I headed to Cal State Fullerton out of high school, baseball scholarship in hand. I found myself living in a dorm room as a young 18 year old with no clue how to be a man. Everything was new, and I was totally unaware how nutrition would impact me, either on the field or in terms of my health. My tuition was paid for, but I still didn’t have much in the way of a bank account. When it came time to have a meal, I made friends with Del. Taco, that is. My go to meal was a… I buy organic food whenever possible. However, it’s not always an easy or straight forward choice to make, particularly for folks with budgetary concerns. Organic foods are undeniably more expensive than their conventional counterparts. When it comes to investing in health, however, I recommend biting the bullet if possible. Conventional foods differ from organics in several ways, including the use of chemical versus natural fertilizers, e.g., compost, to feed soil and plants. Conventional farmers also use synthetic herbicides to manage weeds, while organic farmers use environmentally generated plant-killing compounds. Traditional produce with porous skins or outer portions that are… Fat does not make you fat! I just hung up the phone with my teammate from 2006, Mike Lowell. Mikey was musing about how he buys low fat ground beef for his chili, sometimes even turkey. He can’t help it; he’s simply doing what society told him to do. By the time we hung up the phone, he was amped to add a splash of real mayonnaise made with farm fresh whole eggs to his tuna and replace fake “low fat spreads” with high quality, grass fed butter. But why did Mikey feel like a low fat diet made… A friend recently asked me if I have a sweet tooth. The answer is unequivocally yes! What I’ve found, however, is when we change our lifestyle to remove nearly all the added, refined sugar from our diets, real food begins to taste sweet. We can satisfy our desire for decadence in a manner consistent with our fitness goals. Low carb eating plans are a popular fad, but I am not a fan, particularly for athletes. We are not solely dependent on our bodies for high-level athletic achievement. A sharp, strong mind is instrumental to our ability to compete successfully… Peer into the locker of most professional athletes, and you’ll find a plethora of legal powders and pills promising larger muscles, speedier recovery and increased energy.  Some of these magic elixirs even claim to improve reaction time and memory.  Supplement companies make equally empty suggestions to the general public that may be even more egregious. The supplement industry is estimated at a $30 billion per year. Because of their popularity in athletic circles, I’m asked which of these products I recommend more than any other question. My advice, as you might have come to expect, is to skip the… One of the best catalysts to jump start your 2014 healthy living program is removing soda from your daily eating plan. Whether your goal is to lower body fat, improve vitality or just generally be healthier, replacing the sugary, carbonated artificially flavored beverages with water will drastically increase your chance for success. Everyone knows that soda has a lot of sugar. If you’re drinking three 12-oz cans a day, you’re consuming 116 grams of refined sugar with absolutely no nutritional value. That’s the same amount of sugar found in 7 cups of blueberries. The blueberries would also provide 100%… Major league baseball training rooms are a popular spot for guys looking to get their daily drug fix. The drug of choice? Advil. Over the course of 162 games, plus spring training, plus the post season, an inflamed muscle here and there is impossible to avoid. I have clear recollections of taking 12 Advil a day for weeks at a time. Hundreds of throws, swings of the bat, face first slams into dirt, full speed collisions with the wall – my body hurt so badly that I felt I had no choice. A couple of ibuprofen would take the…