If You Are What You Eat.... Then I Am.....

Now let's break this food collage down a little bit and then add some detail - from left to right:

• Back Row is Oils and Vinegars, Spices, Creatine and Drinks
• Middle Row is Supplements and Proteins - There's a couple of meats missing from this pic which I'll fill in later.
• Front Row is Veggies, Fruit & Nuts and Coffee

Now for a little more detail:

• Back Row - from left to right - EVOO (Extra Virgin Olive Oil), 2 types of Balsamic Vinegar, Salt, Black Pepper, Cayenne Pepper, Body Fortress Fruit Punch flavored Creatine (available for cheap at Walmart), Fresca, 2 types of HEB Cul-de-Sac Red Wines (Sangria and Cabernet) $3.34 / bottle and tastes great!

• Supplements: Ultra Man Sport Multivitamin / Multimineral (sold at Vitamin World at Brazos Mall), Osteo Bi-Flex (Walmart), Fish Oil (this one's from Kroger but I usually buy the Walmart brand), Magnesium (all the rest of these are from Walmart)...

• More Supplements: L-Argisine, L-Glutamine, L-Lysine - 3 essential Amino Acids that facilitate better cardiovascular health and muscle recovery, regeneration and strengthening.

• Drinks - Body Fortress Fruit Punch flavored Creatine (top right in pic above; barely shown to left in pic below), Fresca (Yes - I know it's a soft drink but I drink it sparingly as a mixer with my Creatine drink), HEB Cul-de-sac Cabernet and Sangria red wines

• Protein 1 - Cage Free Brown Eggs - 90% of the time, I soft boil my eggs for 4 minutes in salted water.

•  Protein 2 - Pre Seasoned Boneless Pork Ribeye Chops - depending on thickness (some are as thick as 1"; some as thin as 1/2" - cooking time is 2-1/2 - 5 minutes per side in a hot cast iron skillet with 3 - 5 minutes of rest time to follow.

•  Protein 3: Pre-seasoned Thin Cut Chicken Breast (There's 3 varieties of seasoning - Lemon Pepper, Adobo and Jalapeno) depending on thickness, it's 1 - 2 minutes per side in a hot cast iron skillet so quick and easy.

•  Protein 4: Holmes Pork and Venison Sausage (not shown in overall pic) - Dice in 1/2" cubes and saute in a hot cast iron skillet for 3 - 5 minutes.

•  Protein 4: Holmes Pork and Venison Sausage - this is the leanest commercially produced link sausage I can find w/ a 2 oz serving at 110 calories with only 40 calories of fat and 15 g of protein..

• Protein 5:  Jennie-O Ground Turkey Breast 99% lean - one of the leanest proteins I have found with only 120 calories per 4 oz serving with 26 grams of protein - 
• http://www.jennieo.com/products/3-Extra-Lean-Ground-Turkey-Breast

• Protein 5:  Jennie-O Ground Turkey Breast - this stuff has only 1% fat so you have to do something to moisten it and add flavor without adding calories so I make a "meat loaf" type mix as follows:

1. Season the ground turkey breast liberally with salt, pepper and cayenne.
2. Make a wet mix of 1 egg, several glug glugs each of mustard, Kikkoman Soy Sauce, Worcetshire Sauce, Tabasco sauce and add to mix
3. Fine dice (1/4")  1/2 a sweet onion, 1 Poblano Pepper, 1 Jalapeno Pepper and mince 2 cloves of garlic and add to mix and you get what you see below.
4. A 1/2" thick patty of this mix will cook real fast - like 1 - 2 minutes per side in a hot cast iron skillet.

• Veggies galore - Zucchini, Squash, Cilantro, Tomatoes, Sweet Onions, Radishes, Spring Mix salad, Mustard Greens (I try to mix in a new veggie every week - last week it was Asparagus), Poblano Pepper, Red Bell Pepper, Jalapeno Pepper

•  Fruits & Nuts - Strawberries, Nut / Fruit Mix, Red Grapes, Apples, Blackberries, Bananas, Mangos, Raspberries

• And finally- the most important Food Element of all - COFFEE!!!! - I do add a teaspoon of brown sugar and a little CreamMate (not shown) to every cup of coffee I drink - which is about 3 - 5 cups per day depending on how much I slept the night before and how much work I have to do!  My favorite is still Millstone Foglifter.

So that's about it... that's my Food World... and it's who I am.... because I want to be the best I can be and this food helps me do it.

A few related thoughts:

This is basically the Paleo (Caveman) diet. For more information on the Paleolithic diet: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleolithic_diet

Several people have told me they just don't have time to cook and prepare healthy food and let's face it - we all have busy lives.

That's one of the reasons several of the proteins - meats shown above are pre-seasoned or something you can throw in a hot skillet and have ready in 2 - 4 minutes.  90% of my meals are in the plate ready to eat in less than 10 minutes..... it's like anything else -  you have to practice at it and make it a priority - but it can be done.

Another thing is cook a large batch of vegetables or meat ahead of time if you know you're gonna be really busy for the next couple of days and prepackage properly portioned meals - see my prior post on what I did earlier this evening.

Another concern is that this fresh Paleo diet food will cost a lot more.  I haven't found that to be true - in fact it's the opposite based on the data I have.  I've tracked my grocery expenses for the last 2 years and have found that buying the items listed above is about 20% cheaper than buying a typical non-Paleo carb-ridden, junk food heavy menu.  So there's that.

Anyway  - several people have asked me what I eat and that about sums it up.

Give it a try and see if it works for you.