Good morning Night Cake crew,
Last week we talked about a highly requested supplement - collagen. Thank you all for reading it and I hope you enjoyed it as I got some good feedback and people want to try it out and see if it might work for them. I am happy to be able to share as much information as I can to help you achieve your goals no matter what they may be.
I want to get back to some nutrition basics because it seems to be lacking these days. We have such an ease of access to empty calories these days (and we will get into what that means later in our post) so I want to create a small guide on how to fix your diet so you not only look better but you feel better.
Eat your fruits and vegetables, right?
What does that even mean? How much? Which ones should I eat? What else should I be eating?
There is a lot of debate and arguments on the internet about what diet is best, what food timing is best, but why aren’t we just going back to the basics of how to get the most out of the food that you eat? So as people are thinking about their summer bodies, I want to direct you towards your lifetime body.
Make sure you read until the end as we have a couple of dessert recipes to share!
I want you to take a look at the things you eat regularly and how often you eat them. While there is nothing wrong with eating food you enjoy, we need to take a look at nutrition profiles to help you make the most out of your diet when it comes to health factors and energy levels.
Let’s look at two different diets, both with similar calories.
Diet 1:
breakfast of cereal bar and coffee — or just coffee.
lunch of something near work — sandwich and chips + a drink or a fast food burger and fries
dinner — chips and dip
dessert — ice cream
I know some people can’t think of people eating like this, but it’s common for some people to eat like this. I spent a few years eating mostly one big meal a day and eating mostly garbage snacks outside of that. Now, none of these foods in themselves are just inherently bad and should never be consumed. I would limit these types of foods to less than daily but allow yourself times where you can eat things you’d like. Let’s take a look at our next diet.
Diet 2:
breakfast — eggs, toast, banana, and a coffee
lunch — chicken wrap with a side of carrots
snack — protein bar
dinner — pork, pasta, and a side of a vegetable
dessert — chocolate gelato (recipe at bottom ;) )
What do you think? I think the second diet might have less stomach complaints, less energy crashing, and overall a better nutrition profile. This isn’t an extreme diet for bodybuilders or high-level athletes. This is a diet that can work for anyone if you are willing to put in a little extra effort or invest in a meal prepping service to help you out, or even figure out menu items that will work better for you when you go out to eat. Everyone goes out to eat and we don’t need to pretend that they don’t. I know I get a grilled chicken sandwich from Whataburger every so often — I live in Texas and it’s inevitably going to happen.
So what do we do first?
Identify where you may have nutrient deficiencies.
Let’s start with big picture. Track your food intake for a week and see how your macronutrients stack up.
If your protein is less than the recommended intake of 1 gram per pound of lean body mass, you will want to make that adjustment first. You will notice a difference when your protein intake is higher. This may mean focusing on getting a serving at breakfast or a protein bar as a snack during the day.
What about your fruit or vegetable intake?
If you are not eating at least one serving of each per day, look at your overall and see if you can increase your intake to 3 times a week. We are aiming to have sustainable habit change without shame or guilt.
Let’s say you eat relatively well and have recently had a blood panel done to ensure you are a healthy individual. You discover you are low in some essential vitamins.
We can now start to make a list of foods that contain your missing vitamins and aim to place these in your diet around 2 times a week. This will remove the need to buy unnecessary supplements that can get expensive or cumbersome to remember.
Prioritize whole food sources in your diet.
Start your grocery trips with the staple protein-based foods.
Lean protein sources like chicken, turkey, beef, etc. My list includes pork, eggs, chicken, and beef on a regular basis. Other sources include protein powder, fish, shrimp, Greek yogurt, milk, and cottage cheese.
A trick you might have seen is to shop the outer circle of the grocery store since that is where most of the whole food sources are.
If you track the outer edge of the grocery store you would hit the fresh fruits and vegetables, the meat section, the deli section, the dairy section, and generally all the refrigerated foods.
Whole food sources will help with your overall satiety when you eat.
High calorie and low nutrient foods will always leave you still feeling hungry. Higher nutrient foods typically leave you feeling more satisfied. The image below rates satiety from 0-100. Note how well potatoes rank!
Make meal prepping easy with staple recipes and batch cooking.
I personally use a crockpot to make most of my meals. Another common item to use is the air fryer because you can batch cook a lot of different items right on your countertop instead of firing up the stovetop or oven.
Crockpots are great for making shredded meats, soups, ribs, roasts, even desserts. Want a great protein crockpot cake? Keep reading to find some bonus recipes at the end of the article.
Another common thing to make is overnight oats in the fridge so you have a quick ad painless breakfast in the morning and there are so many overnight oats recipes that you could use a new one each week without much thought. Check out these recipes
Try a quick google search of “lazy high protein recipes” or “high protein easy meal preps” and you can usually culminate lists month after month without becoming bored but also keeping your food pretty simple.
Follow the 80/20 rule.
The people who deprive themselves usually end up failing in their diets. An all or nothing mentality is not the way to go if you’ve been struggling with having self-discipline as of late.
The 80/20 rule is a lot more sustainable because it allows for you to be able to enjoy things you like. Cake, ice cream, eating out, and ‘bad’ food aren’t off limits, they’re just limited.
You might find that you become more satisfied with your food and diet overall when you prioritize higher nutrient foods. When you put nutrients first, you also may notice you feel better, you get better sleep, you recover better, and you start to look better.
Have you heard of ‘if it fits, it ships’? Well, I used to live by the macro train that I could eat predominantly junk food and still reach my goals — and you can. You might also find, like I did, that you feel like shit because you don’t put nutrients first.
Remember you are eating for the rest of your life, not a season of the year. Treat your body well with high quality foods and it will treat you well back.
Recipes: feel free to change flavors to create different types of desserts.
Chocolate Gelato:
1 cup fat-free cottage cheese
3 tbsp Sugar-Free Hazelnut Syrup (or chocolate)
1 tbsp sugar-free fat-free chocolate pudding powder
½ cup chocolate almond milk
Blend ingredients until smooth
store in your cottage cheese container in the freezer (or fridge)
Eat it because it’s yummy
Crockpot Cake
1 box chocolate cake mix (you can opt for almond flour or coconut flour mixes)
2 scoops chocolate protein powder
1 1/4 cups fat free milk
1/2 cups apple sauce
3 egg whites (9 tablespoons egg whites from the carton if you aren’t using regular eggs)
1 box instant (not cook & serve) sugar-free chocolate pudding
2 cups cold milk
1 bag milk chocolate chips or carob chips (OPTIONAL!)
Parchment paper
Line a crock pot with parchment paper and coat with a nonstick cooking spray.
Combine the dry ingredients, 1 1/4 cups of milk, apple sauce, and eggs in a large mixing bowl beating until the batter is smooth.
Pour the batter into the crock pot.
Add the pudding mix and 2 cups of milk in a second mixing bowl beating until the batter is thick. Pour over the batter and do not stir it.
Toss chocolate chips on top if you are adding them and remember not to stir.
Cover and cook for 2.5 hours on low.