Day 4 – Is Nutrition Truly 80% of the Work?

This post goes out to those brothas and sistas in the office, either working for the man or for themselves! For those who feel that they cannot shake the crazy, busy lifestyle long enough to take care of their nutrition. I HEAR AND FEEL FOR YOU! I WAS YOU AND AM STILL YOU!!!

This is by far the hardest part of changing your body composition!

Right now I can think of at least five (5) men, all technical professionals who are well off in their career. They have kids/family to support outside of the very busy work grind. Yet, they shared with me their troubles and tribulations on eating. As difficult as it is to get into your schedule and maintain, Nutrition is almost a dirty word in today’s context. You see so many gimmicks and tricks on morning news shows, you wonder if it is all real. Well, some of it is real…

As mentioned on Day 1, it’s important to first find where you are with nutrition!

For myself, today’s accountability – probably the hardest of all areas that I share with you – is my food habits. Let’s take it back to 2016 when I was finally making it to my next milestone in my Corporate America run. I was about 4.5 years into my management position as a project manager, finally understanding what needed to be done… to get things done in that field, and making an income to match (broke that 6-figure mark, yea boi!).

As my responsibility grew, so did the hours… there were times where I was at the office/at home until 2:00AM (having started at 9:00AM) working to get things done. Parts of my team were in China and Germany. So that meant staying in the office till 7 or 8PM to catch China during their morning or waking up at 12AM to catch Germany during their morning hours so they could work while I slept… for a few hours.

The idea that you can get all of your work done in 40 hours/week is absolute BS!

That is if you want to be successful, provide for your family and grow, gaining more experience, leveraging that experience to create more knowledge and repeating the process with the bank of wisdom you work so hard to fill up. We all know and feel the cost of living going up. One job, at least in the area I live (SF Bay Area job), is not enough to get things done. Especially if you have someone to care for. If you’re on the ‘40 hours and I’m done boat’ and the 50, 60, 70 or even 80+ hour work week doesn’t speak to you, feel free to scroll to the next post, swipe up or close this sucka out…

I truly want to speak to those who have a desire to build all areas of their lifestyle!

Not only is fitness important, but more importantly, what you eat. It’s true when they say you are what you eat… don’t believe me? Check this cool ish out! OH, As I way saying, it is hard to “fit nutrition in” when you’re so busy. Ok, so if we agree on that topic, then ‘what do you know Ryan that will help me figure all of this out?’

So glad you asked, I’ll share with you what I’m doing right now!

To offset the poor habits I created during my old job, I am gradually moving back to the eating habits I worked so diligently on back in 2013-2014. If you happened to watch the first bit of the cool video I posted above, they started in on the science of carbs and how they turn into glucose. Glucose = energy right? Yes, it is the main fuel source of the body! My goal is to keep a high level of intake on my carbs, but not insanely specific on what carbs I eat. Here’s the reason why: I’ve added to my schedule 30 minutes of fairly intense exercise and need that additional energy to support this additional energy expenditure.

As I gain in consistency, I’ll start to “clean up” my carbs. For now, I’ve been eating carbs consisting of whole wheat bread (with no HFCS), cheese filled tortellini with pork/chicken sausage, pita with hummus and rice & beans. I’ll have a salad here or there. Also, the goal is to work back in avocados and keep the protein intake up as much as possible. Ideally, I’ll work towards 1g of protein per desired pound of lean muscle mass (which will be well over 200). My recent protein find are these not so bad protein bars from Costco.

PRO TIP – you may find these bars on amazon or eBay if you’re not in an area with Costco or don’t have their membership.

That’s cool Ryan, anything else to share!?

Yes, as a matter of fact, I want to leave you with my economically friendly and super easy dish of the week! *Cue for the cool intro music* I made this recently! Use a rice cooker and walk away (just make sure you have it set to warm your food after the cooking is done). I call it Sanders Mexican rice, brought to you by my younger bro Elliott:

SANDERS MEXICAN RICE
By Elliott Sanders

Ingredients:

• 2 Cups of Brown Rice
• 3 – ½ cups of Water
• 1 Can of Pinto Beans
• 1 Can of Black Beans
• ½ Cup of Salsa (Mild, Medium or Hot per your preferences)
• Minced Garlic for taste
• Pinch of Mediterranean Sea Salt

Add all ingredients into rice cooker and hit preset cooking button on cooker. When done, combine with protein of choice (I find lean ground beef, chicken – shredded or ground – or ground turkey are nice options). You may add additional salsa for flavor if you want to make this a vegetarian/vegan option. If you aren’t on board with brown rice, do white. Be sure to do your research on white rice as it has down sides compared to brown rice.

Oh and if you didn’t catch it, yes indeed, nutrition is 80% of the work!