Guest post by Jay, Leverage Program member and resident lazy fuck
Let’s be real: you want to have a great body that makes women go crazy, but grocery shopping, healthy eating (which this website here can tell you how to do), and constant cooking sounds like a bitch. It’s actual work, and just thinking about it makes me tired. Actually, I’m gonna take a nap right now instead of finishing this article. I’m so fucking sleepy. Wake me up at 3pm. Goodnight.
But really, it’s very simple. There are two types of lazy people.
1. Smart lazy people who build a good system and sit on auto pilot kicking ass yet putting in no effort
2. Dumb lazy people who put 100% effort in every day and actually have to expend effort to get results
Personally, I’d rather put in 100% effort for 1 day, and 2% effort for all subsequent days. Put a few hours of effort once building the system, then just eat food without having to think about it so you can spend your time doing dope shit. Like what Kanye would do.
Why you should do it?
First of all, so you stop feeling like shit. I don’t know about you, but whenever I eat unhealthy food I start getting bacne and my face gets covered in oil. It’s like poison is being excreted from my body. A small animal would die from eating the oil from my body. I can’t live with that on my conscience! On top of that, I get hella sleepy, my brain gets foggy, and in turn, I lose all desire to do anything. I become a zero value individual.
On top of that, when you’re trying to reach your long-term nutritional goals, you need a plan. You can’t just improvise 3-4 times a day, for months. If you don’t have healthy food ahead of time, and you get hungry, you will eat the bad food, because you know it will satisfy your hunger. It’s like banging a 4 at 4:30am when you’re in a slump. Actually…nevermind. But you need to have the healthy food on hand at all times.
Finally, if you don’t care about feeling like shit or #goals, it’s cheaper. The average meal in any large city is roughly $10. If you need to eat 3-4 times/day, that’s roughly $210-280 you’re wasting in a single week. You could get the same amount of meals for roughly $60-100/week, depending on how many calories you need to eat. And you can do this doing zero cooking.
How the hell do you do it?
Don’t make it harder than it needs to be.
It’s easier to focus on what to eat than what not to.
Plan and cook your meals in advance instead of making decisions on the fly then scrambling to do damage control after you inevitably eat poorly.
First of all, sign up on MyFitnessPal. It has an application companion as well that you can download on your phone.
Personally, I don’t track my food on a daily basis. I spend 10 minutes on a Sunday setting up my meals for Monday-Friday. I eat the same thing on all of these days to keep it simple. I’m currently eating a 4000 calorie clean diet (don’t judge me, I’m bulking), but that’s not the point of this picture. I’m just showing you how you can design a full day’s worth of healthy meals, track all the key nutrition markers, and make sure you’re hitting the exact numbers you need to hit. See here more healthy nutrition tips.
For example, from looking at this diagram, I can see that the only places I’m getting sugar from are sweet potatoes, bananas, and coconut milk. I’m OK with that for right now because it’s coming from natural sources. I’m not getting significant amounts of sugar from anywhere else.
Pick a reputable store like Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods that you go to every week. Spend one day walking through each aisle, looking for different quality whole foods that you can purchase. What I’m looking for primarily when I’m doing this is products that contain only natural ingredients, that require minimal preparation. An example is mashed sweet potatoes whose only ingredient listed on the label is sweet potatoes, and the only preparation is microwaving for a few minutes. Don’t buy anything with ingredients you don’t recognize. Salt, pepper, and olive oil are generally ok.
Frozen rice, cooked chicken breast, canned tuna, beans, and oatmeal, are other good examples. None of them take longer than 3 minutes to microwave, and vegetables and fruits require no preparation at all. You only need to do this the first couple times you go to the store so you can catalog all the good foods in your brain. It’s very easy to design the diet once you know your options.
Buy enough food to last a week.
Always have it in stock.
Refill it before it runs out.
Eat food that you like. If you don’t like the taste of tuna, don’t fucking eat it. It’s very straightforward. You will get burnt out very quickly and screw up. There’s enough healthy food out there that you should be able to eat things that you like, while meeting your goals.
One last thing, eat the same meals Monday-Friday. I like variety in my foods and cannot eat the same food for every meal, so I eat different food at each meal. However, I eat the same 4 meals every day. Basically, I follow that diagram to a T, Monday through Friday. I take advantage of the weekend to eat some different foods, so I don’t get tired of the M-F meals.
One stop at Trader Joe’s- fully cooked brown rice and turkey meatballs and frozen broccoli.
Add turmeric (powerful antioxidant and anti-inflammatory) and cayenne pepper (thermogenic helps burn fat) and a little seasoning for taste.
Throw into Tupperware and you’re DONE.
Reheat in microwave (not ideal) or on stove when ready to eat for each meal.
Drink water.
Eat this 80% of the time.
The other 20 is for whatever you want socially and on dates.
Do this and you won’t be a fat fuck anymore.
The point is, keep it simple. Do everything to keep the process easy because the more effort you have to put in each day, the easier it is to get burnt out and fail. It’s a marathon, not a sprint.
If I can do this easily eating 4000 calories of healthy food/day, then you can definitely do this with 2500 calories or whatever the average amount is. It costs me $100/week for groceries, so you should only have to spend about $60. Every food that I eat has a purpose. If it doesn’t do anything, I don’t eat it or waste money on it. If you’re wondering where my vegetables are, I drink them from smoothies, which makes it easier for me with my diet. If I was eating normal and not trying to gain weight, I would eat them with each meal. To supplement all the nutrients that our bodies need on a daily basis, it’s worth knowing that cellular nutrition is the future. That’s why taking personalized vitamins is essential.
If you can’t spend the 10 minutes a day to microwave your food, I’ve got nothing for you. If you don’t have a microwave, make a fucking sandwich lol. I literally used to bring bread, meat, cheese, and vegetables to work when there was no microwave available. Stop making excuses.
I literally don’t even cook. I just eat. You can do that with this system. No matter what goal you have, this system works. Stop being a dumb lazy fuck and start being a smart one.
End of motivational rant. *drops mic*
PS check out our podcast on the 80/20 Approach to Nutrition for more.
