“41 Superfoods for Power Eating”

Working in a library has some cool perks. For example, you wouldn’t believe the number of interesting books that cross my hands each and every day. To be honest, there’s so many of them which have never even crossed my mind before. It’s like being exposed to different music or cultures without your say. I rather like it.

Anyway, many of the reads I bring home with me are centered around bicycling, training, eating, breadmaking, and stories about “how fat people got thin (or didn’t).” Of course, I never have any time to actually read them. I just skim them for the good stuff since school demands my actual reading attention.

Today, I brought home two books. One is called Fat Girl: A True Story by Judith Moore and the other is Eat Smart Play Hard by Liz Applegate, Ph.D. The first is frighteningly disturbing and the latter is so darn practical! I love it.

So, I’m probably going to break some kind of copyright law by posting the “41 Superfoods for Power Eating” from Applegate’s book here in my blog, but it’s a list that I want to keep around with me for a long, long time. It’s a list I want to work towards eating from on a regular basis. When I’m in the on-season, I’m pretty good about eating and thinking of “food as fuel.” But when the cold sets in and I get a little lax, so does my consumption. Pizza and burgers and fried chicken are really tasty, you know what I mean?

So as 10 lbs. have crept in during this off-season of mine, I’m thinking I should not only be doing drills and working on swimming technique and running form, but I should also be running through the gamet of “ingestion practice.” (Oh, yeah. That is my own phrase for this kind of thing.) I’m figuring that since we train and practice and drill and repeat our skills until it’s autonomous for our bodies, it isn’t insane to think we can do the same for our digestive tract. My stomach just needs some guidance and practice. So guidance and practice with a healthier food plan it’s going to get.

So, here’s “41 Superfoods for Power Eating” (pages 74-90) that I’m going to incorporate into my diet this winter:

1. Almonds
2. Asian Fish Sauce
3. Bagels (whole-grain)
4. Bananas
5. Beans
6. Broccoli
7. Brown Rice
8. Canola Oil
9. Cereal (high fiber & protein)
10. Chocolate (<2>
11. Clams
12. Collard Greens
13. Energy Bars
14. Fig Bars
15. Flaxseed
16. Garlic
17. Ginger
18. Green and Black Tea
19. Kiwifruit
20. Lentils
21. Milk (<2%>
22. Oatmeal (steel-cut)
23. Oranges
24. Oysters
25. Pasta (wheat)
26. Peanut Butter (natural)
27. Pretzels
28. Pumpkin (or any winter squash)
29. Raisins
30. Red Meat (flank or round steak)
31. Salmon (and other fish)
32. Soup (broth-based, low-sodium)
33. Spinach
34. Strawberries (or any berries)
35. Sweet Potatoes
36. Sweet Red Peppers
37. Tofu
38. Trail Mix (”tropical” versions)
39. Turmeric
40. Whole Grain Bread
41. Yogurt

Yum!