What’s in My Fridge: Starchless Favourites!
It’s mid-September 2020, and Performance Institute is about to kick off another round of our very successful 8-week D2S (Drop 2 Sizes) program. The focus of the program is to show people how they can experience awesome changes in their body by NOT focusing on the scale. Emphasis is on Eating clean, food timing and training hard (2 days/wk Strength + 2 days/wk metabolic) so that your metabolic rate increases, lean muscle increases and as a result you shed body fat and change your body shape for the better. We love seeing how people look and more importantly “feel” (confident, strong, looking their best, sizes dropped) at the end of the 8wks.
As I mentioned, part of the “secret sauce” in getting people their results is food timing. In this program, we teach people how to time starches and recovery protein around training. Most people quickly get the hang of that part, but then struggle with what meals should look like in lunches or dinners that fall outside of the training window.
A really important habit we get people to think about is what their “favourite” foods are (traditionally made over a base of processed starch) and then “re-create” that meal over lower carb and minimally processed “bases.” Salads of course are a great option, but often times people want something warm and closer to their standard favourites.
This strategy is something that Steve and I still use quite often in our meals. For both of us we try to time our workouts in the am, so often dinner becomes a “starch-less” meal. Of course, in order to be able to successfully and conveniently prepare those meals you need to have on hand alternative “bases” to your typical starches.
(Note, we have two young kids who NEED the carbs/calories for their growing bodies, so they are often having our same dinner along with/over brown rice, lentils, pasta, potatoes, quinoa etc.)
Here are some basic examples of things we always have stocked in our fridge/pantry and some typical meals we might make with them. Because we are more “advanced” on our Nutritional level, I will often mix 2 of the “bases” below in a single meal.
ALTERNATIVE “BASES”
1. Spaghetti Squash
2. Konjac/Shiritaki Noodles
3. Frozen Green Beans
4. Spiralized (or not if I’m too busy!) Zucchini
5. Cabbage/Romaine
MEALS
· The following work well with any of the bases 1-4 (Pad Thai, Traditional Red Meat Sauce Pasta, Pesto, Stir Fry, Curries* also works well over cabbage)
· “Taco-less Tacos”: Put all your typical Taco or burrito fixings over a bed of cabbage or Romaine
Don’t forget to “complete” any of the meals, above we suggest adding a protein source and also consider extra veggies to add colour, additional nutrients and satiating volume.
