I love food and honestly who doesn’t?

It fuels your body, sustains life and tastes good (most of the time). We live in a country where we’re blessed to have such a variety of options to choose from. There’s anything from super center grocery stores, farmer’s markets, fast food, fine dining and everything in between.

All that said, I try to eat pretty clean most of the time. I live my life on the 80/20 rule. 80% of the time I’m healthy and the other 20% of the time I reward myself with something delicious. This is a great way to make sure I’m putting in the stuff my body needs (fuel), but also not depriving myself, which can have detrimental effects on the psyche.

80% of the time I’m healthy and the other 20% of the time I reward myself with something delicious.

Along with training (which I average 5 days per week), this is a great way to have some balance in your everyday life. That being said, if you’re doing a cut for a competition or trying to get six-pack abs for that beach trip, you would need to be much more strict because ultimately it’s what you’re putting in that’s impacting the aesthetics of your waistline.

So, what does that 80% of the time look like for me?

Obviously, portion control matters, but I’m not going to go that deep at this point. A great tool you can use to find out how many calories you should be taking in daily is a macro calculator, which can be found here from Perfect Keto. This will help you calculate your daily caloric intake from carbs, protein and fats based off your goal and activity level.

That being said here are the foods I eat on the reg:

• Lean meats (eaten in some form or fashion everyday – multiple times): grilled chicken, ground turkey, pork chops (yes, they’re lean) and egg whites
• Fatty meats (once or twice per week only): bacon, any red meat and whole eggs (actually, a yolk per day won’t kill you)
• Green veggies (these are all my favorites – I try to have at least two cups of green veggies per day): spinach, broccoli, brussel sprouts, asparagus and green beans

• Fruit (once or twice per day): berries (the best), but I also eat a lot of pears, apples and bananas
• Starches (carbs – twice per day): cup of rice (white or brown), cous cous, quinoa, a wheat bagel or a couple slices of wheat bread, a medium-sized potato (white or sweet), etc, etc.
• Nuts and seeds (I fail here): Handful of almonds, cashews, etc.

Anything else I take in I would let fall within that 20%.

What does that look like? Really anything I’m ‘jones’n’ for without completely losing my mind. A cookie, a scoop of ice cream (I don’t really like ice cream so that’s a bad example), a handful of chips, some popcorn, a spoonful of cookie butter (if you don’t know what this is stop what you’re doing immediately and go to Trader Joe’s now)

… Take your pick. Again, the key here is not to go crazy. There’s a big difference between a cookie and 5 cookies, obviously.

So, here’s what I leave you with. It’s not necessarily ‘healthy,’ but it is a great supplement to the original – low carb pizza. I’ve tried a number of recipes out there using ingredients as a base like cauliflower and sweet potatoes, but this one is my fav.

Low Carb Pizza Recipe

Here’s what you’ll need:

• Almond flour
• Eggs
• Salt
• Pepper
• Olive oil
• Whatever pizza toppings you’re into

It’s pretty simple to make. Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl, mix 3 cups of almond flour with, 3 whole eggs, a dash of salt and pepper and a tsp of olive oil. Roll the dough out on a pan using a little more olive oil to keep it from sticking. If you have a pizza stone use that (they rock – here’s a pizza stone if you don’t know).

Bake the rolled out crust for about 15 minutes and remove from the oven. Add your toppings. As an example let’s say you wanted a pepperoni pizza, so you would add tomato sauce, your pepperonis and then sprinkle mozzarella cheese on top and put back in the oven for about 12 minutes and voila – low carb pizza.

Enjoy responsibly.