Long ago, when I first began to pay serious attention to my training and nutrition, I learned of a general principle that has served me well and has since become the cornerstone of my body composition success.
If a food is in your possession or located in your residence, you will eventually eat it.
If you wish to be healthy and lean, you must remove all foods not conducive to those goals from said residence and replace them with a variety of better, healthier choices.
If you know someone whose house is stocked only with optimal food choices and yet who is not healthy and lean, look under his bed.
The bottom line is that you must stock your house with all the ammo you need to fight the battle of the bulge. My body fat ranges from about 5% to about 8% throughout the year (without the use of thermogenics) and the only way I'm able to maintain that level of leanness is by removing all temptation from my home, where I spend most of my time.
For years I've advised my clients and athletes to do the same. Now I bring the message to you. Your willpower and discipline will be tested enough at social events, at lunch meetings, and as you pass the six Krispy Kreme locations on the commute home from work. If you're to have any chance of success, you need a safe home base.
With that in mind, I'm going to give you a peak into my armory . . . er, kitchen. In this week's installment, I'll open my stainless steel fridge to show you what and what not to stock. In doing so I hope to demonstrate that there are plenty of options available to the trainee interested in optimal health and body composition. Of course, this is not intended to be a comprehensive list in any way; rather, it's a snapshot of the actual contents of my favorite appliance, and as such should serve as a practical example of the nutrition theory I expound elsewhere on this site.
Let's begin, shall we?
I must get at least a dozen emails a day by readers who complain that they're tired of eating beef. I don't dignify those emails with a response. Word to the wise: if you want free nutrition advice from me, don't disparage Mr. Beef.
In all seriousness, you don't have to rely solely on beef for your protein intake – I certainly don't. I get a wide variety of meat, poultry and fish, some examples of which are listed below.
I'm lucky enough to have two excellent markets near my home and I realize that the more exotic selections listed below may be difficult for you to find. However, don't just assume because it's not at your local Piggly Wiggly, you can't get it. Look around for nearby farmer's markets, or make a trip out to a more distant one and freeze your purchases.
Alternatively, you might want to try one of the various online distributors. I can't recommend these as I've never tried them myself, but if you've had some success with them, drop me a line at and let me know so I can spread the word.
So let's see what types and quantities of goodies are stashed in my fridge:
I usually make one to two omelets a day so I keep a ton of eggs on hand. Note that my omelets don't have nearly the amount of cheese or butter one normally finds in them.
Here's what I use:
I'm lactose intolerant, yet I can still indulge in a little bit of cheese from time to time. During mass phases and maintenance phases, I use it judiciously. Of course, less is added during diet phases (unless I decide to rip out a couple of low carb weeks). However, dairy is often one of the first things I'll remove from a client's diet at the first sign of maldigestion, so you should pay close attention to your response to it. Most of the time I cut the cheese into small cubes and put it in salads, or into slices for my omelets, ground beef patties, and snacks.
Except for strict dieting phases, I always have some amount of fruit in my fridge. I constantly buy fresh seasonal fruit, whenever possible sticking to local organically grown produce. I keep all my fruit in the fridge, where it lasts longer. Furthermore, cold fruit is more refreshing and just tastes better.
The problem with most diets is not that they don't get enough vegetables, but that they don't get any at all! You should familiarize yourself with the produce section of your local supermarket, or better yet, your local farmer's market. Pick up some fresh veggies and add them to every meal.
People always complain of being bored with the food on their nutrition plans. It lacks variety, they inevitably claim. To me, this has always been a spurious claim. For one, most people eat the same terrible foods day in and day out, so variety can't be the problem. Taste, on the other hand, may well be.
The foods outlined above taste different than the ones found in the average North American Diet – different, but certainly not worse. As I have said before, your palette is changeable, and what you enjoy now is mostly a matter of habituation. If variety is the problem, however, you should look into subtly changing the flavor of your meals with out substantially altering their content.
I drink water almost exclusively, mixing in some green tea in the morning. My fridge, you'll notice, is conspicuously void of flavored beverages.
Soft drinks, fruit juices and milk: My stance on these beverages is well known, so suffice it to say that I think people would do well to drink water and get their calories elsewhere.
Packaged foods: My fridge contains no foods packaged in colorful wrappers, boxes, bags, or containers. Be wary of such foods: the "healthiness" of a food is generally inversely proportional to the colorfulness and cost of its packaging. Furthermore, the vast majority of foods worth eating have expiration dates, and generally the sooner the better. Note: yesterday doesn't count as sooner, so stay away from the supermarket bargain bin.
Rotting leftovers from Thanksgiving dinner: Grandma's vintage stuffing from 2001 is best stored in a landfill, not in the vegetable crisper.
If your fridge doesn't contain many or most of the things I have in mine, or if it contains many things that mine doesn't, you'll have a difficult time maintaining a lean and healthy body. If it contains none of what I have in mine, tip your fridge over, dump the contents and begin anew.
That's it for this installment of Berardi's Kitchen. Next time I'll show you around the cupboards and tell you what pantry items and supplements to stock.
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