a typical day

In this post I want to outline what a typical day is for me, nutritionally speaking.

I've found that sticking to this way of eating and drinking maximizes my energy and recovery. Recovery both in terms of recovery from Lyme disease and recovery from sports training.

06:00 - Breakfast

My focus here is on fueling up my body for the 38km (24 mile) bike ride in to work and for the day ahead.

I have a green smoothie already prepared in the fridge so I have a large glass of that.




Generally the smoothie (which is enough for 3 portions) consists of:

- Green vegetables such as beans, brocolli, brussell sprouts
- 1/4 cup almonds
- Sprinking of Spirulina
- 1 cup Blueberries
- Fruit such as bananna, pineapple, apple
- a few dates


As well as the smoothie I have one of my home-made blueberry energy bars. These bars are my staple snack food and are great for fueling up for a training ride or for providing energy after a ride.



I blend together the following ingredients:

- 1 cup dates
- 1 cup (frozen) blueberries
- 1/4 cup almonds
- 1 scoop protein powder
- 1/4 cup cacao
- 1/4 cup sunflower seeds

After blending the above ingredients together I make about 6 'balls' out of the mixture, wrap each ball in plastic wrap and store in the freezer. They never completely freeze so you can eat them almost immediately after taking out of the freezer.


07:30 - Snack 1

Immediately after arriving at work I eat another blueberry bar and sip about half a glass of green smoothie.

Between starting work and lunch I generally don't eat anything but will drink about 1.5 litres of water (approx 6 glasses).


11:30 - Lunch

I bring my lunch from home. Generally it consists of green vegetables, some meat (usually chicken), a carbohydrate source (usually brown rice) and legumes (lentils, black beans).


13:00 - Snack 2

Usually around 13:00 I'll have a bananna or an apple.




15:00 - Snack 3

This snack is the same as the early morning snack; a blueberry bar and about half a glass of green smoothie. The aim is to fuel me up for the ride home.

Right throughout the whole day I'm drinking a lot of water.


18:30 - Dinner

My wife's a great cook and dinner is pretty varied and always delicious :-)

There's usually lots of veges or a large salad. Usually we have a meat dish such as salmon or chicken.




20:00 - Snack 4

For my last snack of the day I'll take a glass of green smoothie. If I'm feeling beat up after my cycling I'll sometimes have a few more carbs (such as another blueberry bar or a bananna).




So that's a summary of typical day's eating for me. On a typical day I'll ride my bike almost 80km (50 miles) so I need to take on additional calories compared to a less active person.

My diet is continually evolving as I learn more and experiment. I'm interested in pursuing even more of a plant based diet and perhaps cutting out meat altogether.

What food/drink works best for me...

Over the course of my Lyme disease recovery journey I've found that what I eat and drink has the biggest impact on how I feel. When I eat well I have enough energy, I sleep well and have practically no pain.

When I eat poorly for a few days my energy levels decrease significantly, the quality of my sleep declines and pain, such as nerve pain in my feet, returns.

Because, at least for me, there is a strong correlation between what I eat and how I feel, I'm very motivated to eat well every day.

What I want to do in this post is run through the general guidelines that work the best for me. In my next post I will run through the specifics about what I eat in a typical day.

Note that I'm still learning a lot about nutrition and my diet is continually evolving. I'm tending towards much more of a plant based vegan type diet but currently I'm still having some meat and dairy products.

In general I stick to the following eating guidelines:

I eat (drink) lots of:


- Vegetables
- Berries (personally I eat a lot of blueberry's)
- Legumes (lentils, black beans, etc)
- (Water)... loads of it. I found often when I have food cravings it's really a sign that I'm thirsty and the cravings will go away after a large drink of water.

I eat a fair bit of:



- Lean meat (especially fish and chicken)
- Nuts (especially almonds)
- Brown rice
- Fruit
- Cottage cheese
- (Coffee) - not that I'm advising this mind!
- (Diet coke) - I definitely don't advise this and am in the process of giving up!

I eat (drink) occasionally:



- Cereal
- Bread
- Pasta
- (Wine and other alcoholic drinks)
- (Milk)

I try and avoid:


- White bread
- White rice
- Processed foods
- Chocolate
- Ice cream
- Other foods high in fat and sugar (e.g., donuts, etc)
- (Full Sugar soft drinks)

For me, giving up sugary/fat foods such as chocolate bars was hard. But it was only hard for a few days. After that the cravings wore off and now I don't even want to eat that food anymore.

Going green...

More than anything else food has had the biggest impact on my recovery from Lyme disease.

Minimising sugars and processed foods and maximising vegetables had the biggest positive impact on maximising my energy and minimising my pain. About a year ago, during a 2 week holiday, I took a break from eating clean and ate whatever I wanted. Which back then was a pile of sugar or fat laden yummy food and lots of beer and wine. What really struck me was that after a week or two of this my energy levels dropped right down and the nerve pain in my feet returned.

For me this was enough motivation to get 'back on the food wagon' so to speak, for good.

Since then I've experimented a bit but generally stuck to the basics: oats for breakfast, beans, brocoli, lentils and chicken for lunch, fruit or vegetables for snacks, and usually a delicious meal cooked by my wife for dinner. Although I generally ate fairly clean I wasn't 100% monk like in my dedication. I enjoyed a glass or two of wine and/or whiskey most evenings and sometimes had the occasional pizza, pasta dish, sneaky ice-cream etc.

With this diet I managed to slowly bring my weight down from 103kg to around 95kg at which point it seemed that the scales stuck and I reached a glass floor I couldn't break down through.

That was the case for most of 2012. In early Jan 2013 I made a decision to really eat clean and try and shed some serious weight (I'll talk about that more in another post). Long story short, in the 6 weeks since then I've slimmed down from 95kg (210lbs) to 87kg (192lbs). One aspect of my diet which has a huge effect on my energy and mood levels has been adopting more of a plant based diet. I first got onto this idea after reading 'Finding Ultra' by Rich Roll (photo below) and listening to some of his pod-casts (which I highly recommend)



A week ago I notched it up a level and headed down to the local health food shop and bought up the ingredients I needed for some healthy bars, green smoothies and fruit smoothies. Sunday was my first full day on this regime. That night I slept super soundly and the next morning I woke up with an incredible amount of energy. That whole day I had energy to burn. Normally I get to about 2:00pm and need a diet coke or two to keep me going to home time. But on that day I didn't think once about needing a diet coke. It was brilliant.

I've now been a week on the diet and am still feeling great. One very positive benefit is that I feel a lot more chilled out, a lot more relaxed about things. Last weekend in my mad plant based diet reading frenzy I began reading the book 'Thrive' by plant based diet athlete Brendan Brazier (photo below). One concept he talks about is food stress. He talks about the stress the body has to go through to get the nutrients out of processed food and how having a plant based whole food diet can really minimize this stress.



My results so far have really validated this idea. I also feel way fitter and am getting much more cut.

I'm looking forward to starting some recumbent and tower running races this year and seeing how I do.....

If you have any questions about starting with a plant based diet I'm happy to help out if I can.