rules

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Over a year ago I posted 27 Rules for Diets. As I mentioned at the time, these are not rules I follow, it’s just a collection of things that seem to be good ideas, based on reading I’ve done.  I recently came across a shorter version – 7 Habits of Highly Effective Nutritional Programs by Dr. John Berardi, Ph.D. of precisionnutrition.com.  I found it on the Sherdog forums.

Habit 1: Eat every 2-3 hours.
Habit 2: Eat complete, lean protein with each feeding opportunity.
Habit 3: Eat vegetables with each feeding opportunity.
Habit 4: Eat veggies/fruits with any meal. Eat “other carbs” only after exercise.
Habit 5: Eat healthy fats daily.
Habit 6: Don’t drink beverages (soda, beer, etc.) with more than 0 calories.
Habit 7: Eat whole foods whenever possible.

These 7 rules cover a large chuck of the 27 listed in my post.

BJJ, Health, Random

Half the battle, sure.

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If you’re about my age (on the Gen X / Gen Y border) you grew up hearing that “knowing is half the battle.” Well, that may be true, but certainly it’s the easier half of the battle.

I know how to do all sorts of stuff.  I know how to eat healthy, exercise, and set up triangles from the guard. I know how to train dogs to stay out of the trash.  I know how to cut the grass and take the trash to the dump.

But surely in all those years someone should have mentioned that knowing was in fact quite easy, and that the other half of the battle – execution – was at least as important and much more difficult.