BALANCE & VARIETY - Your body craves and desperately needs these to be present in your diet. Any time you find yourself eating the same thing all day or day in and day out, you are not eating optimally.

SUGAR, SALT, DAIRY & REFINED WHEAT - The less you eat, the better you will feel and the healthier your body will be.

PROTEIN IS KEY - Carbs and fat are also important, but your diet should be built around your protein needs.

FRESH, WHOLE FOODS ARE GOOD - PACKAGED, PROCESSED FOODS ARE BAD Whenever possible, even at extra expense and time, we should seek out good foods and avoid the bad.

FAT IS OK - Dietary fats should not be avoided or embraced, they should just be allowed to find their way into your diet. Since most people, including athletes who believe that they are following a 40-30-30 diet eat too much fat (the ones Dr. Bill has done computer dietary analysis were eating as much as 60% of their calories from fat), you probably don’t need to go looking for fat to add to your diet. It is usually a naturally occurring component of proteins. If you need more, raw nuts and vegetable fats such as avocado, olives, olive oil, etc. are best.

CARBOHYDRATES - They can be both good and bad. Since most people tend towards bad carbs instead of good, this might take some work. Sugar and refined wheat based carbs are the enemy.

BUILDING YOUR DIET
Start with protein. You want a minimum of 1/2 gram per pound of body weight each day to maintain your current level of lean muscle mass. If you are trying to add lean muscle mass and doing the necessary resistance training, your protein needs will increase to 3/4 to 1 full gram of protein per pound of body weight. So, if you weigh 150 pounds, 75 grams is your daily minimum and 150 would be a maximum. In order to accomplish this you will need to eat a variety of proteins three times each day and possibly a protein rich snack in between meals. Protein supplements of the Whey and or SOY variety can be added to simplify reaching your daily goal.

Next, add your carbohydrates - The goal is at least 6-9 servings per day of high quality fresh fruits and vegetables (organic whenever possible). Again, you need to eat fruits & vegetables with every meal and as snacks in between. The next group of carbohydrates are whole grains and rices. Oats, various different types of rices and more esoteric grains, along with potatoes, sweet potatoes and yams should be the bulk of your starchy carbohydrates. (Please notice that refined wheat products such as bread and pasta are not included here.)

Lastly, you have your “treats”. These are the goodies that you allow yourself in extreme moderation as a reward for being such a good eater. It might be something truly wicked like a piece of chocolate or a bowl of ice cream or it might be something that may be a staple in your current diet like a big bowl of wheat pasta or a sandwich made with extra sour dough bread. These treats can be consumed once or twice a week or there about.

TOTAL CALORIC INTAKE
This seems painfully obvious, but needs to be stated anyway. The more you exercise, the more calories you will burn and thus the more calories you will need to consume. However, don’t always let your appetite determine your caloric intake. It’s far better to use the scale. Measure your weight at the same time each day and record it in your training diary. Achieving a constant weight is the obvious goal. Sorry, no charts saying if you exercise this many hours a day you need this many calories. Counting calories is a distraction that most of us don’t need in our lives.

WEIGHT LOSS
The only way to lose weight is to burn more calories than you consume. That is easy to say and quite a bit harder to actually live. However, in addition to this axiomatic truth, the type of calories and the time of day that you consume them can contribute to weight loss or weight gain. I have found that the best way to lose weight, especially while training is to eliminate some or all of the starchy carbohydrates from your diet. You may feel hungry all the time for the first 7-14 days, but you will lose fat weight without sacrificing a lot of lean muscle mass. Above all, don’t be a slave to your appetite. Remember, it is your eating habits that determines your appetite. Don’t let your appetite convince you otherwise. There are 3500 calories to burn over what you take in per every pound of body weight that you plan on losing.

MISCELLANEOUS
Ideally, it is better to consume the majority of your calories in the AM and midday/early afternoon hours. You should try to avoid eating after 7 PM. You should never skip breakfast because it gets your metabolism fired up for the day. So, it really is the most important meal of the day.

Likewise, eating your last meal by or before 7 PM and doing some light exercise afterwards, even a 20 minute walk, will give your body time to metabolize those calories before going into a restive state when excess calories are more likely to be stored as fat.

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 23rd, 2005 at 5:42 pm and is filed under Nutrition . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.