Alright bud, below is a list of the foods you'll need to be eating to achieve your goals. Also included are the foods you should keep out of your diet. You should have at least 5 meals throughout the day. Eat carbs only when needed for energy if the goal is to cut body fat. For example, breakfast, pre-workout, and post-workout meals should all contain 40g or so of complex carbohydrates. All meals should have 30-40g of lean protein. Limit fat to your late meals that don't contain carbs as an alternative energy source. Of course, you'll still need to figure out your BMR and TDEE to know exactly how many calories you should be consuming but the foods you eat are everything.
Interchangeable lean protein sources:
The goal is to eat lean protein. Meats/other sources low in fat/carbs.
Ground beef (93% lean or better)
Lean steak (Flank, flat iron, or top sirloin)
Bison sirloin (the highest quality red meat)
Chicken breast
Turkey breast
Tuna (canned or sushi grade)
Salmon
Tilapia (mostly all white fish)
All shellfish
Venison
Whey protein (post-workout recovery purposes only)
Casein/Cottage cheese (before bed only)
Black-list protein:
Bacon
Sausage
Expensive fat-marbled Steaks (Ribeye, Strip, Filet)
Pork and beef ribs
Pork/Lamb chops
Restaurant ground beef (80/20 fat – most burgers)
Duck
Chicken legs/thighs
Chicken skin
Cheese
Interchangeable complex carbohydrates:
Complex carbs are now your creed. These are slower-digesting, natural, low on the glycemic index carbohydrates that digest slowly and provide us with sustained energy. They do not drastically affect our blood sugar and do not cause insulin spikes. Thus our body sees no reason to store them as fat, it would rather burn them for energy. Simple carbs such as enriched white breads/pastas/rice/potatoes/sugars (including most fruit) cause insulin spikes and are high GI foods. They should not be eaten when on a strict diet. Fruit can be consumed early in the day or pre/post-workout because of it’s high nutritional value but should usually be avoided due to being a form of simple sugar. Remember, healthy, low-calorie foods aren’t always the correct foods and such is the case with fruit.
Oats/Oatmeal
Grits/Cornmeal
Unsalted/non-buttered popcorn (great, low-cal snack)
Sweet potato (the best choice)
Butternut squash
Whole wheat pasta (not enriched)
Organic whole wheat bread (not enriched wonder bread crap)
Brown rice
Ezekiel bread
Swedish grain bread
Gluten free bread
Wheat couscous
Corn
Quinoa
Lentils
Beans
Many more, look up the GI (glycemic index) for healthy choices
Black-list carbohydrates:
White pasta
White Potatoes
White bread
Baguette
Bagels
Cookies, cake, muffins, cupcakes, all sweets basically.
White couscous
White rice
You get the idea…
Interchangeable fat sources:
We look for fat sources that are high in omega-3, 6, and 9 fatty acids. Also, many are high in protein. We do not want saturated fats such as butter, cream, meat fat. We don’t want test tube fats like trans (the worst). We want mono/polyunsaturated fats that our body can use for something other than calories. Remember, even good fats are high in calories.
Natural peanut butter (no sugar added, just roasted peanuts)
Natural almond butter
Cashews
Almonds
Peanuts
Flax seeds/oil
Salmon and Trout (great fatty proteins)
Fish oil
Extra virgin olive oil (should be used on all veggies/salads)
Chia seeds
Grapeseed oil
Macadamia nut oil
Udo's oil
Walnut oil
Sunflower seeds/oil
Acceptable miscellaneous foods:
These foods don’t provide much as far as macronutrients but are great for adding vitamins/minerals and taste. Notice some of these other foods are dairy. Dairy is another animal’s milk. We lack the enzymes to digest it as they do and it’s high in fat/sugar. It should only be eaten early in the day for nutrient purposes with the exception of whey and casein (cottage cheese).
Skim milk (Hood brand is only 45 calories and 3g of sugar per cup)
Greek yogurt (no sugar added)
Berries (all berries are much lower in sugar than other fruits and packed with fiber/nutrients – eat berries)
Green Vegetables. These are technically carbs but they are packed with fiber (a type of carb that isn’t used as energy or stored). In bodybuilding/nutrition – we refer to most vegetables as fibrous carbohydrates. While a serving of Broccoli may have 6g of carbs, 5 are from fiber. Meaning that it contains only 1g of storable carbohydrates. In addition, green vegetables are a calorie neutral/negative food (our body uses more calories to digest them than they contain – think celery). Veggies should be eaten with every meal. Every day. If you do this, you can become almost impervious to getting sick. Some vegetables are better than others for healthy diets.
Many non-green vegetables. Most are fine – just check labels, some have a good bit of sugar and should be eaten in moderation only (carrots)
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Originally Posted by sneejoe
