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Nutrition is widely the most ignored, yet arguably most important aspect of fitness
- You need protein in every meal and snack in order to maintain (or increase) your ideal lean body mass. Your lean body mass is your muscle and without it you will lack strength, tone, energy, and capacity. You will look bad even if you are thin and you will be prone to injury. Maintaining your ideal lean body mass is especially important for those wishing to burn lots of body fat and “lose weight.” We say “ideal” because you should eat the appropriate amounts of protein for how much you want to weigh. Either way, you need protein throughout the day.
- Try to eat most of your carbs through fruits and vegetables. Here is a rule of thumb: if you’re eating grains/breads/etc the amount should equal in volume the amount of protein you have on your plate. If you are eating fruits and vegetables, the volume should double that of your protein.
- You need fat to burn fat: that’s the healthy kind of fat - like fish oil and peanut butter. This is also in VERY low amounts. Excess dietary fat does lead to fat storage on your body, but you can’t and shouldn’t eliminate it from your body altogether. Your body needs dietary fat to not only function properly, but also to burn off the fat on your body.
- The number one concern for the human race for a very long time (and still even for much of the world today) is starvation. Your body will go into starvation mode quickly and start hoarding fat if you don’t feed it appropriately. Moderate amounts of protein at each meal and snack, combined with the carb amount mentioned before, with a very small amount of added “healthy” fats will help keep your body convinced that it is getting what it needs and its ok to get rid of the fat on your body as its not starving. However, it doesn’t take much to upset this balance and if you go too long (approx 4 hours or more) or eat the wrong things (ex: just a bagel), your body will want to store fat - even when you’re working out. You’ll notice weight dropping and you getting thinner if you’re working out and not eating quite right, but what you don’t realize is that your muscle is wasting away with that body mass; making it much harder to continue to lose weight and also making it more difficult to get “toned” as your muscles aren’t really there to be revealed.
- We also very highly recommend the book: “Mastering the Zone.” I bought my copy off Amazon for like $2 used. It looks thick, but it's a short read and most of the mass if from sample recipes and weekly layouts of meals. Nutrition is estimated to be 70% of your results, it’s beyond worth it to read a book. I know, we’re all busy. Make the time and read it, it’ll help you more than you know.
These are just the basics that are widely ignored. For a much more in depth understanding, the below e-book is a very good start:
Burn the Fat Feed the Muscle by Tom Venuto
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