How to eat like a Spartan

Internet is full of new diets and magic tricks to lose weight. In this article we will discuss not another diet but embrace a new nutrition lifestyle that will guarantee you to lose weight and pack on lean muscles. Learn more about eating like a Spartan.

Spartan_food

We know Spartans loved simplicity and held a deep respect for raw materials. The quality of materials used in whatever they did or ate was always more important than visual appearance to others. This is not to say simple things cannot be pretty or tasteful. You need to rewire your brain and enjoy the simple things in life. Nowadays we have a tendency to schmuck things up. For example: a perfectly healthy salad is ruined by drenching mayonaise all over. These days are over when following the Spartan lifestyle....

General guidelines:
-You need to invest in fresh and healthy vegetables and fruits who are grown without using pesticides,...
-Only buy quality meats and fish, buy animals who were not butchered in one of the nowadays industrial slaughter houses.
-Forget things like ketchup, mayonaise and other flavor makers
-You'll enter a whole new world of fresh herbs which will give taste to your food

Starting your new Spartan lifestyle...
Embracing the Spartan lifestyle in our modern day is, how simple it may be, not simple. We are surrounded by beautiful packaging and screaming products we don't need. You can simply walk into a supermarket and buy foods who where not accessible back then or only available to kings. Important, sugar was not known to the ancients so we must try avoid sugary foods (making this lifestyle perfect for people who suffer from diabetes).

So how do we start? 
Let's kick off with our grocery shopping list.  From this moment on your shopping list will contain:

Vegetables: beans, lentils, arugula and roman salad, cucumber, onions, cauliflower, broccoli, carrots, eggs, asparagus, garlic, leeks
Fruits: apples, figs, grapes, plums, olives, pears
Meat: chicken, beef, pork, lamb, game
Fish: White fish, salmon, tuna, sardines
Seafruits: shrimps, crayfish, prawns, squid
Herbs: coriander, dill, mint, oregana, saffran, thyme, salt pepper
Other: Olive oil, vinegar, honey, milk
Beverages: water, (the ancients drank a lot of wine: I'm not suggesting you do this for obvious reasons)
Grains: cereals, flour, sesam seeds

So if you're doing groceries, this list will be your bible. You'll notice a lot of items are not on it. How do you cope with this? For example: I'm an avid coffee lover. This was not accessible to our Spartan ancestors and I on my part do not feel like dropping my habit of enjoying a nice cup of hot coffee. So this is my everyday luxury treat. Adopting this lifestyle has started to appreciate my cup of coffee even more. To me now, coffee feels like the ultimate luxury item. I think this is the ultimate Spartan mentality.

I would also recommend to get yourself one day of normal 21th century eating, for psychological and physical balance. A cheatday once a week, has proven to boost your results. You will also appreciate certain modern tastes even more or start to disdain others altogether. For example: the sugary taste of Coca Cola has become to much for me and I don't enjoy it anymore while I used to drink lots of it in the past.

Ancient_greek_dining


Principles of meals:

Breakfast:
Breakfast would be a light and simple meal, getting you started for the day to come. Typical the ancient spartans would train until the noon when Greece is at it's hottest. A full stomach would not be beneficial for training.

Lunch:
Lunch was considered a midday snack. And they dined on relatively light foods so they would not feel bloated and full of energy an afternoon. You must not forget, even the ancient Spartans, had their own farmhouses and in the afternoon often tasks on their farms needed to be performed. These tasks could range from administrative jobs to labour on the land.

Dinner:
Dinner was the most important meal of the day. The men would join in the Syssitia and provide food for their comrades with whatever the land produced or game that was shot.

This was the first nutritional post about the Spartan nutrition lifestyle. Let me know in the comments when you embrace this new lifestyle how it is working out for you. I am always curious to hear from you. For more and personalized nutritional advice feel free to contact us or fill in the contact form below. Arroo!



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