Get you head around basic nutrition.
There is no magic formula to great nutrition, just eat the foods our body is designed to eat in the correct quantities and proportions.
So many published diets make high claims for either weight lose or muscle gain according to your goals. The problem is that they are not sustainable or truly healthy in the long term for the human body.
It is important to remember that the food we eat has a direct effect on our body, and most significantly, an immediate effect on how we perform, be that a general everyday task or within our workout.
How Should We Eat?
We can view our food on a sliding scale of 1-5, with one being the main staple food source and five being food to avoid the most. How well we do this will have a profound effect on our body.
1. Meat and vegetables
2. Nuts and seeds
3. Some fruit
4. A little starch
5. No sugar
These food types should be consumed in the following proportions of your total caloric load to promote optimal health, minimize the risk of chronic disease and reduce excess body fat.
40% Carbohydrate – should be predominantly low-glycemic
30% Protein – should be lean and varied
30% Fat – should be predominantly monounsaturated
This is the way our bodies have genetically evolved to eat.
So What Should We Eat?
The Glycemic Index (GI) is a good place to start. Food is absorbed into the body as one of the three macro-nutriments groups above, carbohydrate, protein or fat.
All are important and vital to a healthy and fit body. Only one is responsible for excess body fat, carbohydrate.
Carbohydrate is glucose and is moved into the bloodstream to supply the body with a readily available source of energy. The problem is that any sudden rise in glucose levels will elevate or spike levels of insulin, a storage hormone, that tells the bodies cells to convert and store the excess glucose as body fat.
The lower the food on the GI the slower the release of insulin and therefore minimizing the storage of excess body fat.
This is only a very brief overview to good nutrition and management of body fat. There are many good sources of information on the Internet, search for “the Zone diet”