The Easiest Diet Rules To Follow

I could go on forever on complete vs. incomplete proteins  good fat vs. bad fat, glycemic indexes, artificial sweeteners, and sodium content, but for those of us who don't have the time, or are in a rush and don't the time to scrupulously probe line by line on the nutrition guide and ingredients list I've comprised some of the easiest rules to follow when buying, making, and eating food.

1. Protein (g) + Fiber (g) > Sugar (g)

This is probably the one that I abide by the most because these are 3 key components for a very active athlete.  We all know the benefits of protein, but fiber helps regulate blood sugar and ultimately the metabolization of the sugar you intake.  Plus sugar is an inflammatory so if you struggle with joint pain ingesting a lot of sugar will only worsen your condition.  

Think about if you were to consume a product with 20g of sugar but with no fiber.  What happens basically is that all that sugar is going to try to be processed all at once and if you are not burning significant calories then you will inevitably store it away as fat.  A similar product with fiber will have to be broken down and the more fiber there is the more sugar that will be broken down as well.  This is why apple juice is bad for you where as apples are perfectly healthy.  Without any of that flesh or pulp, there is a sugar rush that your body simply can't handle.

This rule is something I came up with myself, so this is by no means an industry standard (that I know of at least), but I found that I would be putting more items back on the shelf that were questionable than I was putting into my cart, and when it comes to health and diet that is usually the side you want to side on.

2. # of minutes to make meal > # of ingredients 

There is probably a slew of ways to abuse and circumvent this rule, but this rule isn't meant to be broken, but to be understood at face value.  The intent of this rule is to avoid highly processed, quick to make meals (think of Kraft Mac and Cheese).  Of course you could cheat and take 20 minutes to make Mac and Cheese to offset the 17 ingredients, but that isn't what you should be aiming for.  

When you get right down to it, you shouldn't be thinking about the time portion but the ingredients portion.  A simple meal of choice of fish, salad topped with balsamic vinegar and extra virgin olive oil, and a baked sweet potato will accumulate an outstanding 5 ingredients.  So really this rule isn't about saving time (because you should take the time and care into preparing a nutritious meal), but cutting back on the unnatural preservatives, dyes, and contaminates, and adding whole foods will make this rule easy to follow.

3. Nothing in life is "free"

When is the last time you saw an stalk of celery have a label on it that said "Fat Free!"?  I'm sure you haven't and the point here is that if a product has to officially claim on its label to be lacking one thing, there is probably issues elsewhere.  Usually this is interchangeable with sugar and fat.  Sugar free?  Look for fat content both saturated and unsaturated.  Fat Free?  Look for how much sugar it has and revert back to rule #1.  And don't forget that if you see 0g of sugar, don't forget to check the ingredients list for often used artificial sweeteners (hopefully by now you know that zero-sugar means your body pays a larger toll in the long run).  Really the only "free" labels you should be excited to see are "GMO Free" and "Gluten Free".

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I don't want to necessarily delve much deeper into questions like "white rice or brown rice?" (but the answer there is always quinoa), because this is just supposed to serve as a starter.  So when you contemplate pasta for dinner, consider just topping off your pasta with freshly cut garlic, tomatoes, and olive oil instead of store bought sauce.  Don't expect your budget to take much of a hit either because you can actually save money on healthier alternatives, although I don't think there will ever be a substitute for Top Ramen.

Off Season Preparations

Yes, there is still volleyball left to be played but I start seeing Leinenkeugel Oktoberfest lining the shelves of grocery stores I know it is the beginning of the end of this year's beach season, and with that it means it is time to switch gears.

Everyone will have a different approach to the end of the beach season, but if you are truly committed to your craft and the game, then you gotta be treating beach volleyball as a year long endeavor that isn't necessarily comprised of a "regular season" and "off season", but rather consisting of "playing" and "non-playing" stages.

Of course where you live, access to the beach/sand courts has a lot to do with when your "season" season starts, but you should have an idea in your mind already of when you would like to play your first tournament, and how many you would like to play.  With some of this out of the way, here are a few tips that I've refined over the years, that help me better prepare for next year's long haul from the thawed out Spring to the brisk Fall months.


1.  Sustain
You've just been through several months of hard training, and long days at the beach, so even if your body is getting tired and worn out, you're still in great physical shape.  So for the next few months you are going to be in an awkward time where you aren't quite in training mode but you aren't going to shut it down either.  At this point you goal should be simple:  Make it to next year in just as good shape as you are now.

You don't want to start next year in a hole, or waste time building up your conditioning before you even start practicing and drilling.  Of course you will have to build up your cardio, legs, and shoulder over the course of the season but there main areas that are easy to sustain.  During the next few months you should keep a workout schedule for your core and upper body, and setting time aside for stretching, yoga, and generally improving your flexibility.  I've learned this past year that flexibility is an often untapped asset for players, and in addition to helping recover and prevent injuries, it pays off immensely to have this aspect of your body built up.  Besides, you will get your beach legs in eventually, so now is the time to give them some rest.

2. Diet
Now of course you've been super disciplined these last few months to give your body the proper energy it needed to get through workouts and the matches on the weekends, but now is no time to let loose because there are troubles ahead.  Thanksgiving and Christmas are right around the corner, so slipping up now by indulging in some grease will make the slope you're standing on a little bit slipperier, and next thing you know you'll find yourself wearing an permanent 15 pound weight vest.  Again you don't want to waste time next year fixing last year's mistakes, so stay focused and stay on track.   Let Thanksgiving and Christmas be your rewards for being disciplined up to this point.

Nuh uh, none fo you!

3. Save
Get ahead of the curve and start saving now for new equipment, apparel, balls, and tournament fees.  Lets not forget that this is when you should be stocking up on your vacation time so that you can call off of work to enjoy those "perfect" weather days.   When summer rolls around you would much rather cap off a long day with a few beers with your buddies instead of having to pack it in early to get up for work the next day.

4. Study
The game is best played when you and your body is just reacting to what is happening.  To set yourself up for success now is the time to train yourself mentally for the different situation it may face and what it should do when those situations arise.  Visualize it over and over, believe me it helps.  Also if you can't watch video of yourself playing, just watch all the different videos online and learn from those players strengths and weaknesses.

Buzzfeed: 14 best things to eat after a workout

Benjamin Franklin once said that "by failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail", so not having much of a plan or strategy regarding your diet leaves you without a safety net, and puts you at risk of wasting all the hard work you put into your workouts, practices, and games.

Luckily, Buzzfeed came along with a simple and concise list of mostly common foods that are easy to prepare and purchase, even on a budget, to keep you on track for success.

Click here for the full article

The Purge: My Diet's Annotation

In the previous blog post I talked about the pitfalls of a beach volleyball player having to keeping up with their calorie consumption without having to resort to junk food. I made some suggestions and simple tips on how to go about doing this, but there was one thing that I wanted to leave out so that I could at least set a good example for you, and with the new movie called "The Purge" coming out, I thought this would be as good a time as any to expose my own weaknesses.

About every 3 weeks I have to "purge", and go on an "anything goes" rampage of binge eating.  It is what helps me cope 75% of the time, and prevent me from punching my way through the line at Taco Bell.  Now don't get me wrong, this "purge" is not a reward for 3 weeks of training and staying committed to a strict diet, and if that were the case then it would diminish the importance that I hold in my diet that it not only efficiently fuels  my body and helps it recover, but for the sake of being a healthy human being that would like to live a long comfortable life, it has many long term benefits that our distant future selves can't really comprehend.

But even during this purge my conscious still doesn't let me cross certain boundaries.  For one, I won't eat at any of the major chain fast food restaurants because I don't trust their quality of food, I don't want to support greedy corporations that have little interest in assisting the general public in living a healthy lifestyle, and over time I have just lost the appeal of some of their menu options.  But when it comes to local businesses serving up their fair share of saturated fat and grease, I will be more than willing to support during this exemption time frame.

If you were lucky enough to be raised on a diet that wasn't that what the average kid consumes, then you have a neurological advantage to avoid and resist all the temptations that our brain would love to tell you to give into so that it have access to rich energy sources, but if you were like me then I think a periodical purge will do you well.  One of my favorite quotes in relation to diet is that "One bad day won't cripple your diet but one good day won't make up for it either".  So the day off I take about once a month pales in comparison to the other 20 to 30 days, and being to instantly turn around, feel bad about what I just consumed, work my butt off to rid the poisons from my body, and replace it with better options is justified and very necessary in my book.

It's a hard knock life: The beach volleyball diet

For the casual fan, beach volleyball is an immensely entertaining fast paced game featuring amazing athletic ability.  To the untrained eye, it may seem like the toughest part of the game is all the physical training that gets put into it to compete at a high level.  And then you get home, starved for anything to fill the bottomless pit that is your stomach.  If you aren't trying to eat everything in site after a long day of playing, then you aren't trying hard enough.

Of all of the tuck jumps, all of the sprints, all of the wall sits, plyos, and crunches, nothing is as tough as maintaining a healthy diet as a beach volleyball player in my opinion.  Beach volleyball offers a perfect storm of conditions that leads to extremely high amounts of calories burned.

1) You have high temperature conditions and direct exposure to the sun.
2) Added resistance, in the form of sand, inhibiting your every move.
3) Short bursts of explosive movements and sprints

Put it all together and you are burning roughly 1000-1200 calories in 2 hours of game play.  For an average day of 6 games at about 20 minutes a game would give you this number if you are in the 150 lb to 170 lb range.  If you weigh more, and play longer, it won't be rare to exceed 2000 or even 3000 calories in one day.  I also bike to and from the beach, a 20 mile total, (with about 15-20 lbs of gear on my back) each time I play, with a round trip time of roughly an hour and a half.  That round trip too burns around 1000 calories. as I usually bike at a feverish pace, not only as a warm up as I go to the beach but also so that I can get ahead of the oblivious motorists and keep them aware to watch for bicyclists like myself.

Here are some of the sources I checked with to estimate how many calorie you burn while playing.
http://www.sparkpeople.com/resource/calories_burned.asp
http://calories-burned.findthedata.org/q/562/30/How-many-calories-do-you-burn-Volleyball-beach
http://www.healthdiscovery.net/links/calculators/calorie_calculator.htm
http://www.livestrong.com/article/449512-how-many-calories-are-lost-in-volleyball/

At the end of the day my body could be running a tab upwards of 4000 calories burned (it is definitely not out of the ordinary for me to spend 5, 6, or even 7+ hours at the beach, granted that not every minute spent was actually playing.  Some time is spent waiting for the next game, as well as breaks in between).  So when you put it in those terms, eating multiple burritos, boxes of cereal, bags of chips, and tons of fruit juices may seem totally justified, but as my impeccable youth has worn off, I have heeded the advice that has been spat at me for years and years:  You can easily waste all the effort you put into a workout if you don't eat right.

The problem with "eating right" is that the FDA, and the major food corporations (as well as any other major corporation that contributes to the pollution of the environment of the food we eat), are making it increasingly difficult to just grab items off the shelf without having to look multiple times at the nutrition label and ingredients list.  Additives, added "natural" and artificial sweeteners, preservatives, and the ever present risk of GMO's, make a healthy diet look like trying to walk through a mine field with a blindfold on.  So you must do your own research, look up ingredients, ask the Google machine, "what are the benefits of _____", "what are the health risks of _______", "what are healthy alternatives to ________".  As we now live in a world of information, ignorance has increasingly become a choice.

I have finally started (and trust me I'm only at the beginning of this transformation), my new path to an improved diet.  My recommendations for you would be to start small.  Start with the 1 or 2 most unhealthy things you consume off the top of your head without having to do any research.  We all have our vices, and the uber-rich landscape of sugar filled products should give you plenty to pick from whether it be cookies, ice cream, pop (or for those of you who refer to it as "soda"), candy, or "snacky" foods, just cut them out cold turkey.

After that, do your research.  Find the next 1 or 2 worst items in your diet that you probably didn't think were that bad.  A friend recently posted this on facebook, and it is a great read that should not only enlighten but it also gives good recommendations for alternatives.

8 Foods The People Think Are Healthy (But Aren't)

As I like to say in reference to my training, "You gotta break down to build up".  So now that you've cut back, what are you going to replace those foods with?  Believe it or not this is the easy part.  Well, picking what foods to insert into your diet that is.  You already know what you should be eating.  You know that section of the store you've been ignoring, the vegetables?  Yeah, there's your answer.  Becoming a recently converted vegetarian about a year ago, has been a huge boost to my health.  I now look at it not so much as "not eating meat", but simply "eating vegetables".  Between meat and carbs, the average American diet probably only has room for about 5-10% vegetables, but adding this you diet will fuel you body with natural sugars and fiber, antioxidants, anti-inflammatories, vitamins and amino acids for recovery, as well as protein.  That's right, there's protein in vegetables, all be it lower amounts that is often "incomplete", but it comes fat and cholesterol free.

Now back to the dilema.  After burning so many calories, how do we even come close to breaking even, or just under without eating junk food?  Well the first few hours after a workout are the most important ones.  This is when you are most vulnerable, on the verge of passing out, willing to fight a small child for an ice cream cone if it were the last one available.  Not only that but I've found in the following article that eating carbs after a workout interferes with you body's ability to burn fat and produce its own natural HGH.

Post-Workout Foods That Promote Slimness

Here is another great share I found on facebook that I'll plan to use to my advantage post workouts and playing, to stave off rabid hunger.

After all hunger is simply the transmission of your brain telling you that you need to eat because the volume within your stomach has been unoccupied for a long time.  Fill it up, and your brain shuts up.

Still we need to keep on muscle while keeping fat to a minimum.  So let me introduce you to your new best friends:  quinoa and chia seeds.  They are similar to rice or other grains but are complete proteins that also expand when ingested.  Couscous also contains protein but isn't complete so you will need to fill in the gaps of the amino acids you are missing, but is an easy to make cheap alternative.

I'm sure that you thought this was going to be just another health rant, but this is really just the beginning of having a well rounded diet to help give you the most bang for your buck when you workout or play.  You still need to get essential fatty acids (or EFA's), drink plenty of water, get lots of magnesium as it helps fuel over 300 bodily processes every day it it becomes depleted as you take in more vitamin D (which you get plenty of from the sun), as well as adequate rest for your tired body.  Once you do this on a consistent basis, only then are you going to start looking like a "freak athlete" on the beach, but this road to greatness is filled with lots of temptation and years of poor eating habits haven't made it any easier.


Final note:  If you ever need help assembling your diet, I highly recommend using this site...

http://nutritiondata.self.com/

It gives you all the info you need with great graphical visualizations to help you comprehend the effectiveness or lack thereof for different foods, and how you can fix that.