It’s alright to have cheat days – in fact, pro MMA fighter Eddie Ng totally encourages it. The 28-year-old Evolve Fight Team member is huge on nutrition and pays close attention to everything that goes into his body, right down to the micronutrients. Hop on to his Instagram (@eddiemagician) and you will see examples of his clean meals as well as the cheat meals he has.
[Read the full feature on Yahoo!: 10 steps to getting a body like MMA hottie Eddie Ng]
“I need the energy for training and also to recover. I try to help my body as much as I can with nutrition; you will see a difference in performance, recovery, health and appearance,” he explained. He has been eating like this for 10 years and it was not difficult, but along the way he realised he was getting a lot of misinformation about food he thought was clean or good and turned out to be bad. For example, eating breakfast cereal with milk and wheat is a terrible ingredient he said!
He added, “Paying attention to my nutrition gives me a huge advantage. I’m always gonna be in shape and always ready to take a fight. The biggest reason why I do it is because of my training. I absolutely love training – it’s not something I have to do because I have to fight or I joined membership and I paid money for it. I just enjoy doing it. I take it seriously and if I eat bad, my body doesn’t feel good or I’ll fall ill. If my performance suffers from eating bad (or making bad food choices), then I would have lost a day of getting better.”
Here are some insights into his personal nutritional guidelines:
1) He eats clean six days a week and has Saturday as his cheat day. On his clean days, he avoids gluten, soy, grains, wheat, dairy white flour, white sugar and processed foods. On his cheat day, he loves to have Krispy Kreme donuts, Ya Kun kaya toast, peanut butter M&Ms, Walkers cheese and onion potato chips, or burgers and fries.
2) He maintains an acid-alkaline balance in the body. “The cells in our body works in a slight alkaline state and will try to maintain the pH balance (a process called homeostasis). Thus, in my everyday eating, I try to eat more alkaline foods so that the body does not have to struggle or waste energy to neutralise the acidity.
If you are not getting any alkaline food, your body has to work extra hard to to balance it out and this energy to digest the acidic foods can be better used for training for example.
To keep an alkaline diet, limit your consumption of meat and take lots of fruits and vegetables. Examples of foods high in alkaline are dark leafy green vegetables, kale, rocket leaves, romaine lettuce, cauliflower and carrots.
3) He usually fasts for 18-20 hours on Sunday (his rest day). Fasting is not for everyone, Eddie cautions, and first-timers should start with a shorter fasting period, before increasing it gradually. Training twice a day – once in the morning and once in the evening – he goes for the morning training on a fasted stomach sometimes.
4) He takes natural supplements like MCT oil, coconut oil, greens powder, (brown rice) protein powder, fish oil pills, cissus, glucosamine, potassium, digestive enzymes, zinc, magnesium, theanine. No multi-vitamin pills.
5) He ditches calories and macronutrients for micronutrients. Once upon a time Eddie used to count calories and track his macros. 200 calories from sugar is not the same as 200 calories of protein; it has a different effect on the body. I tend to look on a finer level, at the micronutrients like vitamins and minerals. For example, yes chicken has a good amount of fat and carbs, and protein of course, but what about the vitamins and minerals in it?
6) He only eats carbs after a workout. Sources of good carbs include sweet potato, quinoa, brown rice, balsamic rice, and wholegrain bread.
Eddie Ng’s sample meal plan
Morning: Shake (high alkalinity and high nutrition density) made up of kale, spinach, flax seed, almond butter, grounded brazil nuts and walnuts, coconut oil, frozen blueberries/raspberries, avocado
Berocca vitamin drink
Morning training
Afternoon: Salad (spinach, carrots, cherry tomatoes, sunflower seeds, olives, mango, olive oil, lemon juice) and two eggs
Afternoon training
Evening: Steamed sweet potato, steamed salmon, steamed broccoli or cauliflower
Between meals: Handful of walnuts, almonds, Brazil nuts, sunflower seeds
Night: Kale or spinach-based salad with nuts and chickpeas
