Best Nutrition Tip for 2012

Every Sunday I like to bring you nutrition advice, because
as we both know, diet is more important than exercise for
fat loss. 

Earlier this week I was on the phone with Dr. John Berardi,
creator of Precision Nutrition, the biggest online nutrition
coaching service in the world.

JB, as he calls himself, told me about a series of nutrition
progressions that he puts his clients through in order to
teach them how to eat better.

It was a fascinating call (recorded for all Certified TT
Trainers
), and JB explained this one simple little ‘test’
that all his clients go through.

You see, he has every fat loss nutrition client get 10 raisins
and he challenges them to take 10 minutes to eat the 10 raisins.

Sounds weird, doesn’t it?

After all, the last time you probably ate raisins (or more
likely, chocolate covered raisins), you were probably eating
them by the handful, 10 at a time, in 10 seconds.

But the purpose of this experiment is to have the client SLOW
DOWN the eating process.

To learn to enjoy the food, savor the taste, and experience
the changes in their fullness rating (although you wouldn’t
expect to be too full from 10 raisins).

Now while I’m not going to ask you to do the 10 raisin test
(although feel free to try it out), I am going to make a
challenge to you.

At your next few meals, I want you to eat as SLOWLY as possible.

If it usually takes you 7 minutes to eat your steak, vegetables,
and potato, slow that down and extend the meal to 10 or 12
minutes. Chew each bite a little longer. Focus on TASTING
the meal, not just gobbling it down.

(BTW, I once had dinner with John Romaniello where he devoured
a 48 ounce steak in under 5 minutes. That’s NOT what we’re
going for here.)

Another one of JB’s lessons for his clients is to stop eating
when you feel 80% full.

But you’ll never be able to do that properly if you are
cramming forkful after forkful of food in your mouth without
thinking and actually taking the time to taste the food.

When you take time to slow down and eat, you’ll be shocked at
how much different a meal is and how full you will feel from
less food.

I know that I often catch myself chewing so hard and so fast
that my cheeks hurt. So I stop, slow down, and try to eat,
well, more civilized, I suppose the word would be.

That’s my nutrition challenge to you.

Nothing major. Nothing that requires even changing what you
eat for now.

Just how you eat. Take it SLOW. Enjoy the food. Taste it for
once. And see if it helps you reduce your food intake.

That’s the best nutrition tip I’ve discovered in 2012.

On a related note, last week Joel Marion, Josh Bezoni, and I
were in a grocery store in Tampa, Florida last week stocking
up on healthy foods in advance of Joel’s Superbowl party.

And Joel said, “Do you know what the best fruit for fat loss
is?
” My response was apples…or maybe grapefruit…because
each has been shown to contain a fiber that keeps you full
for a long time.

Joel’s response was cherries, because you have to eat them
slowly, one at a time, in order to remove the pits.

Not a bad theory, and it works well with JB’s slow-eating
recommendation.

At that point, Josh showed up with a bag of pistachios, and
said these were one of the best snacks for folks on a fat loss
diet
because again, you have to eat them one at a time, and
slowly, while you shell them.

Another great call. In fact, I just recently started snacking
on pistachios (I have a bag for my plane ride to Nicaragua
this weekend – heading there for a quick seminar).

I’ve also added a few other foods to my diet in the last few
weeks and wanted to share those with you:

1) I’ve subbed in Hemp ‘milk’ in place of Almond ‘milk’.

Why?

Well, I just felt like I was drinking too much almond milk,
sometimes going through a box per day while making two blender
drinks. Now I sometimes use hemp instead of almond beverage.

To be honest, hemp tastes a little earthy, and it’s an
acquired taste…but so was almond milk. And if it really
matters, hemp also has a few more grams of protein per serving.

2) I take about 5-6 grams of vitamin C per day.

Now I realize this isn’t a “food” per se, but so far, no
colds this winter (and I usually get one after a business
trip involving multiple plane rides).

3) Pistachios – These are my snack of choice while watching
sports. It takes a long time to get through a small bag.

4) My current favorite blender drink is:

– 12 oz hemp ‘milk’
– chocolate protein powder
– half of a frozen banana
– handful of pecans
– big handful of spinach

Tastes like banana bread.

5) Buckwheat bread – gluten free

Well, I tried this out, and it’s not bad.

However, my friend, Dr. Peter Osborne, says there is new
research showing that there is no such thing as a truly
gluten free grain (that includes corn and rice).

So if you have severe gluten intolerance, you probably can’t
consume any food with a label that claims it to be gluten-free.

More details on the gluten-free phenomenon in future TT issues.

6) Next, while this isn’t “just one food”, I have been
consistent with my “On the road groceries list”

In my travels, the first stop I make after getting out of the
airport is the grocery store, where I pick up:

Fish Oil
Protein Powder

– Vitamin C
– almond butter
– whole grain bread
– almonds
– pistachios
– broccoli
– baby carrots
– one red pepper
– apples
– 3 bottles of water 

7) Finally, what do I eat for my cheat meals?

Well, I love pizza. But I prefer to make one at home because
it is enough to fill you up and still not that many calories.

Once a week I’ll eat an entire “Amy’s Organic Pizza”. But
it’s only 900 calories for the entire box.

It contains a lot of sodium though, and as I mentioned last
week, that might show up as a little weight gain the next
day, but don’t panic…you can’t gain three pounds of fat
overnight…heck, or even in a weekend.

Hope you enjoyed this monster nutrition article.

I’ll be back with a big Ballantyne’s Day Celebration this
week, including an uncensored Report Card of all my programs
from 2011.

You won’t see any other trainer in the industry be this
brutally honest about their own work.

Stay tuned,

Craig Ballantyne, CTT
Certified Turbulence Trainer