Food & Nutrition

Man, it’s been three articles already! And we’re here to wrap up this “lifestyle” series. Amazing how time flies isn’t it? I hope you’ve enjoyed this series as much as I have, so please send your feedback to the email attached. What comes next? I guess you’ll have to wait and see! Anyway, as previously said, there is no point dressing to the nines if your gut is hanging over the waistband on your pants in the 3-piece suit! I agree fully. With that in mind, I am going to briefly depart from the “style” theme and delve a bit deeper into this third (and final) instalment of my lifestyle series. These are some diet essentials that must be in place to maintain a healthy heart, body weight and most important of all, self-esteem. When you look good, you feel good, and it is always cool to know you can go to a beach at anytime and take your shirt off. Rest assured that your girl will enjoy being with you also.

Real quick, let’s go:

Eat lots of vegetables, leans meats, complex carbohydrates (ground provisions) and fiber – how much? I’m not sure, and I’m really not familiar with serving sizes. Your vegetable count at dinner time should be half of your plate, so if you use 1 measuring cup to denote a serving, have a 1-1.5 servings of protein, a single serving of starch (yam, boiled bananas, brown rice etc) and two of vegetables. That is what I would do, anyway. Have one or two fruits per day as snacks in-between the major meals and you’ll be on and popping. Caveat: Fruit juices are high in sucrose and thus calories and sugar. Bear in mind that while a single fruit is good, it probably takes in excess of THREE to fill an 8oz glass of juice! I am sure that most of us cannot eat THREE of any fruit in a single sitting, and if it takes THREE (let us say, apples) to fill a glass, then we should be wary of how many glasses of fruit juice we have eh? That’s a lot of sugar, and probably explains why you’re losing the battle of the bulge.

Substitute most of that fruit juice for WATER. While one should have 8 glasses of water a day, I have a bit closer to twenty. It is a pretty sad thing with me for once I’m awake there is a bottle of water beside me. Anyway, this isn’t about me, and while it may appear difficult to drink 8 glasses, I recommend having one within 10 minutes of waking up, one 2 hours before going to bed, 1 with every meal. If you have 6 meals, and factor in the other 2, that’s eight already.

BONUS: Water has 0 calories.

Have measured portions of:

a. White bread; white flour on a whole

b. Alcohol (yes, alcohol, and yes, I’m saying that)

c. Sugar; particularly granulated (i.e white sugar)

d. Fatty or red meats; ensure that beef is a lean cut

e. Anything packaged or that won’t spoil if left in the fridge for 3 days

f. Fried foods, and anything containing trans fat

NEVER miss breakfast and eat within 30-60 minutes of waking. Breakfast gets your metabolism firing and if you continually miss it, you are slowing down the rate which your body burns food and thus increased fat is left on your body and before long … there you go. Breakfast is by FAR the most important meal of the day.

Eat every 3 hours, and exercise portion control. It takes 10 minutes to register that you’re full therefore it is important to eat slowly and heed the call of your stomach. Most of us eat more food than we need. The “Big Deals” at KFC now appear small, but trust me, one of those with 2 servings of vegetables is more than enough. I’m a big boy, and when I got into eating right etc, I found that the SMALL lunches were enough to last me until my snack between lunch and dinner. Sometimes I can’t even finish the rice … a big reason a lot of us carry excess weight is our propensity to scarf down more food than we need.

Do something physical MOST days (i.e. more than 3) of the week at a HIGH-intensity for 15 minutes at a time. Rather than a slow jog, do 50 – 75 metre short sprints at 75% of your total speed in a 1:3 ratio. If it takes 10 seconds to do a set, rest for 30, and so on. This will speed up your metabolism, and you will in turn find you get hungrier often and eat every 3 hours .

I am not going to tell you what NOT to do, for developing the right habits is more important than abstaining from certain things. Plus, it will eventually feel better to eat healthy than the junk food. A final key is if you abide by (5) you’ll be less likely to gorge on junk food, for one falls prey to bad eating habits when one is very hungry and becomes irrational. If you’re never hungry (which you should try hardest to achieve) then it follows that you’ll make wiser food choices.

Please steer clear of the fad diets and the starvation of self that only bring short-term results and ultimately leave you in a worse position at the end of the day. I have also found that rapid weight loss leaves one looking gaunt, which isn’t the most attractive thing in the world, to me, anyway. Maybe that’s your thing.

Do all of the above until they feel NATURAL and I’m sure you’ll feel and look a lot better. Good luck . Hit me back at willard_a@fashionoverstyle.net ), holler. Peace & Love.

Sincerely yours,

Willard A.

Honor|Pride|Glory

My pick for this week’s Style Guy of the Week is none other than, the guys from the Ocean’s 11-13 series. Specifically, Brad Pitt, aka Rusty or whatever his name was.  Aside from being maybe my favourite trifecta of movies (we need another one!) sans the Bourne set, Rusty is definitely one of the more stylish characters, ever. I can’t expound on it enough, so my suggestion is for all to watch the series again, and take note of his body language, fashion sense and general M.O. You might just pick up a thing or two. I surely did. Briefly, note how the sleeves of his shirt show under his sports jacket below, that the buttons on the cuff appear to WORK and look on how incredible that shoulder bag is. My views on men carrying bags has changed slightly over the last couple of years but, that’s another story, for another day. I think I’m going to give SGW a break though, sooner than later.

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