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My Take on Diet
List of posts in Articles by Steve Maxwell
- Is It Time to Re-think Cardio?
- "Mobility Training May Be the Most Important Factor in … Health" by Steve Maxwell
- “12 Reasons to Fire Your Personal Trainer” by Steve Maxwell
- “10 Ways to De-Sissify Your Kid (and maybe yourself in the process)” by Steve Maxwell
- “The Greatest Exercise Machine of All” by Steve Maxwell
- Coach’s Ten-Point Guide to a Bloat-Free Thanksgiving Holiday!
- My Take on Diet
After watching The UFC this weekend and hearing Joe Rogan mention Steve Maxwell’s name as Diego Sanchez’s strength & conditioning trainer, I thought that I’d go through the Ole’ Coach’s blog archives to find some Pearls of Wisdom, like my buddy Bill says, that will motivate and inspire you.
(MMA side note: Poor Diego Sanchez; BJ Penn is just on an elite level that very very few fighters are on …)
Now, I have been to two workshops with Steve, and he does walk around at around 6% BF all year around! There’s no cutting and bulking cycles for him. This guys is shredded 24/7, which motivates the hell outta me since he’s 15+ years my senior!
So, I thought you’d guys would be interested in how he eats on a daily basis.
Enjoy and please leave a comment …
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My Take on Diet
by Steve Maxwell
www.maxwellsc.com
One of the questions I’m most frequently asked is, “What do you eat?” People wonder how I manage to keep my body fat at about 6% year round. Further, I’ve remained youthful in appearance (and behavior) which I attribute to my daily regimen.
There are dozens of theories about the best way to eat. One thing that everyone agrees upon is we all need a certain amount of calories, water, protein, fat, carbohydrates, vitamins and minerals. Then the lines rapidly delineate when it comes to proportions of macro-nutrients and meal frequency. Food quality is a whole other issue… Let me preface the following by saying that this is only an accounting of what I do–and I’m not saying what I do is for everyone! The topic of food consumption and nutrition is a very emotional subject for some people. Some of the most vicious arguments I’ve ever witnessed were nutrition-based. Much like politics or religion, it’s a loaded, fully-charged gun waiting to go off. You must be careful with these things, treading between people’s confusion and emotions. Once someone “settles” in with a dietary program, they want to believe in it. They begin to self-identify with it. If another diet is touted as good/better/best, their belief system is challenged. Either they are wrong or the other guy must be wrong. Most people won’t allow themselves to be wrong and this is the basis of the nutrition wars.
My own diet has evolved over decades. I’m an experimenter, willing to use my body as a laboratory to test any intriguing theories I might encounter. I was raised on a mixed, American diet, typical of the 1950′s and 60′s. I went lacto-ovo vegetarian; vegan; raw-food vegan and macrobiotic. I followed Arnold Erhet’s Mucusless Diet System; Herbert Sheldon’s Food Combining system; the Hunza diet; Paavo Airola’s diet system; The Gracie family diet; Ori Hoffmeklar’s Warrior Diet; the Atkins diet and Dr. Ellis’ Diet Solution.
I’ve run the gamut of high-carb/low-fat to high-protein/high-fat; I suspect I’ve tried about every combination. I’ve read a lot on the subject and further had the opportunity to observe my clients’ responses as they’ve followed me on my diet journeys. I’ve been on the same diet now (and still evolving) for 15 years. I finally settled on a low-carb diet, with about 20% of calories coming from carbohydrate. When I need to lean out (from over-indulgence) I go ketogenic (very few carbs) for a few days to a week. I feel my very best on this diet, compared to all of the other diet strategies I’ve tried.
Once I went low-carb, I stopped searching elsewhere because I began feeling and performing better than ever. With lower carb and higher fat, my satiety level went up, inflammation went down, mood improved and I became noticeably leaner and more muscular. I eat the following foods in various proportions throughout the week: jerky from grass-finished beef; pemmican (beef jerky and rendered tallow 1:4); cheese (raw milk Swiss); chicken; hard-boiled eggs; cottage cheese; 25 Greek yogurt; whey concentrate powder; rice bran; unpasteurized pickled vegetables and a variety of cooked green vegetables, like spinach, broccoli, kale and collards. I eat when I’m hungry, drink when I’m thirsty and eat little, unless my appetite is especially voracious. I play a game with myself to see how little I can eat and still perform at a high level in my chosen activities. I space meals out over the day with at least three–usually four–hours between feedings. I prefer to fast during the morning hours, though lately I’ve begun taking a spoonful BCAAs when I wake up. Here’s a typical menu:
05:30 — supplements: aminos; BCAAs; glutamine; tyrosine and creatine
09:30 — pemmican bar (USWellnessmeats.com)
10:00 — coffee with cream or half & half
14:00 — yogurt/whey shake (double serving Fage yogurt with 2 T. whey concentrate, sweetener and mineral water 1:1)
17:00 — 8 oz. package of beef jerky (USWellnessMeats.com); 1/4 lb. cheese; 2 hard-boiled eggs
21:00 — supplements: nighttime sleep stack
If I’m still hungry, I’ll have a light snack in the evening. I like low-fat cottage cheese right now with a teaspoon of some super food fruity/greens powder. Sometimes a bag of pork rinds is a nice treat and for franken-food, I like Metabolic Drive chocolate chunk bars as a light meal replacement. Occasionally I eat movie popcorn with butter and here in San Francisco they provide nutritional yeast flakes to sprinkle on top. That’s pretty much it. When I eat out, I like soups. i enjoy fried calamari as a special treat from time-to-time. It pretty much comes down to that. I eat to live, not live to eat. I enjoy my food, but it’s no big thing. I feel good, appear young and stay lean and muscular. I’m never sick, have no health problems and am happy 90% of the time. This works for me.
December 14th, 2009 at 7:43 am
One statement stands out and grabs me—”I enjoy my food,BUT IT IS NO BIG DEAL”.
If I could ever get to that point, the life style change will be complete, the Struggle will be over.
A Cowboy from Texas
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December 14th, 2009 at 4:58 pm
I love this line:
“Some of the most vicious arguments I’ve ever witnessed were nutrition-based. Much like politics or religion, it’s a loaded, fully-charged gun waiting to go off.”
Coach seems unusually reasonable for a health-and-nutrition guy – no extremes. “I drink when I’m thirsty, I eat when I’m hungry”…What could be more natural?
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December 15th, 2009 at 12:45 am
Agreed, Bill! This guy’s diet is…pretty crazy, to me. I don’t think I could live on Pemmican/Beef Jerky, Cheese and protein shakes! However, he’s made the decision internally to live a lifestyle that values feeling good and performing well over what he eats. Obviously it’s a spectacularly healthy lifestyle and has served him really well, but I don’t see how I could do it consistently. We’ll see how I feel after another year, though!
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December 18th, 2009 at 5:57 am
I like this line: “I feel good, appear young and stay lean and muscular. I’m never sick, have no health problems and am happy 90% of the time. This works for me.” Like you, I have been in so many diet regimens for quite a long time. I failed in all these diets. For the past 6 months, I have been on the no-diet approach to losing weight. And because I never feel deprived of the food that I love to eat, I have been able to follow the diet. I have been losing weight since I tried it out. And like you, I am never sick and I feel happy most of the time. This is working for me.
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January 9th, 2010 at 2:01 am
i just wanted to know how much is good count for calorie to be fit.not more fat also.i just wanted to know.please help.
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Muata Reply:
January 9th, 2010 at 10:40 am
A quick and easy way is to multiply your current weight by 10 to get a starting number for how many calories you should eat to lose weight. I hope this helps …
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