A lot of people that know me know that I’m a big fan of not just “eating healthily” or “good”, but smart.
You see, when we start to focus on what is deemed “good” or “bad”, “right” or “wrong”, “healthy” or “unhealthy”, it creates too many situations for arguments where one person might think that one particular food is “good”, and another may label it as a spawn of Satan.
And, I’m not even talking about vegans versus avid carnivores.
What one may constitute as “good” is relative to that particular individual’s thoughts, backgrounds, beliefs, the situation, and the perspective.
Take, for example, you are suddenly stranded on a deserted island for a year with only the option of eating lettuce, or being delivered a meat-lovers pizza once a day. Despite your beliefs, what food would keep you alive the longest?
Of course this is a ridiculous example. I mean, why the hell would the delivery boy not bring a side of garlic bread, too, right? But, I’m sure you can see what I mean. Those types of terms and labels need to be taken out of the picture when someone is really trying to pull out some serious results.
Whilst of course the lettuce is seen as “healthy” and “good” to most people most of the time, and the pizza bad, the context of the situation to not die on that island changes the whole thing.
This is where smart nutrition comes in.
With this approach and outlook, it’s not about restriction or counting calories or quick fixes, it’s simply about proper integration habits that will set you up for true eating, health, and physique success.
“Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.” – Confucius
While of course the food we have these days may not be natural (in more ways than one), we can still always fall back on focusing on real food.
The one ingredient approach works well here. And by this I mean the stuff out there like rice, potatoes, vegetables, fruits, nuts, fish, eggs, meats.
You know, the basic stuff – the real stuff. The stuff that hasn’t been screwed with (too much) and thrown in a jar or sealed up in plastic packaging. The stuff that is loaded with proper nutrition and benefits.
Of course I’m not saying to only eat one ingredient at every meal, that would be kinda boring. With literally hundreds of different foods out there, it’s too easy not to opt to combine them to suit your own tastes, style, preference, and goals.
And if or when you get bored, add in flavours like herbs and spices, change around the combos, change the preparation from stir-fry to slow-cooker, grilled to soup.
I think if we did some simple math with the amount of variables we have available to us these days, I’m sure we’d be looking at a number close to a quintillion for the amount of different meals we can create.
Try not to get lazy and only rely on packaged or bottled foods that have a long list of ingredients on the label that you can barely read out loud. Instead, branch out to all the real types of foods out there available to you.