Our Food Standards and how we stick to them
What do you eat?
Spears Strongers ask Jonathan and me this often and I love to share our story of food progression. I also love to let you all know our challenges with nutrition and how we’ve progressed and continue to progress over time to improve it.
Because, well, Nutrition is hard and we’re far from perfect. But it’s not hard for the reasons you might think. At its core, good nutrition is simple and it can really be boiled down to a fact that has stood the test of time and all the trends, from Atkins to Keto to Intermittent Fasting:
Eat more vegetables.
But over-information, misinformation and basic human nature complicates the very fundamental truth that we simply need to eat more plants and less junk. As we dive into Nutrition for our theme of the month, I challenge you to create ONE food standard you think you can stick to for the long-term. I say long-term and not life because your Food Standards will change as your life changes and once you stick to a Food Standard for a period of time you may decide to level it up. We used to eat flavored yogurt that had a ton of added sugar. Then we switched to plain yogurt but added some vanilla protein powder (still added sugar but less). Now, we eat plain yogurt and put berries on top! (Just an example of nutrition progression.)
Take your time and meet yourself where you are right now because the only diet that works is the one you can stick to. Make it doable and be honest with yourself.
Below are some of our current Food Standards and Pre-negotiations for those rules. This is to give you an example of some Food Standards. I do not recommend adopting ours because they most likely will not work for you, just as your neighbor’s diet won’t work for you. Your nutrition rules need to fit your life, your preferences and what you’re ready to commit to. At the end of the month, I’ll be asking you to share your one Food Standard with the community so take some time with it.
One caveat to all of this is that rules will be broken. Enter the beauty of Pre-negotiations. This is a two-step process: 1. give yourself an out that still keeps you on track and 2. Commit that you will not negotiate in the moment. This will make sticking to your rules easy!
Spears Food Standards and Pre-Negotiations
No food or drink after 6:30 pm (kitchen’s closed).
Alcohol: Share drinks and limit to one total, two for special occasions.
No Alcohol on weekdays
Pre-negotiation: Can share a beer on Thursday nights if we don’t have to get up early Friday, we are feeling good and it’s early in the evening.
No junk food (candy, chips, cookies, pretzels, anything packaged or with more than 5 ingredients) or sugary drinks. And limit added sugar.
Pre-negotiation: Special occasions: for ex. when camping we’ll have s’mores or after a tough destination trail run or a holiday we’ll have pastries.
Dessert: It must be really good, made locally or we make it ourselves. No dessert on weekdays and we often will take a sugar/treat hiatus if we’re feeling like we’ve had too much or feeling the need to be particularly on point for training or amplifying our immune system.
Pre-negotiation: A little dark chocolate anytime is alright, including weekdays. On special occasions like when we vote in a general election (tradition) or for a big event, we’ll have donuts (locally made)
Brunch: There are no rules.
Ice Cream: Only eat ice cream when you go out to a local ice cream shop. Don’t buy it at the grocery store, even when it’s on sale! (this is a big note as it’s easy to justify yummy treats when they’re on sale but there is always a sale …) .
Pre-negotiation: For birthdays or a pre-determined celebration we can buy Tillamook Vanilla Bean (yum).
Vary your carbs: We love carbs like rice, potatoes, pasta and grains but we vary them. Have rice one week, potatoes the next, quinoa the next, and so on.
Eat a salad with every dinner, including all-vegetarian dishes. This is my favorite rule we adopted several years ago. If you like salad it’s a super easy way to get in extra veggies, especially leafy greens, which pack a massive nutritional punch.
Make your own salad dressing. This came alongside the previous rule and I’ll never go back. It’s so easy and a great way to cut out extra sugar and preservatives by not buying store-bought.
Popcorn: Eat occasionally and not on a school night (only weekends/holidays). Make it yourself and do not have any other treats that day. (This is an example of a very individualized rule. We have both noticed it’s very hard to control the amount of butter-slathered popcorn that we consume -yum- and we often don’t feel great the next day, especially if we also have another treat or beer).
Chips and salsa. Only eat when out to eat. We no longer buy these for at home because we eat them too much and the chips are heavily processed.
Don’t eat things pretending to be something else: cauliflower pizza, fake meat … these things just leave you feeling dissatisfied.
Pre-negotiation: Things like black bean brownies or vegan caesar dressing, which are yummy, are all good if we don’t expect them to be like the thing they are pretending to be but we like them for what they are: healthy-ish desert and a creamy dressing.
Never run out of butter.
I’ll say it again, we’re not perfect and we love food, particularly butter, chocolate and pizza. We don’t skimp on the butter but we do stick to grass fed or organic.
Watch 4 Percent Better to learn more about crafting your own Food Standards. Reach out to me if you need help!