Pescatarian diet
If you don’t know what a pescatarian diet is you might be surprised about how pescatarian you might be already. The diet is mainly vegetarian but fish and other sea food is added because it is seen to a great source of Omega 3/6. It is largely a plant based diet of whole grains, nuts, legumes, fruit and veg produce and healthy fats. You are still able to eat dairy and eggs. If you think about it your just taking meat out of the equation.
Before I changed my diet I wasn’t eating a whole lot of red meat and only had white meat now and again. This was one of my main reasons for the change. I was eating a pescatarian diet already. Therefore I didn’t have the feeling of missing anything in my diet. In fact I actually became more conscience of what was going into my body.
What did it make me feel like?
I have started to feel good side effects from this sort of diet. I am more conscience of what different foods contain and what I put in my body which makes me healthy. This is great because you have to mix certain food together to make a complete protein. It made me cook different meals. Not just meat and two veg. The fact that I wanted to start putting certain food together so that it provided my body with the right vitamins, minerals and amino acids. Having the knowledge of food that I have now is great for my future with food. I know exactly what my body needs when it’s hungry. I don’t just feed it anything, just because I’m hungry.
Getting the right protein mix
People say vegetarians don’t get enough protein into there diet. The myth that you can only get protein from animals is bad. Protein is a mix of amino acids they come from different sources. Whether they are complete or incomplete they still have to be broken down in the body. In a pescatarian diet you can get your complete proteins from fish. However, there are others way to make a complete protein. Some plant based proteins are nearly complete they are just lacking in one or two essential amino acids.
What I do to make a complete protein out of plant based food
What can be done is, you take two plant based proteins that have the right amino acids profile to make a complete protein. It’s just knowing which ones have to be put together to make the combo. What I do is combine beans and rice for example. Most beans are low in methionine and high in lysine. While rice is low in lysine and high in methionine. When they are mixed it becomes a full protein on par with that of meat. You can also sub lentils or chickpeas for beans and it will have the same effect. This is a great recovery meal just after a workout because its got protein and carbohydrates.
Last word:
As a personal trainer in Windsor and the surrounding areas I find that diet is most important when combining it with exercise. If you have got one right but the other wrong you wont see the results your body is capable off. So make sure that you are educated on what type of foods your body needs and what will taste good together.
