Nutrition plays a big role in anyones health and fitness goals. Its often over looked as people tend to focus more on finding the perfect gym program rather then cleaning up their nutrition. When people come in to train there are some common mistakes I see consistently with peoples nutrition which is affecting their performance both physically, mentally and stopping them from reaching their health and fitness goals.
If your making these 3 mistakes and not seeing results then it’s time to make a change.
1) Eating Carbs for Breakfast
This is a big one. Most people are under the influence that carbs for breakfast is good. False. This is usually the first thing I get people to change. Why?? First of all, you need to earn you carbs. Carbs are good for you, but they are even better when they are consumed at certain times. When you eat carbs for breakfast you raise your insulin, insulin then binds with your cells to store glucose (fuel for workouts) either in the muscle as glycogen (energy for the muscle) or as fat if it isn’t used to be used at another time. A constant build up of carbohydrates and not enough energy expenditure leads to your body constantly building fat. If you can time your carb intake you can essentially flick a switch inside your body, to go from fat storing to fat burning.
You want to become more insulin sensitive if your goal is to lose body fat or build lean muscle mass. Poor insulin sensitivity can have some pretty bad effects such as inhibiting sleep, increase muscle soreness and slowing recovery rate. It also makes it very hard for you to lose significant amounts of body fat or pack on muscle if your insulin sensitivity is poor. A higher protein lower carb based diet will create the most change in insulin sensitivity and body composition, avoid sugary based high glycemic foods.
2) Consuming High calorie, low nutrient dense foods
If you consume high calorie low nutrient dense foods such as chips, chocolate, cakes, bread, cookies etc.. your basically just eating foods that guys in white lab coats made to make foods last longer on shelves because they are convenient, easy and cheap. Your body runs off macronutrients (protein, carbs, fats) & micronutrients. These are all the essential nutrients your body gets throw plant and animal based foods such as vitamin a,b (many of these) c, d, e, k – which are essential for human survival.
The more nutrients you can get into your body the more energy you will have both physically and mentally, it will help you improve your metabolism (allowing your to burn more fat throughout the day) and reduce your risk of diabetes and some cardiovascular diseases.
3) Going on a diet
New year new you right? Wrong. This may work for 2-4 days at first but then you’ll find yourself back to square one. Your setting yourself up to fail before you have even started because lets face it, no one enjoys going on a diet. Rather then saying your going on a diet try implement 1 new habit each week which will eventually lead you to having a consistent healthy lifestyle.
Here are some weekly healthy habits to implement over a 4-6 week period:
– Focus on eating protein in each meal
– Replace one carb meal per day with leafy greens
– Avoid High glycemic foods
– Eat 3-4 Meals per day
– Eat more Good fats (avocado, olive oil, nuts)