My Diet

I’ve spent a good amount of effort over the past few years optimizing my diet and eating schedule. I’ve experimented a bunch with intermittent fasting and keto, for example. I’ll have to talk about those another time. Today I just want to talk about my current diet, which I happen to be liking a lot.

Disclaimers:

Okay, here’s my current diet template:

Breakfast

Raw egg smoothie:

Lunch

One of:

And a vegetable:

Dinner

A big ol’ plate o’ homemade sumthin’. My recent favorites are:

I eat a veg for dinner when I can, too. Salad or sauteed broccoli/brussels sprouts are my go-to.

My Thoughts

So, there it is. I’m really liking this setup right now. Let me walk you through my thought process.

3 meals

First, let me be clear: I see 3 meals as a necessary evil. If I could, I’d just eat a big dinner every day. Because I feel great on intermittent fasting: it gives me stable energy all day and has a myriad of other big health benefits. And the most underrated benefit is having 2 fewer daily interruptions for mealtime. It may not seem like much, but having to set down what you’re doing and go eat because you’re hungry is a total nuisance once you’ve experienced the alternative reality.

I would strongly encourage anyone who is eating less than 2,000 calories a day to try 1-2 meals a day if you haven’t already. I’m only eating 3 meals because I’m trying to guzzle down 2,500+ calories to build muscle.

Smoothies

I’m new to the world of smoothies, and I like them. They have a unique advantage: they’re the easiest way to consume supplements, because it’s just a bunch of stuff blended together. And I consider the seeds and frozen spinach “supplements” here too, as they’re nutrient-packed drop-ins for a smoothie that aren’t very tasty or useful on their own.

The seeds might just be the stars of the show. They’re packed with Omega-3s, which are good for brainpower and correcting your Omega-3:Omega-6 balance (which can reduce inflammation). And I like that they’re calorie dense. I only discovered them recently, totally by chance while perusing the supplement aisle at the store.

The eggs are fun. Basically, they’re a super-healthy, fat and protein-rich base. They’re far better than the usual liquid bases like milk (dairy is so inflammatory!) or nut milk. The only other good base I’m aware of is kefir or yogurt since it has lower lactose, but I still find that it upsets my stomach.

The berries are the only suspects here. They make the final product taste damn good, but the ~10 grams of sugar do contribute, I find, to a slight sugar crash a couple hours later. Berries do have a lower glycemic index (GI), but some quick research revealed that blending fruit destroys the fiber responsible for the lower GI1. I could replace some of the fruit with artificial sweetener, but that’s a whole new rabbit-hole of health tradeoffs. Instead, I think I’ll start slowly reducing the amount of berries. My palette should adapt over time.

Easy Lunches

I keep lunch as quick and easy as possible. I spent the past couple years cooking myself lunch and dinner every day but I ultimately found it too bothersome. Too much effort. So, I default to the easiest possible thing to make: rice.

I put on my rice maker in the AM when I make my smoothie and enjoy it at around 1pm for lunch. “But I need protein to make this complete!” Enter canned fish, arguably the easiest protein! Tuna with homemade mayo or whole sardines with olive oil. Yum!

I also make sure to eat a vegetable for lunch. Kimchi, salad, and baby carrots are the easiest veg I’ve come up with so far. Veggies have amazing nutritional and gut benefits, but for lunch the fiber is especially useful as a bulwark against a potential carb crash.

I still do crash a bit, though. Probably because, uh, DUH, I’m devouring a big-ass 600 calorie bowl of sushi rice with a tiny dab of fish on top! *Sigh*. It’s so damn tasty, but it’s not worth it, at least not every day. I’d like to keep experimenting. Next on my list to try is:

Dinner

As dinner time rolls around, I’ve usually just finished a workout and am hungry. My first two meals of the day have been low-effort so I’m quite looking forward to spending some quality time in the kitchen, one of the rare places where I get to engage all 5 senses and work with my hands. No podcasts, no music, just inner calm. It’s one of my most cherished rituals.

My go-to meal these days is pasta and ragu. I always make a big batch of ragu because it reheats and freezes very well. It’s so tasty that I happily eat it for 2 or 3 days in a row and save any remaining portions in the freezer. I’ve gathered some really good, simple recipes for pork shoulder, chuck (short-rib if on sale), and bolognese. But ultimately they all follow the same general pattern of browning meat, sweating vegetables, deglazing, and slowly reducing the cooking liquid.

I make single-portion meals too. I make fried rice multiple times a week, for example, and it’s delicious.

But without a doubt, my happy place is peering over a dutch oven full of warm, hearty goodness simmering away on the stove. Curry, stew, chili, ragu - you name it, I’m there.

Conclusion

I’ve managed to find an equilibrium where I’m happily eating home-cooked for every meal of the day. I’m stoked to be in this position, and am extremely grateful that I’ve had the means to buy high-quality ingredients and experiment so freely. There are still *so* many more things to learn and explore. I’ve come a long ways over the past 3 odd years of cooking, but *who knows* where I’ll be after 3 more years. That seems like an eternity from now. What will I be putting in my smoothies? Will I have found a good alternative for sushi rice at lunch by then? Or will I have tragically entered a coma after attempting to intravenously consume raw eggs?! Only time will tell…

  1. No studies are available on this at time of writing, but here's what Dr. Robert Lustig, the benevolent ruler of anti-sugar land, had to say: "The blades destroy the insoluble fiber, which means that the ‘gel’ that forms on the inside of the intestine has no structure. The sugar is absorbed at a maximal rate, overwhelming the liver’s capacity to metabolize the sugar, and the excess sugar is turned into liver fat which is the precursor to metabolic syndrome." Yeah, that sounds about right to me.

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