The Oatmeal Series – Carrot Cake

Breakfast, whether you regard it as the most important meal of the day, the most boring meal of the day or just a meal. You will end up having something, and I think a lot of people end up finding they go to the same things over and over again. One for me is oats, so to keep things interesting I like to pimp them up.

So I have for you the Oatmeal series, for which the main ingredient will be our beloved oats. If you love oats, you will love this series, if you hate them, you will probably find this series will help you discover a way to eat them that you enjoy. Don’t get me wrong, you definitely don’t have to eat oats, but they are cheap and versatile.

What You’ll Need:

70g Oats, 2 Cups of water, 1/2 Cup of grated carrot, half a banana chopped, tsp vanilla essence, tsp cinnamon, sweetener, 100g Greek Yoghurt, 10g Walnuts.

How To Do It:

1. Add the oats, water and salt to the pan and cook on a high heat, once simmering add the chopped banana and carrot, keep stirring and reduce the heat, mashing the banana against the sides is a good way to incorporate it quickly.
2. Once thickened reduce the heat further and cool till your favoured consistency, then add the vanilla, sweetener and cinnamon.
3. During the cooking process you can prepare your icing, for this add the Greek Yoghurt and Vanilla essence to a bowl and mix up, I prepared it the night before. Simply put your Oaty Carrot Cake into a bowl and dollop on the icing.
4. Sprinkle over the Walnuts and there you have it Carrot Cake with Icing.

What You’re Getting From It:

• 22g Protein, 65g Carbohydrates, 13g Fat (12g Fibre) – 467Kcal
• Banana- great source of potassium.
• Carrot- full of Beta Carotine along with many vitamins and minerals.
• Walnuts- full of Omega 3s keeping you healthy (still take your fish oils!).
• Cinnamon- this has always been a winner for me, great replacement for sugar and calorie free.
• Greek Yoghurt- higher in protein and lower in carbohydrates than other yoghurts and 100% natural, I use Fage 0% that you can get from any typical supermarket.

I love changing up my oats, so do my clients. Because we allow our diets to be flexible, we can swap and change foods all the time, we can eat anything we want and get great results. This is whether they are powerlifters, natural bodybuilders, mens physique competitors or just guys and gals who want to drop fat. Our diets are inclusive, and the only restrictions in place are ones that have to be to get results, calories.

Your ‘Macro’ Budget

What’s your discretionary spend?

IIFYM ‘if it fits your macros’ or if you prefer Flexible Dieting gets a bad name because people wrongly believe it means all you eat is junk, because it fits your macros. However, this is totally false and is frustrating to hear. This weeks newsletter is inspired by Layne Norton, who recently did a podcast looking at clean eating vs. IIFYM which can be found here.

Essentially what IIFYM is founded upon is the fact if micro nutrition needs are met then no matter what foods you eat, so long as the total macronutrients are identical the resulting impact on your physique will be the same (all other things being equal of course). This means you eat your veggies, your healthy fats and fibrous foods but can do this while enjoying things like ice cream and pizza.This is where I would like to introduce the concept of the macro budget, just like a financial budget; you have a currency (your macros) and can spend it on products (food intake). The more you currency you earn the more things you can buy and enjoy.

So for example, you’re a banker who earns a six figure salary, you can afford to go on some lavish holidays, however if you’re a student you can barely afford to go on nights out. Much in the same way as you can earn more money to spend on luxuries, people earn different macronutrient budgets that they can spend on food intake.  For example, a small male office worker who exercises once a week earns a very small budget, and therefore cannot afford to eat an entire pizza to himself. Whereas a large male who is a personal trainer and works out five times a week, earns a much larger macro budget, and therefore can afford to have pizza and ice cream if he wants.Just like the banker who can pay off all his bills, puts food on the table and clothes on his back while still having enough money to go on holiday, the highly active male has a large enough macro spend to get in all his essential micronutrients and eat ice cream. Whereas this is not the case for the non earning student and inactive small male, who cannot afford to spend their earnings frivolously.

If the student or inactive male did decide to buy what they just cannot afford they would see negative consequences. The inactive male would start to gain unwanted fat and the student would go into debt. You see everyone has a budget that they must work within, not everyone can afford to do the same. If the student wanted to go on holiday they would have to get a job on the side and save, just as the inactive male if he wanted to eat pizza, he would have to get more active.

So as you can see, we all have different macro budgets. This is dictated by how much we earn, essentially this is our metabolism. The greater our metabolism the greater our potential discretionary spend, which means more goodies can be enjoyed. The less energy we burn, the lower our metabolism and therefore the less macros we have to spend, meaning fewer goodies.Our earnings can change, if we get more active, lose weight, or build muscle. Again just like if you get a promotion or get fired and earn more or less money, you can earn more or less macros. For example, at the start of my contest prep I was consuming over 3500 calories. I was eating all sorts of goodies. However, now I am down to under 2000 calories, and most days eat mainly vegetables, lean meats, eggs and protein powder, very few goodies. This is because my earnings went down, as my weight fell my metabolism dropped (in very simple terms).

IIFYM or flexible dieting is not about fitting in as much processed rubbish as you can into your diet. It is about ensuring micro and macro nutritional needs are met. It is about being inclusive of foods not exclusive. It teaches us that we are all different and some of us can afford to eat more goodies than others. However, empowers us to know we can change our macro budget. So next time you’re sitting down to eat a big bowl of ice cream covered in chocolate sauce, think ‘does my macro budget allow for this’ and likewise, if you’re struggling to get in enough carbs to maintain your weight, think ‘do I need another bowl of oats or will a poptart make me less bloated and serve my macro goals?’. It isn’t about what’s better or worse, it is about whether or not it suits the individual in question.