Healthy Food Is An Investment, Not An Expense

Guess The Calories In This Meal | Live Lean Life Ep. 047

On today’s vlog episode of Live Lean TV, Jessica and I share why healthy food is an investment, not an expense, and play a game of “Guess The Calories In This Meal”.

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In Live Lean Life Vlog Ep. 047 I share:

How To Make A Quick High Protein Breakfast From Leftovers

Welcome back to another day in the life of Living Lean.

As I was putting my breakfast together in the kitchen I thought, why don’t I show you the healthy food I’m having.

Having a healthy morning routine is how you start your day off right.

The first breakfast ingredients are onion and garlic.

To save on time, I’m using pre-prepared onions and garlic that was already chopped from a previous meal.

That way, all I need to do is add a little bit into the pan.

Straight up, if you want to make your food taste better, add coconut oil or avocado oil to a pan, then add some onion and garlic.

Onion and garlic makes every meal taste great.

Next, I sauté a little bit of kale with the onion and garlic to add some greens, fiber, and micronutrients to the breakfast.

I also had a little bit of arugula left over, so rather than let that spoil, I threw it in the sauté pan since greens are a free food.

Next I added protein in the form of leftover slow cooker pork to the sauté pan.

I’m only adding approximately 2-3 ounces of pork since I’m also adding in another protein source by throwing in 2 whole eggs.

All that’s left is to scramble this bad boy up.

That’s it.

Cooking In Bulk Is Key

A lot of people think it takes too long to cook eggs and add meat and vegetables to an egg scramble in the morning.

It doesn’t have to when the meat is already pre cooked from your previous night’s dinner.

In fact, this healthy high protein breakfast only took me a few minutes to make.

The eggs took approximately 3 minutes to cook and sautéing the vegetables only took 1-2 minutes.

Remember the 5 P’s.

Preparation prevents piss poor performance.

That’s how it’s done.

All that is left is to put the food on a plate, add a little handful of macadamia nuts, then put a little splash of hot sauce on there.

You know I like it hot and spicy.

Benefits Of A High Protein Breakfast

This is another quick and healthy high protein egg scramble breakfast option for you.

Even though this breakfast doesn’t look pretty, it’s going to taste delicious, and give your body the energy it needs throughout the day.

It’s also going to help your body recover from your tough workouts, help you mentally focus, and balance your blood sugar all day so you’re not always craving food.

That’s the key.

The first meal you serve yourself needs to be higher in protein and healthy fats to keep you satiated, balance your blood sugar, and get the brain pumping.

That’s what this breakfast does.

Let’s eat.

After I finished making breakfast, baby Kyla and Jessica made an appearance in the kitchen.

I quickly realized I messed up because I only made breakfast for one, since I thought Jessica already ate.

Chalk it up to miscommunication.

That means I had to divide my breakfast up into two servings.

Even though it’s not going to hit my macros, I’m willing to give that up for my boo.

Sometimes you have to share your macros!

Guess The Calories In This Meal

Now it’s time to play a little game with Jessica and Kyla called, “Guess The Calories In This Meal”.

Let’s see if they can guess how many macros and calories are in this meal?

Recap, the meal is comprised of the following ingredients:

• 2 eggs
• 3 oz pork
• 1 tbsp coconut oil
• small handful macadamia nuts

Jessica is going to write down what she thinks the calories and macros of this meal are.

Since I don’t have any idea what the answer is, I’m going to write down my guess too.

Then we’re going to insert the ingredients and measurements into our meal planner software to figure out what the total calories and macronutrients actually are for the meal.

Jessica’s Calorie And Macronutrient Guess

We don’t eat pork very often, so that ingredient may throw us off.

If it was chicken, we could nail it, but the pork is throwing us off.

For the entire plate Jessica guessed:

• Calories: 565
• Protein: 40g
• Carbohydrates: 0g
• Fat: 45g

She mentioned it was close to zero carbohydrates since we consider onion, garlic, kale, and arugula as free vegetables.

That means we don’t count those calories.

Brad’s Calorie And Macronutrient Guess

For the entire plate Brad guessed:

• Calories: 487
• Protein: 40g
• Carbohydrates: 3g
• Fat: 35g

Even though there’s no countable pure carbohydrate source, you still need to count the carbohydrates in the nuts.

Actual Calories And Macronutrients Based On Our Meal Planner Software

After entering the foods with calories and the serving size into our meal planner software, here are the results:

• Calories: 476
• Protein: 33g
• Carbohydrates: 5g
• Fat: 36g

Looks like we both estimated high on the protein, however my estimates on calories, carbohydrates, and fat were closer than Jessica’s.

The macadamia nuts had more carbohydrates than Jessica thought.

We were both pretty close though.

When Should You Measure Your Food Vs. Eyeballing Your Portion Sizes?

This proves what we’ve been telling you.

When you’re Living Lean, it’s a lifestyle.

Therefore you don’t have to be bang on with your macronutrient and calorie numbers, when you are Living Lean.

However, in the beginning I was using a meal planner software all the time to track everything.

Jessica would also enter the food into the meal planner software before consuming meal, instead guessing it and going by feel.

When you want your results to be exact, your eating should also match that.

If you are at the maintenance stage where you like the results you’re getting, and you’re happy with what you’re seeing, then you can transition into guessing your portion sizes, rather than measuring everything.

As you can see, we were both in the ballpark of being close.

We both were able to get within a margin of error of plus or minus 100 calories.

In other words, we knew the meal wasn’t 1,200 calories or 100 calories.

For consistency of Living Lean, that is close enough, however for transformation, I would try to get even closer.

Now, you may be thinking, if you were 60 calories off per meal by guesstimating, and you have 4 meals a day, that’s 240 calories that could be over or under.

Here’s the answer to that question.

If we started to notice in the mirror that things were going awry, we would then dial it back in again.

However, eyeballing calories can be a hit or miss.

Sometimes you may be 60 calories over, while other times you may be 60 calories under.

In other words, you’re close enough in that ballpark, that it shouldn’t be too much of an issue.

However, for the people who have a strict goal to get to, and you’re still in the beginning of your Live Lean journey, we do recommend you dial it in by measuring your food for the first few weeks to earn your “PhD in nutrition”, then you can transition into smooth sailing like us.

Winner Of The Eat Clean Live Lean Cookbook

It’s time to pick the winner of the Eat Clean Live Lean Cookbook from last week’s Costco grocery haul vlog contest.

To be eligible, I asked you to comment your guess on how much you thought our Costco grocery haul was.

A few of you came very close, but the winner of the Eat Clean Live Lean Cookbook is: YouTube username: VAIO1230

They guessed $336.48, which was about a dollar off the actual cost.

The actual cost of last week’s Costco grocery haul was $337.47.

If your YouTube username is VAIO1230, go to this YouTube video and reply.

We will hook you up with the Eat Clean Live Lean Cookbook.

Why Being Fat Is Costing You Money

I know a lot of you may be thinking that $337.47 is a lot of money for food, or you can’t afford that every week.

Remember, this Costco grocery haul is not just a week’s worth of food.

It’s more like 2-3 weeks worth of food, with a few grocery runs here and there for smaller items throughout the week.

If you’re thinking it’s too expensive and you can’t afford the healthy foods that you see us cooking with, here’s the thing.

From a mindset standpoint, you need to listen to the following if you think healthy food is an expense.

Over the long term, being fat and overweight will cost you more money.

That’s the real issue.

When you are not healthy, you are going to:

• Have more medical bills
• Require more medications
• Take more trips to the physiotherapist, since your joints will be taking a beating

All of that will become a real expensive waste of your money later in life.

Healthy Food Is An Investment, Not An Expense

I consider healthy food as an investment to my body.

I consider spending money on medical bills and medications as an expense and a waste of money.

As I wrote in my book, “Think and Live Lean“, eating healthy food is like putting money into your retirement account.

When you invest your money into healthy food, it’s creating the healthy future you want, so you can play with your kids and grandkids.

Invest In Healthy Food, Not Expensive Things

If you’re still not convinced, I always like to use this comparison.

When you go to the clothing store, do you go looking for the cheapest source of jeans, the cheapest t-shirt, the cheapest pair of underwear?

No, you find good quality clothes that you want to put on your body, because it’s going to make you feel good.

However, when you go to the grocery store, you look for the cheapest food possible.

Now I’m not judging you, because I did that as well when I was growing up.

However, when I changed my mindset, I decided I needed to start investing my hard earned money into things that are going to make me better and healthier, and bring me closer to my goals.

That’s when I decided to start investing in better food.

So yes, our grocery bills are higher, but it’s an investment in our long term health.

I don’t look at it as being an expense, because I’m not spending money on $400 jeans or $300,000 on a car.

I spend my money on what is most important to me, my health.

Let’s Take A Look At Your Bank Statement

This all goes back to the idea of, show me your bank account, and I’ll show you where your priorities are.

If we went through your bank statement, item by item, I guarantee you we could find things in there that you should not be spending your money on, if you can’t afford healthy food.

Just think about that.

If your health is a priority for you, invest in it.

That’s the mindset shift you need to take.

One last point.

You are wearing the food you eat.

Your body is a representation of how well you’re eating and the quality of your food intake.

Forget about expensive clothes, make an expensive body.

Drop the mic.

With that said, it’s time to eat this healthy food.

I’m out.

Bye!