What I Eat When I'm Sticking Close to #NSNG

Here's a run down of a typical day's worth of eating when I'm sticking close to #NSNG and not "putting any life into living" as it regards food intake.  

For breakfast I'll have eggs with sausage or ham and an 8 oz coffee with a tablespoon of butter and a tablespoon of MCT oil, whipped up with a hand blender.  Some people refer to this type of coffee as "Bulletproof Coffee".  I don't buy the special beans and MCT oil from the Bulletproof guy's website, I just use regular coffee and MCT oil from Whole Foods (365 by Whole Foods brand).  So I refer to it as buttered coffee instead.  I also stick to 8 oz of coffee and one tbs of butter and oil.  Many recipes call for double these amounts.  Mine does not.  I do stick to using grass fed butter for this, it's readily available in the grocery store, my usual brand is Kerrygold.  I like the energy boost and feeling of clarity I get from the buttered coffee.  Its a great way to get going in the am.

For full disclosure, I also have a couple cups of black coffee throughout the morning, with no coffee after lunch.

For lunch I'll have a full fat Greek yogurt smoothie with strawberries, blueberries, and raspberries.  To thin it down a bit I also add in some half and half.  My typical Greek yogurt brand is FAGE Total  I mix the whole thing up in a Nutri Ninja blender I bought at Sam's Club for $50.  The smoothie typically ends up being 12-16 ounces total.  The Nutri Ninja does a great job at tearing up the fruit and giving the drink a nice smooth texture.  I had used other single serving blenders in the past, none of them compare to the Nutri Ninja.  Also for lunch I'll have a couple Frigo CheeseHeads string cheese sticks and a couple BelGioioso snack size fresh mozzarella.

I find that with the meals listed above, I can easily go from Breakfast to lunch and (most of the time) lunch to dinner without any hunger cravings.  My energy level is high and steady all day long as well.  I have no sugar-fueled crashes in the afternoon where I just want to take a nap.  In the past if I'd had a sub or some pizza at lunch time, not only would I have had a hard time staying awake, I'd also be hungry an hour or two later - really hungry, where I'd end up eating something else, usually non-nutritious.  This would then cause another sugar crash and more eating.

Dinnertime is where I add in variety and rely on the meal my wife is making for the family.  We have a lot of chicken dishes, tacos, steaks, chili, salads, etc...  Sometimes we'll do breakfast-for-dinner and have something egg based - omelettes, a scramble or even a quiche.  The quiche crust is not exactly #NSNG, I do try to minimize the crust consumption.  If we get take out I'll go with a chicken salad or chili from Wendy's and if we eat out   In future posts, I'll get into more detail on dinner options and I'll also on my go-to snacks.

More to come, again thanks for reading and thanks for sharing.

Introduction

I decided to enter the world of blogging and needed an area to blog about.  I've been trying to enhance my nutrition and drop a couple pounds in the process as I work to stay fit.  Recently turning 50 has made fitness even more difficult.  Working full time hasn't helped either.  I could gain a pound or two over a weekend and work tirelessly to try and lose them, usually to no avail.

Earlier this year I was listening to the Adam Carolla podcast and as a guest he had fitness trainer Vinnie Tortorich (@vinnietortorich) on.  Adam was using Vinnie's "No Sugar No Grains" (#NSNG) way of eating and was having good results.  Adam's co host Gina Grad was also eating via Vinnie's guidlines and having great results as well.  If I remember correctly, Adam was down to a weight he hadn't seen in years and Gina was down 25 pounds or so.

The premise behind this was simple - don't eat any refined sugars or grains.  To me it sounded a lot like the Atkins diet which I previously found too restrictive.  Then I listened closer to Vinnie and the differences between #NSNG and Atkins.  #NSNG allows you to eat certain fruit "in moderation".  Atkins was much stricter on this.  I thought with fruit allowed, I could give this a go.

So I subscribed to Vinnie's Podcast, visited his website, bought his book on Amazon, and jumped right in.  Mainly I avoided pasta and breads and of course desserts.  I also had to give up the various energy bars that are filled with sugar, and my favorite sports drink Gatorade G2 grape.  I was also running and doing a boot camp class a few times a week.  I dropped some weight and started feeling better.

As I did this, being an Engineering type I researched #NSNG on the web.  I found a variety of info, from Vinnie's site to other similar sites.  I noticed the Paleo diet sites would sometimes reference #NSNG, as would other diet sites.  What I had a hard time finding was really anyone's specific personal experiences with it.  I wanted more details on what people found successful and what they didn't.  I'm a skeptic and I really need to hear from someone who is just a regular person.

And that is the start of this blog...  More to come, thanks for reading and thanks for sharing.