By Kyla Cook |News Editor|
Nutrition is the most important part of living a healthy lifestyle.
Putting in the hours at the gym become worthless if you’re immediately going to McDonalds, Jack in the Box, Dairy Queen, or virtually any other fast-food chain. These foods are processed and pumped with preservatives not natural to your body. They also clog your arteries, make you sluggish and have many other unhealthy side effects—if you haven’t seen Super Size Me, I suggest you watch it.
Now I know cutting out the fast food “cold turkey” will be hard. It’s addicting! I still love McDonald’s sausage egg and cheese McMuffins but I really try not to eat them. I definitely feel a difference when I have fast food verses my healthy diet.
You might be wondering, “What do I eat?” To simply put it, you eat clean. You may not have heard that term before, but what it means is eat whole, natural (unprocessed) foods. These types of foods are fruits, veggies, lean protein, and complex carbs. A general rule of thumb is to stay away from white foods (white rice, white bread, white potatoes,etc.) and eat things with color.
The diet I follow is from The Women’s Health Big Book of Exercises. To sum it up in a nutshell, it’s basically meat and veggies. The author, Adam Campbell says to eat high-quality protein (beef, cheese, eggs, poultry) at every meal, eat natural fat (yay!), eat a lot of veggies and avoid added sugars (candy, soda, etc). Although hard for some, you’re also supposed to limit fruit and milk intake. However, I don’t limit my fruit. It’s nature’s candy and the way I view it is if I skip it, I’m more likely to binge on unhealthy sweets.
I drink water every time I eat. I force myself to bite, then sip. Water is extremely important with your diet, it keeps you hydrated for those long workouts and helps digest your food. It also keeps you full!
You get a lot of unwanted calories from what you drink so it’s best to just stick with water. Try drinking only water for a week or two and pretty soon the craving for all those sugary drinks will be gone and you’ll be feeling a lot lighter.
I bet you’re wondering how you even sustain a diet like this. You’re probably thinking, “but I’m hungry all the time!” Well tune in to my next blog to see how I do it.
Great idea about the water! I've been giving it a shot this week and I've found that it also makes me eat slower which gives my body time to realize its not hungry. I've found this approach helps me to eat less! Yay! Can't wait for your next blog about nutrition! (that's my biggest problem) I think its everyones biggest problem, but they don't realize it!
Right on, that is what I am trying to do also. I do feel GREAT. Good article Kyla Cook.