Eating the right foods the right way is an extremely important part of living a healthy lifestyle, especially if you are striving to acheive your fitness goals. The way society is now a days really makes it hard for people to eat the right way because of all the fast food, proccessed foods, and junk beverages there are out there (especially since they usually taste so good!). So with this blog post I'm going to break it down and simplify it for you because it's truly much easier than people make it seem.
How to Shop
One of the most important things when going grocery shopping is to try your best to stay on the outside perimeters of the store. If you do this you will be sticking to meat and poultry, breads and oats, dairy, nuts and seeds, and fruits and produce. These are the natural foods and are the main food groups you should be consuming on a daily basis. Depending on the store occasionally you will have to go in the inside isles, but be sure to stay away from the proccessed foods. These are your snacks and junk foods that are almost always in bags and boxes, if your ancestors couldn't eat it neither should you! When shopping and eating healthy you must realize that you will have to go shopping more often. This is because if it is a natural food or a none proccessed food it most likely has a pretty short shelf life, which is good! All the preservatives that the food companies put in junk food make it last longer but these preservatives can be harmful to the body and it is important to avoid these. So go grocery shopping 1-2 times per week if you need to, its worth it in the long run.
Learn to cook!
It is also very important to learn to cook, if you don't already know how to. This is because most restauraunts don't actually cook food with quality ingredients and learning to cook gives you the opportunity to do so yourself. Start getting creative and make your own creations with different lean meats, poultry, veggies, fruits, and whatever healthy foods you buy at the store. If you have trouble being creative buy a cook book or go online and look up some healthy recipes. It is easier than you think and can actually be enjoyable knowing you can cook great foods. And for all the guys out there, chicks love a man that can cook! That alone is a great reason to learn to cook a great meal, the ladies will be all over you in no time!
Calculate your calories
It is going to help you a lot to calculate what your daily calorie intake should be and then to keep track of what your eating and how many calories your eating so you can make sure your eating enough or if your eating too much. So I highly suggest you download a diet tracker app on your phone or at least keep a journal where you can record your daily diet. First you must determine what your fitness goal is, either gaining muscle or burning fat. The simpliest way to figure out about how many calories you should be taking in, if you are trying to burn fat and lose weight, is to take your bodyweight and multiply it by 12 for men and by 10 for women. If this isn't working and you feel as if your hitting a plateau drop your daily calories by about 200. If you are wanting to put on weight and gain muscle you will take your body weight and multiply it by 16, and if you feel as if your gaining too much fat you will cut the calorie intake by 300. These calculations are set assuming that you are training and staying active on a regular basis, if you sit on your ass all day and don't move much it could be a totally different story. Also you must remember that this is assuming you are getting the right type of calories, such as healthy whole and natural foods. You must realize that 500 calories from a double cheese burger at McDonalds is completely different than getting 500 calories from a chicken salad.
Essential Nutrients: Carbs, Fats, & Protein
Carbs, fats, and protein are the three main nutrients you will want to keep track of and watch what food sources you are getting them from ( yes, there are more nutrients and you should be watching those also but these are the most important). So we will start off with carbs. Carbs are in tons of different foods and there are many different types of carbs and depending on your fitness goals you will be intaking different types and amounts. Usually your carb intake should be anywhere from 35-65% of your diet (but everyone is different). If your goal is losing weight and burning fat you will want to stay on a pretty low carb diet and make sure almost all your carbs are coming from veggies. The main goal is to stick to complex carbs and not starchy carbs. It is ok to get some carbs from nuts, greek yogurt, and other non grain whole foods because they are low in carbs and they are not starchy carbs. You will definitely want to stay away from most grains and starchy carbs (potatoes, yams,etc.) because these are more likely to get stored as body fat, which is the exact opposite of your goal. your carb intake depends on your weight and activity level, if you are lifting weights regularly you will need more but again if your goal is weight loss it should still be fairly low. If your goal is weight and muscle gain you are aloud to consume more carbs and also aloud to have grains and starchy carbs but you'll still want to get a lot of your carbs from veggies. Regardless of your fitness goals you should be watching your carb intake because different days call for different carb amounts. What I mean by this is that when you workout hard and lift heavy weights you deplete yourself of your carbs and will need to put them back into your system, if you have a light workout day or just do metabolic/cardio you will be consuming less carbs, and if you do not have any activity that day you will want consume a low amount to no carbs at all (besides veggies). You also always want to stay away from simple carbs! These are your carbs that come from junk food, bad beverages, adn most other non natural junk foods.
Next is Fats. Good fats are extremely important to consume regardless of your fitness goals. As always if you are looking for weight loss you would consume less than if your goals are muscle and weight gain. Usually your diet will consist of 20-35% of fat (again everyone is different). You should be getting your fat from whole foods such as fish, poultry, lean meats, mixed nuts and seeds, alvocados, vegetable oils, eggs, and depending on the situation some dairy products. A lot of these fats are Omega-3 which is pretty much the best type and is what you will be wanting to consume, if you have trouble consuming any of these foods I highly suggest taking a daily fish oil supplement (I also suggest this if you do consume these foods).
Protein is the one nutrient that usually people either get to much of (usually guys hitting the weights) or not enough of. Protein will be about 10-35% of your diet depending on your activity level and fitness goals. Your protein should be coming from lean meats, fish, poultry, nuts, dairy, eggs, and whey protein. When too much protein is consumed it can be stored as body fat but if you are regularly working out or lifting weights it is extremely important to get enough so you can have full recovery and receive the muscle gains you are looking for. A good way to make sure that your protein wont get stored as body fat is too add a little bit of powder fiber supplement to your protein shakes, this way your body can digest what your muscles don't use easier.
Next is Fats. Good fats are extremely important to consume regardless of your fitness goals. As always if you are looking for weight loss you would consume less than if your goals are muscle and weight gain. Usually your diet will consist of 20-35% of fat (again everyone is different). You should be getting your fat from whole foods such as fish, poultry, lean meats, mixed nuts and seeds, alvocados, vegetable oils, eggs, and depending on the situation some dairy products. A lot of these fats are Omega-3 which is pretty much the best type and is what you will be wanting to consume, if you have trouble consuming any of these foods I highly suggest taking a daily fish oil supplement (I also suggest this if you do consume these foods).
Protein is the one nutrient that usually people either get to much of (usually guys hitting the weights) or not enough of. Protein will be about 10-35% of your diet depending on your activity level and fitness goals. Your protein should be coming from lean meats, fish, poultry, nuts, dairy, eggs, and whey protein. When too much protein is consumed it can be stored as body fat but if you are regularly working out or lifting weights it is extremely important to get enough so you can have full recovery and receive the muscle gains you are looking for. A good way to make sure that your protein wont get stored as body fat is too add a little bit of powder fiber supplement to your protein shakes, this way your body can digest what your muscles don't use easier.
