My fight inThailand
Eat like a gladiator!
As a foodie, nutrition & training obsessed chef, I am always researching the best foods, nutrients, daily regimens to keep our body healthy as a superhero.
This weekend I researched the gladiator diet, because I’m interested to know why there are thousands of companies selling protein shakes, pills, and energy bars. I figured gladiators never ate protein bars, or had the time to eat a protein shake while they were fighting in the ring. So what was their diet?
Turns out the top athletes ate very little animal protein, but more barley and beans to create more fat stores in their body, thus protecting them from sword wounds during a fight. To supply their bodies with more calcium, they downed “protein drinks” with plant ash & vinegar and ended up with very strong bones!
Then I went on to check out Bruce Lee’s diet..Bruce Lee ate very healthy, and during his time, I suspect that food did not contain all the additives and artificial flavour that we have in our food today.
Bruce Lee’s diet:
avoided refined sugars
avoided most dairy products, except in his cereal or protein shakes
consumed a mostly Asian diet, a diet where rice is king, and the protein is an accessory that makes the king look good
More about Bruce Lee’s diet...
These days, there are many companies coming out with a ton of products, containing ingredients I cannot pronounce, and that you couldn’t either. And this scares me…
WHY?
Well, today people are paying less attention; most people want a quick fix, and will buy a product if the right person sells it to them. And this is very dangerous. The fact that we leave over 99% of our food sourcing up to corporations, people who we don’t even know, means that we are trusting those corporations to take care of us. And frankly, this doesn’t seem to be their first priority. Save the little guy who dreams of making the world healthy, profits would be the first priority for most corporations.
And this is why you must stick to NATURAL!
So here is my advice to stay healthy.
Eat less animal protein- red meat, chicken, pork, eaten in excess can accelerate the growth of certain diseases like cancer, on top of containing lots of saturated fat, which will add fat to your body, and clog your arteries if eaten in excess. Try to stick to vegetarian proteins such as quinoa, buckwheat, beans & eat animal protein in moderation.
Eat a mix of raw veggies & fruits, coupled with lightly cooked stir fries, steamed greens with garlic & fresh chilis, etc…
Even if you are training as hard and often as Michael Phelps, that doesn’t mean you should be eating large pizzas and french toast with bagels everyday. This is empty calories and although pizza makes your happy chemicals release (norepinephrine, dopamine & serotonin) temporarily, you and I know that your tummy, weight and energy levels all suffer not long afterwards. And over the long term, a diet like this eats away at your superhero makeup.
Find healthy ways to prepare the foods you love! Kamut pizza or pancakes, hot chocolate with unsweetened almond milk & 100% pure cocoa, oven-roasted sweet potato fries with your homemade spice mix! I have always loved french fries, but now that I have perfected my oven-fries, I can eat them often and truly don’t crave fast food fries anymore as I know what goes in them!
"The faster you see yourself as a gladiator, as a beautiful being made up of 100 trillion cells, strong enough to do almost anything, the faster you will be motivated to treat your body as such. When the negative thoughts about who you are surface in your head, say “Oh no! Not you again…I think you best go back where you came from because I am a gladiator!”
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