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NUTRITION FOR MENTAL HEALTH SIMPLIFIED


I've shared some high level approaches to nutrition and my mantra of eating nutrient dense, highly satiating foods that you enjoy eating and make you feel good. This is the north star and compass to follow to build lasting, sustainable dietary habits that maximize mental and physical health benefits.


But what does that actually start to look like in practice?


I'm going to do this with some examples from how my diet has been looking recently.

The term "Diet" is loaded. When people think about losing weight and cleaning up their diet, they often think about eating like a rabbit. Salads. I thought about dieting as suffering. Unable to eat what I wanted to eat. There is some value in the discipline to resist urges and temptations. To be able to stay locked in on your diet even if you don't like it. I think that self control is worth exploring for periods of time. But, part of fundamental problem with food is that it's required for survival. We have baked in survival mechanisms and cravings that are designed to mobilize us. When things start to go sideways and our discipline wanes, it's easy to fly off the rails when we see dieting as suffering.


The key for me, then, has been to lock in on the foods that I love to eat. I love beef in all it's forms. Beef is incredibly nutritious. So I eat a lot of beef. Simple. James Clear shared in his book, Atomic Habits, that the key to making lasting habits is to make the habit attractive. I love steak. Steak is good for you. So I eat steak. I look forward to eating steak.


I'm going to lay out below a couple examples of how a full day of eating might look as well as some recipes that I've been hammering lately. I've been loving this because it's a ton of food volume and high in protein and fiber to keep me satiated. I love to eat and do a lot of activity, especially on this 75 Hard I'm currently doing. I am a bottomless pit and absolutely mow through calories. What's nice about this is I can flex the calories by 750-1000 by making simple adjustments in fat content and removing a couple items.


This type of exercise is a great way to wrap your head around your nutritional requirements, how much food you can eat and what works best for your lifestyle. I used MyFitnessPal to build these below. We could talk endlessly about meal timing and frequency, the pros and cons of various macronutrient level and endless other factors. I'll dive into these topics further on social media and in future articles, and if you'd like a customized nutritional baseline for your needs and preferences, that's included in all of my coaching packages.


Here's a basic example and is my baseline that I build and adjust from.


Food List


Grass Fed Ground Beef

2lbs

Eggs

6 Large

Avocado

2 Medium

Blueberries

5 cups, frozen

Honey

3 tbs


Sample Meal Plan


Meal 1

1/2 lb beef

1 cup blueberries

2 eggs

1 tbs honey

Meal 2

1/2 lb beef

1 cup blueberries

2 eggs

1 tbs honey

Meal 3

1 lb beef

1 cup blueberries

2 eggs

1 tbs honey

1 Avocado

Snack

2 cups Blueberries

1 Avocado


Variations

85/15 Ground Beef

93/7 Ground Beef

Remove 1 Avocado

Remove 1/2 LB Ground Beef

Calories

3359

2799

2559

2219

Protein

216

232

229

183

Carbs

163

163

151

151

Fat

213

141

119

103

Fiber

40

40

30

30


Here's an example of how I've been adjusting this lately to include greek yogurt and pumpkin.


Food List


Grass Fed Ground Beef

1.5 lbs

Eggs

6 Large

Avocado

2 Medium

Blueberries

5 cups, frozen

Honey

3 tbs

Greek Yogurt

Half Container

(425g/2.5 Servings)

Pumpkin

Half Can

(240g/1.75 Servings)

Sample Meal Plan


Meal 1

Half Container Greek Yogurt

Half Can Pumpkin

1 TBS Honey

Pumpkin Pie Spice or Cinnamon

Meal 2

1/2 lb beef

2 eggs

Meal 3

1/2 lb beef

1 cup blueberries

2 eggs

1 tbs honey

1 Avocado

Meal 4

1/2 lb beef

1 cup blueberries

2 eggs

1 tbs honey

1 Avocado

Snack

3 cups blueberries


Variations

85/15 Ground Beef


Whole Milk Yogurt

85/15 Ground Beef


Nonfat Yogurt

93/7 Ground Beef


Nonfat Yogurt

Remove .5 lb Ground Beef


Remove 1 Avocado

Calories

3384

3184

2764

2184

Protein

216

216

228

179

Carbs

201

201

201

188

Fat

202

179

125

87

Fiber

47

46

46

36


Do you have any questions on this article? Do you have any topics you'd like to see covered in the future? Email me at jack@leaveitcinders.com and let me know!


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CINDERS utilizes affiliate marketing, all of which are products I legitimately use and have purchased myself. I don't think you "need" any of these things, they've just provided a lot of value to me in my mental health journey. 10% of all revenue from all CINDERS, including affiliate sales, goes to mental health charity.

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