What to Eat?

That's fairly simple. Eat whatever you like...as long as it does NOT contain:

• saturated fat
• hydrogenated fat
• partially-hydrogenated fat
• processed sugar
• chemical preservatives
• dye

How do I know what's in the food I eat?

Simple! READ LABELS! Everything you buy at the store has a label telling you the ingredients and nutritional information. Read that label. You'll know if it's something you should eat.

For many people, that short list above is going to restrict most of their standard diet. That is precisely why you are here in the this Web site - to stop doing what you "normally" do with your body.
NOTE: There are 2 basic types of fat - saturated and unsaturated. Unsaturated fat is necessary for the body to transport nutrients through your body. Unsaturated fats do NOT make you fat.

Food is good for you. Eating a lot of it is not bad. Eating a lot of the "wrong" foods is bad and that's what creates the fat. Let's be clear, as have we been throughout this site. FAT...makes you fat. Over-eating is not the problem with the general population. People are fat because they do NOT eat enough food! As you no doubt have seen on this page (and throughout this Web site), you are not eating correctly. As far as what to eat, stop eating the processed sugar, saturated fat and hydrogenated fat. Those 3 'culprits' are the cause of much of your fat. Processed sugar provides immediate energy because it 'tricks' the body into thinking that there has been something of value ingested for fuel. Only after the processed sugar is used by the body does your body realize that there was nothing more in that processed sugar than if you were putting paper on a fire - immediate results, but it burns fast and doesn't provide any heat (fuel).

Saturated fat is fat that is solid at room temperature. If it's in liquid form when you eat it, don't be fooled. When it settles into your system it turns back into a solid form. You don't get rid of saturated fat easily. Unless you eat a lot of grains, fiber and roughage, that fat goes into your blood stream reduces the blood flow to your body. Along with that horror the fat collects in your body and creates...fat.

Hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated fat is also - FAT. It's a legal way for companies to label their product showing reduced saturated fat content. Hydrogenated fat is fat that has been 'air whipped' - like beating egg whites into a fluffy foam. The fat has NOT been removed - only transformed. Once you eat that food the hydrogenated fat returns to the original form. You may 'think' you are eating less saturated fat, but it's a lie.

Complex Carbohydrates are good for you! A few years ago there was a wide-spread "lie" that carbohyrates were bad for you because they make you fat. Good complex carbohydrates are the foods that your body uses like large logs on a fire. They provide long-lasting energy. Complex carbohyrates are GREAT for you to eat!

These diets about which you read in books, or foods that are 'reportedly' bad for you as reported on T.V. are only an attempt to get you to purchase something else that the proponents of those marketing the information want you to buy. The general public is 'duped' into buying - without regard to the health risks of the buyer. The only way you will know how and what to eat is to study nutrition and how the body works with regard to fueling the body and how the body responds to various foods. Knowing that most people will not be doing any of that studying any time soon, marketers promote whatever they want you to buy. You can either study nutrition, or, you can reap the benefits of Garrison Body providing you with what you need to know to get the results you want and be healthy in the process.

When to Eat?

This is another easy question - ANYTIME! The only time you have to consider when you are eating is just before sleeping. You don't want to eat something that has saturated fat just before laying down. Make sure your last meal before sleeping has little or no saturated fat. Beyond that, eat when you are hungry, but make sure to eat at least 3 times daily. If you work out at a gym or play sports you should eat just before you workout or play the sport (about 2 hours before), and replenish what you have burned by eating just after your workout. If you want to eat some chips and salsa as a late night snack, go ahead! Just make sure that your foods have no saturated fat or anything in the list above. Your body really doesn't care "when" you eat, as long as you eat enough food throughout the day.

How Much to Eat?

This is a very controversial question and we are going to give you the facts first, then follow up with explanations.

If you are a living, breathing human (notice we are not depicting any age, weight, sex or any other variables), you NEED a minimum of 2,000 calories daily.

Your brain needs at least 1,000 calories daily to function well! If you think the remainder of your body can exist on the other 1,000 calories daily then you aren't eating enough for your brain to function properly!

Do all of this for me! This information can be overwhelming. If you would rather, allow Garrison Body to put together the information "for" you.

The fastest method to prove to yourself 'why' you would need that much food daily is for you to quickly review the number of calories you burn daily - "Calorie Calculator". You must remember that your body burns calories 24 hours a day 365 days a year. Regardless of your activity you burn calories. If you do not eat 'enough' calories daily, your body will take the food you eat daily and turn it into fat. Why? Because your body knows you are not feeding it enough and it stores the food to survive - you are forcing your body to protect itself and the only way it knows how to protect and survive is to store. Your body creates fat in order to store food. But, there is no nutritional value in the fat. When you learn how, you will train your body to burn that fat and retain the valuable nutrients.

The amount of food your specific body needs depends directly on what you do daily. Are you very active? Then you need a lot "more" than the minimum daily requiremnts. If you are very sedentary in your lifestyle, guess what? You still need that 2,000 calories. This will be very clear to you if you use the "Calorie Calculator" to see how many calories you eat in a day and how much you need daily based upon what you enter as your daily activities. If the number of calories you burn is more than the number of calories you eat, this is a "deficit". Pay close attention to your results. If you have more than a 700 calorie deficit (-700 in your results), your body will store food. The older you are the harder it is for your body to 'stop' storing. That simply means the older you get the harder it becomes to use the fat - get rid of the fat.

If you elect to have surgery in an attempt to rid yourself of that fat, it will return. Why? Because you didn't teach yourself anything by having surgery. So you will continue to eat as you did in the manner that got you fat in the first place. If you are going to get rid of the fat it's going to take a lot of work. It's easy to gain the fat. It's very, very difficult to get rid of the fat. Working off that fat the "right way" means learning how to eat correctly, how much to eat, and how to exercise in order to use the fat you have for energy and eliminate the fat. If you don't use this procedure to remove the fat, your body will simply continue to do what it has always done - store food and make you fat...er.

Knowing How Much?

This is very simple. Above we showed you how to find out how much you how many calories you need, how to calculate the activities daily to understand if you are eating too little, and now you need to know how to figure out how much you are eating. Nearly everything you purchase at the grocery store has a chart that tells you how many servings, the serving size, the saturated fat content, protein content and the ingredients. All 'you' need to do is measure the serving size when you serve yourself. You won't need to do that for very long before you have a very good handle on the serving size for most anything you eat. It will be difficult, at first, when you go to a restaurant. So be careful when you are not eating at home where you can measure, and know what you are eating.

When you have measured your serving, keep a pen and paper handy until you are well-versed at knowing how many calories you are eating. At the end of the day, add up all of the calories from all of your servings. Keep that number handy and, when you have time, return here to calculate your calories using our "Calorie Calculator". There will be no doubt about whether you are over, under, or just right with the amount of food you eat daily. We suggest you practice this method of "checks and balance" for at least a month to ensure you are able to calculate on your own.

Write Me a Plan!

If you would like us to write your information for you so that you can simply "follow a plan" (easy to read instructions), we'd be happy to calculate your daily requirements and suggest some meals for you. Please be advised that we are only providing suggestions about the kinds of foods to eat. You will have to consult with your physician if you have food allergies or health issues that require specific foods. We are simply providing the number of calories you need daily with suggestions as to the types of food for each meal.