Playbook: Diet and Health

Overview:

It just makes sense to eat healthy. Think about it. How does your body create nutrients and energy? It uses whatever you put into your body. So just put good stuff in your body. Here's a guide that can help you figure out what you should be putting into your body, and to help you better understand how most people's bodies work.

General Tips:

• Don't eat as much on days where you do not have some type of physical activity.
• Concentrate carbohydrates (rice, pasta, bread) around physical exercise. Carbs are best either before or after a workout.
• Don't over eat before doing work, you might get sleepy if you eat too much.
• Try not to eat 2 hours before sleeping.

Watch this Kurzgesagt video on how diet affects your brain (and gut flora): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzPD009qTN4

Here's what you need to know about diet and body composition changes:

Gaining and losing weight comes down to your diet. Fundamentally, you'll gain weight if you eat more calories than you burn and you'll lose weight if you eat less calories than you burn.

When you gain weight, you'll want that weight to be muscle weight (preferentially), and exercise is the stimulus that will tell the excess calories to go towards muscle rather than fat. When you lose weight, exercise and macro-nutrient choices will determine whether that weight will be lost from muscle or from fat.

Overall, it's useful to simplify it like this: food determines the number on the scale, and exercise determines the composition of your body. You can increase your calorie expenditure via exercise to lose weight, but that is very time inefficient and is harder than just foregoing a bit of extra food. Caveat: if you're a small female, it might be better to lose weight with exercise, because caloric restriction can begin to rob you of necessary nutrients because of your lower caloric needs. Women recover better and benefit more from low-intensity exercise, though, so that's a positive.

Food choice is important because the types of foods you eat will determine your hormonal balance, cravings, energy levels, mental clarity, and micro-nutrient necessities (vitamins and minerals). That said, interestingly, you could actually build an amazing physique eating only candy and beef jerky if you really wanted to (because you could hit your calories, carbs, fats, and protein goals), you'd just feel really really crappy doing it.

Diets should remain relatively the same whether you want to gain weight or lose weight. The only real difference is the quantity of food you consume.

For those of you who are looking to make changes to your body , this is literally all your really need to read on the subject: https://rippedbody.com/complete-diet-nutrition-set-up-guide/

Tips for vegetarians: https://www.bodybuilding.com/content/vegetarian-bodybuilding.html

Here is an article that will make you more knowledgeable on dieting and how it pertains to muscle retention and fat loss than 99.99% of the population: https://www.t-nation.com/diet-fat-loss/a-calorie-is-sometimes-not-a-calorie

Exercise alone won't get you your physical and mental results. You need to eat healthy. Your body can only use what you give it, so it's important you're putting in the best nutrients for it to use.

[Veg] = Vegetarian

Things to eat:

• Meats (chicken, fish (wild salmon is best), lean ground beef (grass fed if possible), lamb)
• [Veg] Veggies (brocolli, cauliflower, carrots, a variety green leafy veggies)
• [Veg] Almond Milk
• [Veg] Fruits (strawberries, oranges, bananas...)
• Drink lots of water throughout the day. Get a water bottle.

Things to stay away from:

• Sugars (candies, cookies)
• No fast food (McDonalds, Burger King, Pizza, etc... no processed and oily stuff)
• Soda, sugary drinks (like juice boxes)
• Most Vegetable Oils (sunflower oil, canola oil, sesame oil — olive oil and coconut oil are okay)
• If you didn't have much physical activity that day, don't eat too many carbs (rice, pasta)
• For some sensitive individuals: gluten (from wheat, generally)
• Cow Milk (drink almond milk instead)

[Optional] Supplements you can take:

• Please do your research before purchasing anything.
• Brain: Fish Oils (Omega 3)
• Brain: Ginkgo Biloba

Overall: Super Food: https://well.ca/products/amazing-grass-green-superfood_93894.html

Microbiome: EpiCor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbw_pRgmX4g

Examples of healthy meals:

Breakfast

Navid's Morning Smoothie:

• Get a blender
• Put in frozen berries
• Add a banana
• Add broccoli sprouts (you can buy them, then freeze)
• Add protein (Impact Whey Isolate, see above)
• Put in Almond Breeze (almond milk) original flavor
• Optional: add Amazing Green Grass Superfood
• Optional: add some broccoli or spinach

Will's (similar, but better) Morning Smoothie:

• Fill the blender with half spinach and half kale and a bit of almond milk
• Blend that
• Then add protein powder (Impact Whey Isolate, as above)
• Powder supplements: Amazing Green Grass Superfood, Collagen Peptides, MCT Oil, Creatine
• A ton of frozen berries (mixed berry blends are best)
• Blend again, and enjoy

Lunch

• Chicken breast, broccoli, your choice of sauce (Navid likes Red's Buffalo sauce)
• You can use other meats like tuna or ground beef.
• [Veg] - Spinach, apples, beans, corn, quinoa, rice, sweet potatoes, ...

Dinner

• Tacos (chicken, fish, or lean/drained ground beef, my favourite seasoning is Red's Hot Sauce)
• Navid and Will eat the same thing for lunch and dinner, it's just easier and saves time. But it's up to you.

Snacks

• Cliff bars (or something similar)
• Nuts
• Popcorn (Smart Pop)
• Peanut butter and apples or celery
• Fruits (bananas, apples, pears, berries)
• Salad
• Always be drinking water

Vegetarians: added sugar and vegetable oils are your main enemies. Most vegetarian whole foods are quite healthy (quinoa, rice, beans, vegetables, fruit). *Note: Males should avoid eating large amounts of soy-based food products.

If you have any questions, email me: will@tks.world