Mountain Food

Excerpt 12 - from ‘Total Mountain Fitness’

Introduction

I am not a nutritionist, although I have worked with one, and do not have any certifications on diet or nutrition. However, I have been an athlete my entire life and experimented with various nutrition and supplement plans and diets. Most of these were under the supervision of a Coach, Doctor, or other Specialist. If you are interested in making any changes to your diet (food, supplements, schedule, etc) - please refer to the professionals you are currently working with.

To put a title on it, I follow a high fat/low carb (HFLC) diet with cyclic ketosis and intermittent fasting. What does all that mean? Well, I primarily eat meat and vegetables and, sometimes, I don’t eat at all. I skip breakfast on weekends and only eat lunch and dinner. Learning to fast from dinner on, eat during daylight hours only, have less snacks, drink only water, etc – has changed, not only my life, but also my body and my energy.

I grew up an athlete in the 80s and 90s and ate the then typical high carb diet, to include wolfing down Power Bars on a daily basis (the banana flavor was my favorite). Although my friends and I sometimes drank protein shakes, it was mostly carbo loading the night before a race, or training session, that was the staple of our diet.

As I was predominantly a runner and skier, and young (high school and college) I could routinely get by with eating cereal and bagels for breakfast with pizza and pasta for lunch and dinner every day. Although I was constantly burning, I was constantly hungry and bonking during races. To combat that, I – of course – drank Gatorade and gorged on the aforementioned Powerbars like it was my job.

Perspective

After college, I left for four years in the Service, which got me into serious weight training for the first time ever. Through the mentorship of a friend at the Police Academy, I began using Creatine and Protein Powders on a daily basis, which I had also never done before.

If you’ve ever been in the Military, you know that Basic Training and your Academy are, essentially, half a year of 15 hour days. You specialize in getting yelled at, running in formation, and doing calisthenics. But, to go to the gym and perform heavy weight training on top of that – what were we thinking?!? We were basically breaking ourselves down all the time, so ate like horses in an attempt to keep it all at bay.

Suffice it to say, I got the biggest, heaviest, and strongest I’ve ever been (a whopping 180 lbs for me). Looking back on it now, I see there was a lot of intermittent fasting and high fat diets all over – we just didn’t call it that twenty years ago. The biggest change for me was to go from a lifetime of ‘eat whenever you want/as many times as you want’ to ‘eat three meals – when we tell you – and that’s it’.

These days – ironically – I’m back in that Military way of eating as I use both intermittent fasting and eating high fat. My daily routine looks like this:

• 8am Breakfast: Bulletproof Coffee (coffee+grass fed butter+brain octane oil)
• 12noon Lunch: Meat & Veggies
• 2pm Snack: Black Coffee
• 7pm Dinner: Meat & Rice

I then fast from after dinner until lunch the following day. Essentially, my food window is 12-8pm daily. Fasting hours are 8pm-12pm. Ish.

Note: Although a true fast means you don’t eat anything, Bulletproof Intermittent Fasting, which is what I have done for 5+ years, means you get some high-fat coffee in the morning. As there are no carbs or protein, your body runs on the fat (and caffeine) and I have found I can train, work, or whatever and have a high level of performance. For me, dry (nothing) or wet (water only) fasting means my performance drops. If you're interested in any kind of fasting, experiment and see what version gives you the best bang for your buck.

My Lesson Learned

Below are the rules my Nutritionist gave me. Not only did she work with several Olympians who went to the Rio Games, but she is friends with Pavel Tsatsouline and many other high end performers (both in StrongFirst and beyond);

1. Eat a rainbow – Her words, “If you go grocery shopping and look in your cart and don’t see every color in the rainbow you’ve failed – go back and get more colors!” 
2. Eat high fat – Her words, “Fat is your friend! You can’t eat enough healthy fats. Start eating hard boiled eggs every day.”
3. Prep your food – Her words, “Part of shopping for food is putting it away properly. Get in the habit of coming home and washing everything, drying it, prepping it to eat (cut it up, etc) and putting it (preferably) in glass-lock containers. This will keep it fresher longer.”

Am I going to give you a specific diet or tell you what, when, or how to eat? No. I am, however, going to suggest – specifically for outdoor/mountain sports – to follow a few simple rules.

Performance Mountain Food

• Make the best choice available – don’t beat yourself up over any one meal
• Eat high fat foods and meals – ensure these are natural ‘healthy’ fats
• Eat simple, whole foods – as close to its natural state as possible
• Fresh is best – eat actual food, not out of a can, freezer, or box
• Experiment – eat a variety of foods, try things you’ve never had before
• Abandon measurements – don’t count calories, micros, macros, etc
• Enjoy your meals – eat what you like, make your meals satisfying
• Grow your food – start a vegetable or herb garden, trade flowering plants for edibles
• Shop in the perimeter – don’t buy things in the aisles of the supermarket, the perimeter is where meat, dairy, fresh fruits and vegetables, and freshly prepared foods are
• Drink water – stop drinking calories, drink to hydrate
• Focus on nutrition from food – spend money on higher quality fresh, whole, organic food instead of supplements, pills, and powders
• Follow Pavel’s advice (the founder of Strongfirst) – “Vegetables for nutrition, meat for strength.”

 My upcoming book "Total Mountain Fitness" (TM) teaches a minimalistic - and realistic - approach to fitness, including strength, conditioning, and recovery. If you would like to learn more, please sign up here to receive a free e-book version. Total Mountain Fitness will be released later this year.