CrossFit Victoria’s latest article, by Head Coach Amelia Thomsett.
It can sometimes seem tough. You want to improve your eating habits but there’s so much information out there telling you to change so much, that it can be overwhelming. There are thousands of different types of eating plans depending on what your fitness goals are and, of course, every body responds differently to different diets.
However, it doesn’t have to be so complicated! Regardless of whether you’re eating to lose weight, eating to gain muscle mass, eating to perform or eating to maintain, there are few simple things that you can do that will ensure you do it healthily and happily. I have put together 5 simple principles to follow that will help you stay happier, healthier and much better prepared to make targeted changes to your diet plan.
Whether you want lose weight or gain muscle you should always aim to have a healthy relationship with food. Food can do so many amazing things for your body and it’s SO important to learn to work with it rather than against it. Help create a positive relationship by focusing on the amount of amazing, delicious, whole and healthy foods that you can eat rather than focusing on thing’s you cannot (or more likely, should not) eat. By simply switching your mindset you will create a happier relationship with food and remove the element of stress at meal times.
It’s an extremely common misconception that if you want to lose weight you must ‘starve’ yourself. This may give you quick results but it is extremely harmful to your body and could in fact lead to you gaining weight further down the track.
No matter what you are aiming to achieve, you should be aiming to eat 4-6 meals a day. The only elements that should change, depending on your goals, are the amount and types of food you eat. Food is not an ‘indulgence,’ it is essential! It provides all the necessary fuel and nutrients for our bodies to function – and they always function best when we eat a balanced diet of high-quality, whole foods.
What you DO need to watch out for is REFINED sugar. Food and drink like lollies, chocolate, cake, soft drinks, fruit juice (especially concentrate), sauces (like tomato sauce and BBQ), baked goods, fast foods like McDonalds and Hungry Jacks all have sugars added to them.
This refined, manufactured, added sugar has been linked to the rise in obesity as well as a plethora of health problems such as tooth decay and type 2 diabetes and it can also have a major effect on your brain and hormones.
Sugar is also highly addictive. Once you get the taste for it you just want more, which makes it very hard to cut it out. Some people actually talk about having a sugar ‘come-down’ or withdrawal symptoms when they ‘get off’ sugar, depending on how much and how often they have foods or drinks with it in.
By simply avoiding things you know to have sugar added to them, you can drastically improve your health and diet. If you find that you are eating a lot of refined sugar the easiest way to do it is to reduce one thing at a time. If you have a 1-2 cans of Coke a day try to reduce it to 1 or none a day and continue that for a week or 2. Then once you are used to that, continue reducing the amount of sugary items in your diet until you are only eating fresh food and loving your non-sugar lifestyle!
It’s important to note here that things like fruit, some vegetables and milk all have sugars in them too. However, these sugars are naturally occurring and actually quite essential for your body. REFINED sugars are what you need to look out for as they hold no benefits for the human body and only exist to cause harm to it.
Protein is the building block for not only our muscles, but our body too.
[Before I continue, I want to make it clear that I will always support someone that maintains a vegetarian or a vegan lifestyle and would never try to push someone to eat meat who does not want to. All I am stressing here is that it is vital for everyone to get the right amount of protein into his or her system. So, I advise that, if you haven’t already, go and see a nutritionist so you can find out what vegetarian and vegan foods have the right essential amino acids (protein) in them to help fuel your muscles and your body.]
Now, let’s talk about why I love protein so much! Everyone knows, that when trying to put on mass, protein is vital. However, if you are trying to lose weight, a diet that includes the right amount of lean protein is extremely effective in helping you shift those kilos!
Not only is it going to help you build more muscle, (as we discussed in the last article – the more muscle you have, the more calories you burn throughout out the day) but, protein also helps you fill fuller for longer, helping to stave off those cravings and enable you to stick to your diet plan.
So what do we mean when we talk about “protein?” What protein actually is is a collection of amino acids. There are 20 types amino acids used by the body. 9 of them are what we call “essential” which means that the body does not produce them so we have to get them from our food or supplements. Each different amino acid plays a role in helping our muscles, skin, hair and bones get stronger, so it’s important to make sure we have a diet that filled with lean protein sources.
To maintain a healthy weight, if you are training 4-5 times a week, I would advise that you aim to have 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight (if you weigh 120 lbs, then you should consume 120 grams of protein per day).
It’s a well-known fact that alcohol is bad for you. Aside from the obvious health risks that increase as your consumption of alcohol does, there’s also a number of reasons why too much alcohol can reverse all the hard work you’ve put in with your diet.
1 gram of alcohol contains 7 calories. On average, a glass of wine contains 100-300 calories depending what type of wine you are drinking. So, by having 2 glasses of wine with dinner, you are pretty much consuming one whole extra meal on top of what you already ate… crazy right?
Your body cannot, and will not, store alcohol as it actually sees it as a poison. So, rather than your body using the energy it has already stored from your food intake to function when you’re on a night out, it is actually just burning of the alcohol in your system. Damn all those drunken nights I was dancing on the dance floor, thinking I was losing weight, when really I was just burning off the alcohol. Mind… Blown!
Also, while your body is busy burning off the alcohol you have consumed, that’s all it is focused on burning through. So, if you are regularly having a alcoholic beverage with a yummy, nutritious meal, your body is not actually absorbing any of those great nutrients. Therefore, they are all just going to waste… literally!
Alcohol is also not your friend if you are trying to gain muscle mass. Consumption of alcohol reduces the amount of testosterone in your system. Which ultimately reduces your body’s ability to recover and grow after a massive training session. In other words, it inhibits the GAINZZZ!
Throughout my time of being a trainer and a coach I have always told my clients to stick to drinking on non-school nights (i.e. Friday or Saturday night) or to only have a drink on the days that you haven’t trained. Don’t go overboard – try to limit your drinks to 1-3 standard drinks, max! You will thank me the next day, I promise!
Ah, water. The magical elixir of life. Is there anything it cannot do? The body is approximately 50-75% water, so you could say that water is pretty essential to staying alive! Staying hydrated should be your number one priority, at all times! Drinking plenty of water is essential for optimal sporting performance. It has been stated that even just being slightly dehydrated can reduce your strength considerably; it can also reduce your cardio output as well. It’s easy to forget just how much more water our body needs after a heavy training session, but it should be something that you are consciously focused on. On average it is said that we should have unto 2 litres of water a day, however it is important to note that for every hour you train, you should increase your daily intake of water by one litre!
Water is not only important when it comes to training, drinking plenty of water can also improve your skin complexion, flush out toxins, boost your immune system and believe it or not it will actually reduce fluid retention. If your body is getting enough water than it doesn’t need to hold on to any extra so that unwanted water weight gets flushed out.
So how can you increase the amount of water that you are drinking? First of all, always make sure you have a water bottle with you and try to fill it 3 times throughout the day. I also make sure that I have 2 glasses of water within the first hour of being awake and try to have at least 1 more glass before bed. If you’re not keen on water that is totally fine, there are a few tricks to get you into drinking the amazing liquid. Try drinking HERBAL tea or add some fresh lemon, limes or even strawberries and other berries to your water to add a little bit a flavour to it to help it become more palatable.
So there you have it! It’s really quite simple when you boil it down to these five things. As with anything – small steps will ensure success! Don’t try to change to many things at once. Keep it simple and manageable, and there is no way you can fail!!
As always, stayed tuned for our next installment.
Thanks for reading guys!
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