As you probably figured out by now, I have a slight obsession with food. Not only do I like cooking, eating and trying out new recipes, but I even watch the Food Network, occasionally.
Strangely enough however, only when I am doing 45 minutes of cardio at 3am in the morning. Guess I must have some form of masochism hidden deep inside of me, cause I am actually enjoying watching Guy Fieri biting into a greasy burger while climbing up the treadmill at a 10% incline. Maybe it's some kind of fetish. Maybe a food fetish???
With this being said, it shouldn't come as too much of a surprise that this post will focus again on, duh, FOOD.
I often get the question what I am doing to get bigger or to get leaner, and the answer is quite simple. I eat.
Obviously not everything, but the foods that I eat, I eat a lot of spread throughout the day as you can read in one of my previous posts about my diet.
Oftentimes I get the response that following my, or any kind of, diet would be impossible for various reasons. I call BULLS***.
Yes, it requires discipline, planning and some work but it is easier than some people think. Well planning and preparation is. Regarding the discipline part, you either have it or not, but if you're lacking it, you should probably consider a different sport, hobby, lifestyle.
For me the easiest and most efficient way to ensure that I stick to my diet is to prepare my meals in advance and in bulk.
All you need is a grill (Gas, Charcoal or George Foreman), a rice cooker/steamer, and a whole lot of plastic storage containers.
Once the "hardware" is in place, you figure out your daily food intake requirements based on the diet you will be following and use this to calculate the total amount of food for the week.
I go grocery shopping once a week and prepare my meals right afterwards.
Since I am purchasing in bulk, my shopping trips lead mostly to Costco, the local farmer's market or, since I periodically check out the weekly grocery store circulars and compare prices maybe a local supermarket.
While I used to buy the frozen Perdue chicken breasts at Costco for the longest time, lately I am "hooked" on fresh chicken which I buy on sale at my local supermarket. Lucky me I found the pound of boneless, skinless chicken breast this week at $1.99. That deal was too good to pass up, so I ended up buying 30 lbs. of it, which should last me around 10-14 days.
The brown rice is purchased in 20lbs. bags at the local farmer's market for dirt cheap and the vegetables come "freshly frozen" in 5lbs bags, along with the lean steak from Costco.
Considering the amount of meat I consume per week I think I made it officially on PETA's most wanted list.
The preparation part, including cooking time, etc. takes about an hour and is usually done on the weekend.
I simply put the rice in the rice cooker and while it cooks by itself I clean up the chicken, cut off excess fat and crappy parts, weight it, cut it to weight, season it and throw it on the grill.
I was never really into seasoning or adding spices to my food, but ever since I tried sodium-free seasoning from Mrs. Dash, I realized how much of a difference it makes taste wise and use it every day.
Amazing what effect a little bit of garlic, paprika and pepper can have.
While the rice and chicken are getting ready put the vegetables into a pot and let the steam for a couple of minutes.
Once everything is done I take out all my plastic containers, measure out the rice and veggies, add the chicken or steak to it, seal it and put it in the fridge.
This preparation allows me to simply open up the fridge in the morning, take out the required number of containers for the day, put them in a cooler and take them to work.
Another benefit, besides the convenience, is the ability to be more spontaneous when it comes to business or pleasure travels. All you need is to grab your cooler and off you go.
Little note on the side. To avoid any food poisoning, make sure that the food is cleaned, cooked thoroughly, stored in the refrigerator and eaten within a couple of days.
And before I get any comments, yes this method will also work if you prefer fish or turkey over chicken and /or sweet potatoes over brown rice.
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| Putting the Kelvinator to good use |
Now three weeks out, my coach Jack told me to add some extra Vitamin B6 and Vitamin C to my diet. And by extra, I mean a bulk load. To be exact a total of 1,500mg of B6 and 4,500mg of C per day.
In terms of established daily values, my vitamin B6 intake per day until the day of the competition is 75,000%, in words Seventy-five THOUSAND percent, of the recommended daily intake value and 7,497% of the daily requirements for vitamin C.
Both supplements are intended to enhance metabolic functions and to further help achieving water depletion to look vascular and hard on stage.
"Le chef" himself boating on Memorial Day
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