Most men don’t spend much time thinking about food and how it “works” in the body. Typically, men only start to wonder about all the food they eat later in life, when weight gain becomes so much easier and the gym so much less appealing! That said, here, follow some very practical aids to not only inhibit unwelcome weight gain, but also optimise results from your current fitness regime.
1.Don’t starve yourself during the day and then over-eat at night, when you finally catch up with your appetite. Practically, ignoring your body’s reasonable need for sustenance during the day because you’ll “catch up later” establishes a very unhealthy tendency, as you’re making demands on your body without sustaining its vigor and vitality. Studies also suggest that irregular eating leads to weight gain and metabolic imbalances over time.
2.Juice is a form of sugar. Artificial juice is the worst among this fraternity, but even natural, healthy juice should be taken in moderation, as any direct sugar shots prompt the body into more ill-health than almost any other common substance today. Fruit juice is healthy, but can become a sugar fix when taken constantly.
3.Drink water and unsweetened hot drink. Great news! Water is the cheapest and most valuable liquid you can imbibe! Water should still rank number one on your list of health drinks, and tea and coffee should simply remain unsweetened. If plain old water makes you feel like crying, add a squeeze of fresh lemon to make regular water consumption enjoyable and zesty.
4.Carbs and fats are not friend. Although it’s a highly convoluted subject, a few examples paint this picture well. The fibrous carbohydrates found in vegetables are extremely healthy, but those in things like doughnuts, sweets and cakes aren’t. Also, almost any modern fried item - crisps, slap chips and fried flour products - carries what is known as “trans fat,” the bad kind of fat. You don’t have to become a trained dietitian, but broadly evaluating what you eat in terms of its combined fat and carb input is essential.
5.That said, don’t eliminate carbs, but rather prioritise the good ones. Good carbs typically grow from and above the ground, and eaten raw or mildly processed, form the basis of human carbohydrate intake. Carbs shouldn’t be demonised and are essential inputs for a healthy body. It’s when combining carbs with unhealthy fats that their value diminishes, but the carbs in raw foods and fundamentally healthy foodstuffs should form the bulk of what you consume.
Photo by Jonathan Colon
6.Eat your carbs mostly during the day, while avoiding them at night. How does this extrapolate into a busy day? Cereals, bread, rice, pasta and starchy vegetables should ideally be eaten when the sun is up, and in portions you know constitute enough but are not excessive. At night, a chunk of protein with lots of leafy salads or vegetables will serve you far better than a giant bowl of heavy, cheesy lasagna, for example.
7.Spike your protein. Hand in hand with the above point, protein intake needs to be seen as something of an aid to all fitness pursuits. Even if you don’t eat meat, look at your weekly diet and make sure that your protein intake is higher rather than lower than average. Modern science has demonstrated that a lean towards more balanced protein rather than less, optimises fitness and health.
8.Don’t ignore essential micro-nutrients. There are certain fundamental nutrients a human body needs to maintain overall health, quite apart from benefiting an exercise regime or other considerations. Make sure you’re including them in your diet, as far as possible as raw food intake, otherwise as well-formulated supplements. Essential micronutrients you can easily find in raw foods include the omega-3 fatty acids in fish, Vitamin-D also in fish, eggs and mushrooms, as well as magnesium, easily gleaned from spinach, broccoli and bananas.
9.Do the meal frequency math. If you’re human, breakfast, lunch and supper remain important, in that order. A good formula to inculcate in your daily life is 3 + 1. Three meals a day plus a protein snack. This regime is not only the best for your healthy body, it’s also a management technique that cuts out many unhealthy eating habits.
10.Chew, chew,and chew some more. Probably the simplest, most beneficial and yet hardest thing to accomplish is the ability to pace your eating. Putting your utensils down between bites might seem extreme for many, but instead of abandoning consciousness to taste sensations, next time you eat, try to consciously chew your food. It’s the single greatest effort you can make towards developing an honest communication with your body.
And, after working out, sustain that effort with whey
A genuine aid to any active lifestyle is whey protein, nowadays readily available in supplement form. Whether after running or other sport or a visit to the gym, taking a fast-digesting, leucine-rich protein like whey will aid your body. As the human body only really begins the repair process once activity has subsided, you’ll energise and increase your body’s ability to reform stronger muscles by consuming whey.
If your 3 + 1 snack is fruit or an energy bar, you can add a whey supplement drink to that, or allow the whey itself to form the once-a-day snack. Drinking a whey shake with around 30gm of protein in it shortly after exercise helps to make the most of the effort you’ve already put into staying fit and healthy.
Date Published: 16 October 2018
