Nutrition is one of the most talked about subjects between people. It seems like everywhere you turn people are doing a crazy diet or giving their own nutrition advice to make sure everyone around them knows (Hey, did you know I’m doing paleo right now?). With all of the fad diets going around out there, I thought it would be best to bring it back to the basics. Sometimes, striping everything down to the tried and true nutrition facts we’ve always know is the best way to start:
- Get enough protein from quality sources. If you are lifting and/or trying to change your body composition it is important to eat enough protein. It fills you up better than carbs, helps with recovery from workouts and helps with changing body composition.
- Eat/drink your VEGGIES! I don’t want to say an amount of servings specifically (as that can verify by person) but you should be including them in as much as possible. Don’t like veggies? Then drink them, but get them in. There are plenty of great tasting veggie powders nowadays. No excuses. The list of how greens/veggies help your health is immense.
- When trying to change your body composition (i.e. gain muscle, lower fat), it has been proven that a lower carbohydrate intake is best overall. Try to cut out the breads and pastas, and when you do eat carbs, keep them in the form of veggies.
- Fats have the highest calorie per gram content out of the 3 main macronutrients. Fats have 9 calories while protein AND carbs each have 4 calories per gram. Do I even have to mention you should limit your fats to try to change body composition and reduce body fat?
- Tip #5 should be #1 but it’s not as “sexy”. DRINK LOTS AND LOTS OF WATER! DRINK MORE THAN YOU THINK YOU SHOULD! That is probably the best thing you can do to start eating healthier. The more water you drink, the less hungry you will be, and the less you will snack on empty calories. Water is also vital for many functions.
Additional Tip: Obviously very important to know what foods are high in carbs, which ones are high in protein and which ones are high in fats. Some for example an egg are high in 2 of the 3. Eggs are lots of protein but also high in fats (although in this case, it’s a good kind of fat). Cheese is another example. Cheese is high in protein yet very high in fat. Grass fed beef is very high in protein but also very high in fat making it a good protein source but also very high calorie food. Lean chicken is high in protein and fairly low in fat making it a good choice for a high protein food with lower calories.