My Quick and Dirty Guide to Shin Splints

 

Anyone who has ever taken up running regularly knows that dealing with injury is a common practice that comes with the activity. It can be a real pain in the ass. Here you are trying to do incredible things like run multiple miles without stopping, but your body’s recovery mechanism just can’t keep up with the stress you are putting on it! You feel like your body seriously needs to get its act together and get the job done.

The bad news is running, in particular, places an uncommon amount of stress on the joints and muscles of the hips, knees, ankles, and feet. Basically, everything below the waist is at risk when you’re running. One particular injury that has dogged me off and on in my young running career has been shin splints. Shin splints suck. They make every step you take filled with pain in your lower leg and they can be difficult to get rid of if you don’t follow proper recovery principles.

Shin splints have done some work to make my life miserable since I started running. I have done a lot of research into how I can get over them faster. I compiled this guide on shin splints based on the research I have done so that other runners suffering from shin splints can get an idea for the approach that has helped me get over shin splints and prevent them from coming back.

I can’t say that this guide is definitive or all encompassing because that would require a doctoral dissertation. This is a blog folks, so its going to be quick and dirty. So this is my quick and dirty guide to shin splints. I’m going to go over what shin splints are and how you get them, How to get over them if you have them, and how to prevent yourself from getting them in the first place. Let’s do it.

I. What the Hell are shin splints, anyway?

Shin splints are a type of overuse injury that are characterized by tissue damage to the area of the leg below the knee.  People use the term shin splints to describe any sort of chronic pain related to the front of the lower leg (the shin). Shin splints are usually the result of micro-tears in the muscle and/or the shin bone (tibia). However, shin splints can also be caused by stress fractures of the tibia or the separation of the calf muscle from the tibia.

Though rare, shin splint pain is sometimes caused by compartment syndrome in which muscle tissue swells from internal bleeding or general inflamation. When the pressure from the swelling cannot be relieved normally, it becomes painful.

 

II. What causes shin splints?

Alright, so we know what shin splints are, but how do we get them? Shin splints commonly occur when you try to go too hard too soon. In fitness terms we would call this “Increasing your training volume before your body is ready for it.” Also, if you are a shitty runner, most people are, you can bet that you will get shin splints because poor running form will put you at a higher risk for that good old lower leg pain. If you don’t stretch before and after running, this could put you at a higher risk for shin splints as well.

 

III. How do I stop the shin pain?

I wonder how many people reading this just skipped to this section. I know I would have. I’ll stop wasting your time I guess. Shin splints suck. Let’s get rid of them.

I wish I could tell you that there is an easy way to relieve shin splints and continue running, but there’s really not. The only way to get over shin splints is to let your body rest in order to give it time to heal. You’ll sometimes here people use the acronym “RICE” for healing from injuries like shin splints. RICE stands for Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation. All four of these methods help to alleviate pain and swelling of tissue injuries while allowing your body conditions to heal. If you really have shin splints, you might feel ready to go again after a week. If you try to jump back into your training after only a week of rest though, you’re going to have a bad time. It takes 2-4 weeks to fully heal from shin splints and if you don’t let your body fully heal before resuming your training schedule, they are just going to come back. That is the truth and the extent of what I have been able to find regarding shin splint recovery. There is more that I can tell you based not on research, but on inferencing and experience. But first, a disclaimer:

I haven’t read any research to support or deny this claim and I am in no position to properly research it myself. It is simply a hypothesis that I came up with based on the knowledge I have acquired on exercise and nutrition. You can take it or leave it. If you know of any evidence that supports or denies this claim, please send it my way so that I can either confirm or re-evaluate my position.

So here it is…

We know that if you are in a calorie deficit, then your body will begin to cannibalize itself in order to meet its daily caloric needs. This is how you lose weight. Not all weight lost, though, is equal. Though most of what you will lose comes from fat, your body will eat away at muscle and other tissues to survive. A proper exercise routine, including strength training, will tell your body “Hey! Don’t eat away at these muscles and other tissues! They’ve been put under a lot of stress (exercise) lately and we need them. Go get your calories from the fat cells!” So you lose more fat than muscle and can actually gain muscle, even on a calorie deficit. However, in a calorie deficit it is going to be more difficult for your body to repair adequately between workouts, especially shin splints. Bodybuilders eat 3000-5000 calories a day in order to support muscle recovery and growth from the extensive stress they put on their bodies. So when faced with shin splints and trying to improve my recovery, I do what a body builder would do when he wants to gain mass in an area: I eat more calories. Milk, I think, is great for this because it is a good source of protein as well as calcium, which will help bone recovery in the event that your shin splints are caused by stress fractures in the tibia.

If you can dig it, cool. Let me know. If you don’t dig it, cool. Let me know.

IV. How do I prevent myself from getting shin splints?

The best way to deal with shin splints is to never get them in the first place so let’s talk about Prevention.

1. Increase your running mileage gradually – If you are getting shin splints as a runner, the number one training adjustment you will want to make is to dial back your mileage a bit and then increase it gradually. Stay at a comfortable mileage for several weeks before you increase it. If you make an increase and start to notice pain, bring it back down to where it was comfortable
2. Stretch – Stretching is key. Many people don’t stretch as much as they should, but stretching before and after your workout is one of the best ways to prevent injury by allowing your muscles and other tissues to move in their proper range of motion.
3. Strenthen your leg muscles – A major cause of running related injuries is weak leg muscles. When you run, your leg muscles help absorb the shock of hitting the pavement. The larger and stronger your leg muscles, the more force they can absorb, decreasing the stress put on your shins. You will want to strengthen your quadriceps, hamstrings, glutes, abductors and adductors. Squats and deadlifts are my go-to workout for legs, but if you’re not into that, there is a great workout routine for this called the Iron Strength workout for runners. I’ve never tried it, but I’ve heard good things about the program causing reduced injury through increased lower body strength. If you do it, let me know how it went.
4. Nutrition is key –  What you put into your body determines how it will perform. At the end of the day, though food is delicious, we have to remember that food is fuel. If you eat nothing but donuts all day every day, then you may be supplying your body with calories, but you will also be depriving your body of the nutrients it desperately needs. Make sure that you are giving your body what it needs so that it can recover quickly and effiiciently.

 

So there you have it. My quick and dirty guide to shin splints. Did I miss anything? Is there something you would like to see explained in more detail? Questions and comments are always welcome. Leave a response below and don’t forget to subscribe.

Be Well,

-Cory

 

 

How to eat healthy at Taco Bell

I like tacos. The fact that you are reading this post means you probably like tacos too. Let’s be honest here, who doesn’t like tacos? Tacos are delicious. Taco Bell has been a staple in my diet for quite a few years starting with my years in college where I began my everlasting quest to save both time and money. I was a music major and there was a Taco Bell less than 500 feet from the music building. It doesn’t take much to deduce further that I should probably own shares in Taco Bell with how much I had eaten there in college. As I became a “real” adult and I developed the desire to eat well, Taco Bell was there again to quell my cravings for fast food while staying healthy.

In this post, I’m going to show you how to make choices at Taco Bell that will allow you to continue hitting your health and fitness goals.

Two words: Fresco Menu.

In a move to make available more options for health-conscious consumers Taco Bell created the Fresco Menu in 2008. This has made it one of the best options for healthy fast-food. Each item on the fresco menu is 350 calories or less. My favorite options are the chicken soft taco and steak soft taco. Each of these is only 140 calories! You can get 4 of these tacos and it will only be 560 calories. I usually plan my meals and exercise so that I have about 1000 calories left for dinner, so if I decide to eat Taco Bell for dinner, I am WAY under that. Sometimes…I even get 5 tacos.

Let’s say you are not a fan of any of the items on the fresco menu. You would order fresco if you could get a chalupa, a crunchwrap, or something else. What if I told you that you could order nearly any item from the Taco Bell menu in ‘Fresco Style?’ An item ordered fresco style replaces any mayo-based sauces, cheese, sour cream, or guacamole with pico de gallo. Taking away these sources of fat and replacing them with vegetables can cut down on anywhere from 50-100 calories per item. For example, if you order a Chicken Chalupa, you are looking at 340 calories. This item comes with both cheese and sour cream. If we approximate that the cheese and sour cream add up to 80 calories and the added pico de gallo adds a very small amount of calories, your chalupa now comes in at 260 calories. You could eat THREE chicken chalupas fresco style and have eaten 780 calories whereas you would have eaten 680 calories for only two standard chalupas. That’s only 100 calories more for an entire extra chalupa!

Now there’s that. You can say “Fresco Style. I got it. That’s what I’m going to do.” However, not everyone is satisfied with the fresco menu. I know several people who order their Taco Bell with no vegetables. They’re just not fans of Taco Bell’s vegetables. These people are also thinking “I need to have my cheese and/or sour cream on my tacos.” That is totally okay. You can still eat healthy at Taco Bell. You just have to eat LESS Taco Bell. Many of the items on the Taco Bell menu come in at between 250-500 calories. You can typically order 2-3 standard menu items and still be under 1000 calories for your meal. If this is what you want to do, you should take a look at the full nutrition info on the Taco Bell website. Taco Bell restaurants have calories printed on the store menus as well so that you are aware of calorie content as you order.

So there you have it. Three different valid approaches to eating healthy at Taco Bell. Overall, it’s not that hard. Like anything related to healthy eating, you simply need to stay aware and be mindful of your decisions.

Be Well,

Cory

 

What is a Macronutrient?

Six months ago I had no idea what a macronutrient was. The first thing that would have come to my mind would have been the macroeconomics course I took my freshman year of college in which my professor used trends in the purchase of beer among college students to demonstrate real-world examples of economic theory. This has nothing to do with macronutrients.

I first saw macronutrients as a measure on the foods I was eating in the MyFitnessPal app. I soon found out that I already knew the basic elements of macronutrients, just not what they were, exactly. In fact, even if you know nothing about nutrition, you more than likely already know all of the macronutrients by name. There are three macronutrients. We call them Carbohydrates, Protein, and Fat. See? That wasn’t so difficult.

However, in order to live a healthy lifestyle, it is not enough to simply know that they exist and what they are called. We need to dive a little deeper in order to attain true enlightenment on the importance of macronutrients, how they affect us everyday, and how we can manipulate them to achieve our health and fitness goals.

Let’s break it down. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines a macronutrient as “a chemical element or substance that is essential in relatively large amounts to the growth and health of a living organism.” The only thing that tells us is that whatever a macronutrient is, we need it! How do we get them?

Every food that you eat is made up of macronutrients. Macronutrients are where your calories come from. If it has no macronutrients, it has no calories. If it has no calories, it’s probably not real food. (I’m looking at you diet soda.) The number of calories in your food is directly related to the grams of macronutrients in your food.

Every gram of carbohydrates in a food equates to 4 calories. For protein this is exactly the same (4 calories to one gram). Fat is the black sheep of the macronutrient family coming in at 9 calories per gram. Having a calorie density more than double that of carbs and protein per gram explains why many people say that fat…makes you fat.

Despite this high-calorie density, fat is not bad for you! Dietary fat is an essential component of keeping your body running properly. Without it, your bodily functions would not…function correctly and you would be feeling terrible. Fat helps your body absorb vitamins and slows digestion, making your last meal keep you feeling satiated longer. Yes, you do need to be aware so that you do not eat too much fat, but you cannot cut it out entirely.

Saturated fat is commonly referred to as the “bad” fat and is found in animal fats, butter, dairy, and coconuts. Monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats are the “good” fats and help lower cholesterol, triglyceride levels, and blood pressure. Monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats are found in olive oil, avocado, fish, and natural peanut butter. If you’re going to eat fat, make sure that most, if not all, of it comes from monounsaturated and polyunsaturated sources.

15%-25% of your daily calories from fat is generally considered safe. Don’t forget though, that one gram of fat is not equal to one gram of carbs or protein. If you eat a food that is 10 grams fat, 10 carbs, and 10 protein, your macronutrient ratio for that food is 23.5% carbs, 23.5% protein, 53% fat. So eat fat. Just keep it in check.

Let’s go back to carbohydrates. Carbs also get a bad rap, mostly because of the surge in popularity of low-carb diet plans. Again, they are ESSENTIAL and we cannot cut them out entirely. In fact, many people, especially athletes, are very healthy on high carb diets in which they eat 50%-60% or more of their daily calories in the form of carbs.

Put simply, carbs are the primary macronutrient in most foods that come from plants. Fruits, leafy and starchy vegetables, bread, pasta, rice, and all varieties of SUGAR are carbs.

Carbs act as quick and easily accessible fuel for your body. I read an article once that likened carbs to being “jet fuel” for your muscles. At any point that your body requires more fuel to create energy, the first place it will go is the carbs that your body has converted into and is storing as glycogen, then body fat and muscle mass.

Most people do pretty well with 40%-50% carbs. If you are trying to lose weight, you will probably want to bring carbs down to 30%-40%. A low-carb diet is considered to be anything below 30% carbs. It is dangerous to eat less that 10% of your daily calories from carbs, so don’t even mess with that nonsense. Eat carbs. They fuel your body.

The next macronutrient we need to look at is protein. Protein is, in my opinion, the most important, yet least eaten, macronutrient of the three. If you think that only gym bros care about protein intake, you are selling yourself short of the benefits of this awesome macronutrient! When you are looking at changing the macronutrients you are eating for a healthier lifestyle, this should be the first one you adjust. If you get the protein right, the others just kind of fall into place.

First of all, good protein contains all of the building blocks of muscle. When it comes to muscle, you’re either gaining or losing, so if you’re not eating enough protein (and supplementing with resistance training), you are losing muscle, and that is never good!

In order to keep muscle and be “in shape,”  you should get no less than 25% of your daily calories from protein. When I started monitoring my macronutrient ratios, I was typically getting only  15%-20% of my calories from protein per day. I was not intentionally eating more carbs or fat, its just what happened from eating a typical American diet.

The truth here is that most people are really not eating enough protein daily, especially if they want to lose weight. When eating to lose weight, some sources recommend eating up to 50% of your calorie intake from protein! If you want to lose weight, exchanging carb calories for protein calories is a great way to lose faster. Not only does protein promote muscle growth, which increases metabolism, but protein also requires your body to spend more energy (calories) to process than it would for carbs.

Getting 25%-35% of your calories from protein is a good range. On an aggressive fat-loss plan, you will want to eat a 35%-45% protein diet. Eat protein. It is the stone that makes the temple that is your body.

Personally, I aim for a macronutrient ratio of 25% Fat, 40% Carbs and 35% Protein. I am on a fat-loss plan, but I’m not perfect. Most days I don’t even hit my protein goal. I am a work-in-progress and realize that eating 40% or more protein every day can be difficult feat! Even eating 25% protein per day is difficult if you are not monitoring your intake. Some days I don’t even hit that goal. So many of the foods available to us are high in Fat and Carbs. You cannot just one day decide “I am going start eating a 40% protein diet today!” You will probably fail. Maybe not right away, but unless you know what you are doing, it will be difficult to sustain for a long period of time. Instead, start by trying to hit my recommended minimum of 25% protein with 45% carbs and 30% fat. Once you feel like you can comfortably achieve this macronutrient ratio, try to increase your protein intake by 5% while decreasing either carbs or fat.

Be well,

Cory

 

It pisses me off when I see the food industry try to trick consumers…

So the other day I was walking through Wal-Mart minding my own Damn business, trying to buy some groceries when out of the corner of my eye I see a bottle of straight up bullshit.

There is no denying the fact that trying to ‘be healthy’ is very popular lately. Its almost as if the health craze has been a fad. And where there is immense popularity, there is trash to market and money to be made. EVEN BY COMPANIES THAT HAVE NO FUCKING BUSINESS INVESTING IN IT. It is greedy to say the least. Dangerous and irresponsible at most. This is where I talk about how the sugar industry is preying on those who ‘want’ to be healthy and hear things about being healthy, but have not yet learned enough about nutrition to make healthy choices all the time.

So Many people have been talking about the health benefits of coconuts lately. As a result in stores you see much more coconut water, coconut oil, coconut milk, etc. I see it all the time with my friends who drink the stuff or use it for cooking. Did you even know five years ago that you could buy coconut water in a bottle? Since when have grocery stores given prime real estate to a display filled with coconut water???

This is Marketside Green Tea with Coconut Water. Marketside Green Tea with Coconut Water is a scam created to dupe you into buying more sugar and putting it into your body without you thinking you are because ‘oh I see my healthy friends talk about coconut products and I’ve heard that they’re healthy so this has to be healthy, right?” Well, Fuck you.

Let’s look at the Nutrition Facts of Marketside Green Tea with Coconut Water.

The first thing you should notice is that there are two servings per bottle. So if you drink the entire bottle, you have to double all of the other numbers on the label. (And who doesn’t drink the entire bottle, right?) That means that in one bottle of this there are 160 calories. So I read this and I’m thinking “how in the hell are there 160 calories in a bottle of green tea and coconut water?”

We read further down the label…

No fat, no sodium so that’s good I guess…carbohydrates 20 grams, okay I guess that makes sense of where the calories came from, WAIT! 20 GRAMS OF SUGAR!!!

That makes 40 grams of sugar in one bottle. One gram of sugar more than a can of coke!

I wasn’t fucking joking.

The American Heart Association recommends that adult men consume no more than 36 grams of sugar per day. The recommended limit for women is even lower at 24 grams.

Drinking one bottle of Marketside Green Tea with Coconut Water puts anyone over their daily allowance for sugar. Drinking even the recommended serving size of half a bottle is more than half of your recommended daily sugar consumption.

How can this be possible with a drink that is labeled in a way that leads you to believe that it is healthy?

Excessive sugar consumption (that’s anything more than the daily recommended amount) is a direct cause of metabolic diseases such as diabetes. Excessive sugar consumption has also been proven as a cause of various forms of heart disease including High Blood Pressure, Coronary Artery Disease, Coronary Vascular Disease, Heart Attack, and Stroke.

The number one goal of any industry is to make money. That includes the food and sugar industries. You have to realize that at the end of the day the job of the execs is not to make you healthier. This is not necessarily their fault.  Marketside Green Tea with Coconut Water is just one example of how the sugar industry is certainly not doing us any favors. In order to live a healthy lifestyle, we are going to need to be more aware as consumers than the food industry would hope we are.

Be Well,

Cory

Meal Prep: Fish with Sweet Potatoes and Veggies

 

Who says you can’t have hearty, healthy lunches on a time crunch? This meal takes very little prep time and about 20-35 minutes cook time.

Ingredients:

2 lbs whitefish (tilapia, cod, flounder, haddock, catfish)

OR 20 oz  salmon

2-24 oz bags of frozen vegetables

30 oz sweet potatoes (yams)

Olive oil (or any other) cooking spray

1 Tbsp Olive Oil

Spice Blend:

1 Tbsp Paprika

1 Tsp Cayenne Pepper

1/4 Tsp Ground Black Pepper

1/8-1/4 Tsp Sea Salt

Instructions:

-Preheat your oven to 450° F (230° C)

-Cut your sweet potatoes so that you have four even portions. If you are using a scale, which I highly recommend you do, this is 7.5 ounces each for 30 oz of sweet potatoes.

-Use the cooking spray to coat a baking sheet and place the one portion of sweet potatoes in each corner of the sheet. Once oven is preheated, place sweet potatoes in the oven, on the bottom rack, for 15 minutes.

– Pro tip: Once the oven is preheated, you should put your sweet potatoes in the oven ASAP, that way you can prepare other parts of the meal while the sweet potatoes are cooking.

-If your fish is frozen and you need to prep right now, here is a quick and easy tip for defrosting: Fill a large bowl with warm water from your faucet, place the fish in the water for 5 minutes or until you can bend them easily.

-Coat a second baking sheet with cooking spray and place your fish on the sheet.

-Drizzle olive oil over fish

-Generously apply spice mixture to fish

-When the timer goes off for sweet potatoes, add fish to the oven on the top rack. Reset timer for 10 minutes with both fish and sweet potatoes in oven.

-While the sweet potatoes and fish are cooking, set out 4-5 microwaveable containers with lids. (This is what you will be eating out of this week.)

-Split the frozen vegetables among your microwaveable containers.

-Once the timer goes off for your fish and sweet potatoes, remove both from oven. The fish will be fully cooked, but the sweet potatoes could take longer. Poke the sweet potatoes with a fork to make sure that they are fully cooked. The fork should cut easily to the center of the potato. If they are not fully cooked, place back in the oven for an additional 5-10 minutes.

-Once fish and sweet potatoes are fully cooked, allow to cool and place equal amounts in the containers over the frozen vegetables.

-To reheat, cook for 1’30” – 2’30”

-Be the envy of your coworkers as you chow down on delicious, healthy, and home-cooked food while they look on longingly.

Yields:

4-5 servings @ 360-380 calories per serving

Approximate Macronutrient profile: 3g Fat, 48g Carbs, 35g Protein

Significant micronutrients: 700g Potassium, 10g Fiber, 13g Sugar, Vitamin A 743%, Vitamin C 89%, Calcium 10%, Iron 7%

How the Hell did I get here?

Sunday afternoon, after finishing my weekly meal prep in the form of chicken and broccoli stir fry, I exclaimed the words “I am a meal prep boss!”

Every Sunday over the past nearly two years I have experimented and honed my ability to create incredible lunches for my entire week in one day. Despite my success, it has been a long journey to get to this point. When I started I did not even know much about proper nutrition. Before I started, things were even worse…

You should know right now that I had been a fat boy my entire life. The only exception to this fact being for a short stint right at the end of my senior year of high school when I joined my high school swim team and lost 40 pounds during the season. I would find out later that working out for 10 hours a week and eating whatever you want is NOT a sustainable lifestyle.

   

After swim team ended I soon started gaining the weight back and after seven years I was bigger and weighed more than I ever did in high school. I was sedentary. I was eating like trash. I was not aware of the damage I was doing to my body as a result of my diet and activity level.

5-ish years ago my attitude was that I didn’t want to grow old to become feeble in both mind and body. I had seen my grandmother go through that life and I didn’t want any part of it. I smoked cigarettes (sorry mom), I drank too much on the weekends, I ate anything, and I was not active because I was in my early 20’s and was going to do what I wanted.

When I got my first real job and before I made a lifestyle change, my daily lunch consisted of a sandwich of processed deli meat and cheese on white bread with potato chips, a soda, and the occasional snack cake. Anyone who knows anything about nutrition knows that this is a disastrous lunch combination that will make you feel (and look) like shit.

The lifestyle change I made resulted from three key events that affected the way I view health, nutrition, fitness, and life. 

The first event that occurred was the great love I developed for both my then fiance, now wife, Bethany, and my six-month-old future-nephew Oliver. My wife and I had recently gotten engaged and my nephew was born around the same time. I will talk more about my wife in a later blog post, because there is too much to say for this one, but I can talk about my nephew now.

It had been a long time since I saw a baby because all the babies in my family were grown. When I held Oliver for the first time in my brother-in-law’s house, the idea of fatherhood suddenly became very real to me. I knew that when the day came for me to have children I would be ready and I would be happy. I wanted to be able to be a good father and be there for my children for a long time.

My incredible wife, Bethany on our wedding day

My first time meeting my nephew, Oliver

Second came the first bit of health awareness I acquired along this journey.  This occurred after watching the documentary “Fed Up.” In Fed Up the filmmakers bring light to the role of the sugar industry in helping create and sustain the American Obesity Epidemic. This includes, but is not limited to, lobbying for the unrestricted addition of sugar to processed foods, fighting against attempts by citizens to provide a diet for children containing appropriate levels of sugar, and providing grants for research to disassociate sugar with negative health consequences. After viewing this film I realized just how dangerous my lifestyle was. I learned about the concept of “clean eating.”

Finally, I had to go to the doctor to get a physical for work. I weighed in at 305 pounds with high blood pressure, and warnings of diabetes at the age of 24. The doctor and I spoke about how if I don’t make a lifestyle change, I could be looking at a shortened lifespan.

Me, November 2014, barely able to fit in my college jacket

Now, however I knew I wanted to someday have children and watch them grow into adulthood. I had an amazing woman as my fiance who I wanted to spend as much of my lifetime with as possible. I now wanted to be around to see all of the things that came with getting old. The good and the bad, because whatever was bad was worth it if I got to spend that time with the people I cared about.

To recap: I was way overweight and ignorant to health, I suddenly found a reason to be in good health, and I had two knowledge bombs about health dropped on me at around the same time. Change. Was. Coming.

A friend and former roommate of mine from college had just started out doing this BeachBody coaching thing. My fiance and I spoke with her and decided to give the healthy life a go. We bought as close to natural foods as we could get and meal prepped and did everything we thought we were supposed to do. It worked, but it wasn’t pretty. There is so much to know about healthy eating that we did not. It was like swimming in an ocean of “IDKCLEANLOL?”

We loved the idea of clean eating but we soon found that the uncompromising nature of the clean food life put too much stress on our normal eating habits and wasn’t working. We found that we would need to tone it down a bit and make small changes here and there over a long period of time in order to achieve our goals.

So I kept with the idea of trying to eat clean as best I could while still being realistic, meal prepping, and so on. From here I became slightly obsessed with eating kale or spinach salads with homemade dressing and I usually had a couple cans of chickpeas in my cupboard. I was meal prepping my lunches and making more conscious choices for breakfast. Dinner was still out, but progress was being made.

Over the next year I read article after article about nutrition and experimented with different meal prep ideas. I got creative and started making some really incredible meals! Healthy and satisfying. Now, some weeks my lunch can range from a salad, to burrito bowls, to stir fry, or hummus and vegetables.

Things really blew up about a year ago when I started incorporating exercise into my new healthy lifestyle. I found a local pickup Ultimate Frisbee group that I started going to because I really enjoyed playing the game in college. When I realized how slow and out of breath I was compared to the other players, I started running. Two months later I completed my first 5k. Then I started lifting weights 3 times a week. Five months after my first 5k, I ran a 10k. Fitness had become an important part of my life.

My first 5k, GOTR May 2016

Adding a fitness routine and fitness goals into my life instilled a desire to get faster, stronger, and fitter. I found that in order to reach my fitness goals, I was going to have to really step up my nutrition game. I learned about macronutrient ratios and the fact that I was not eating even close to enough protein. I learned about appropriate caloric intake and the nutrient content of various foods. I learned about anti-inflammatory foods and most importantly, about dietary balance.

As of this writing I have lost 35 pounds since I went to the doctor and weighed in at 305. I have many goals that I wish to conquer yet, both weight loss related, and otherwise. This may not seem like significant weight loss for the amount of time I had been working on my health, or significant enough to feel successful, but I never intended to lose weight quickly. I wanted to learn how do develop my lifestyle into one that could be sustained for the rest of my life while I gained the skills and knowledge necessary to be truly healthy. I feel stronger everyday and have amassed an incredible amount of knowledge along the way.

Operation Warm 10k at Winterthur, October 2016

So for the past couple of months I’ve been throwing around the idea of starting a blog about my health journey/food prepping/fitness aimed at men. After this week’s successful meal prep, my wife told me that I should really start writing down my meal prep recipes to give to people who are making efforts to improve their nutrition, such as some of her friends at work. She also suggested that I start a blog or something similar as a way to share with others what I am doing in the kitchen and outside of the kitchen. Another person looking in at what I have been doing and coming to a similar conclusion seemed to be the universe giving me the validation that I really should start the blog I have been thinking about.

In The Well-Fed Man you will find meal prep recipes, exercise ideas, informative articles, updates on my journey, and things that piss me off. The goal of The Well-Fed Man is to assist men in cultivating a healthy lifestyle for themselves and their families.

I am an educator by trade and have a strong desire to share my knowledge with others. If there is anything that I can do to help you learn about creating a healthier lifestyle, please feel free to reach out to me.

Best,

Cory

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