Hello, everyone! In my last article I introduced some ideas about nutrition and talked about how and why people let their diet stop or even reverse their progress. This week I am going to give you a few guidelines on how to start improving your diet. Without further procrastination, here we go:
1. Prepare!
The absolute number one key to good nutrition is preparation. You know that eating grilled chicken with roasted vegetables is a better choice then stopping by the McDonald’s drive-thru, but you don’t have that choice if you haven’t prepared for the fact that little Johnny has soccer practice and you’re not going to have time to make dinner tonight. Look at your schedule honestly and take the time to prepare for those instances where you know that making good choices will be difficult. Make a little extra while preparing dinner and have it for lunch tomorrow or just put the extra in the refrigerator and save it for that night that you just don’t feel like cooking, for example.
If you take the time to think and prepare in advance, good nutrition and great results will be much easier than you thought.
2. Have lean protein at every meal. Protein is the building block of muscle. Without adequate protein, recovery from exercise or even normal activities takes longer and is not nearly as effective. This leads to less effective workouts, which can dramatically slow down or even stop your progress. This can end up leading to slower muscle gain, which means a slower metabolism. That’s not a part of any one’s goals.
Protein has also been shown to increase the feeling of satiety in people, which helps control caloric intake. Plan your diet around protein and good things will happen.
3. Eat your fruits and vegetables.
I simply don’t have the room or time to expound on why vegetables are good for you. If you don’t know that by now, there’s not much I can do. Eat as many vegetables as you want. Carry a bag of baby carrots around with you so you don’t feel tempted to pick up a bag of chips if you get hungry. This gets back to preparation. Have fruit or vegetables with every meal.
Fruits and vegetables are very high in vitamins, minerals, and one thing that we really don’t get enough of: fiber.
Also, for those of you worried about the sugar in fruit, keep in mind that fruit sugar is not processed. The body doesn’t treat it like the sugar in those chocolate chip cookies. And when was the last time you heard about someone getting fat by eating too many apples.
Next week, Part 3.
-from the Castro Valley Forum, March 3, 2010
Mitch Rothbardt MitchRothbardtTraining@yahoo.com 510-754-7113 Discover Your Strength!
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