Your Personal Diet!

Nutrition is such an elusive topic! There are thousands of diets and even more information about what is good and bad for us!   It becomes nearly impossible to decide what to put in our tummies. I can honestly say it doesn’t have to be this difficult if you are willing to put in a little work. For most of us there are foods that work and foods that don’t. These foods are not the same for everyone but we all have the tools at our convenience to figure out our own personal diet.

Be sure to consult with your physician before making any significant changes to your diet.

You are just three steps away from figuring your personal diet!

• First you simply need to analyse the way you are feeling while eating your current diet: How do you sleep? Do you get irritable easily? Overweight? Feel swollen? Are you often bloated? How is your energy? Heart Burn? Quality of skin? Lots of gas? Recover well from workouts? etc…  Most of these good or bad feelings or qualities are in some way be related to your diet; yet a few may not be related.
• Next you need to eliminate all foods that could be causing these feelings.  There are number of foods in our mainstream american diet that cause reactions in our body that present as an illness, reaction or like the mild symptoms mentioned above.  Eliminating these foods often eliminates these negative affects.  It will take about two weeks completely off of potentially inflammatory or allergenic foods  to truly eliminate the response we may be getting from them.
• Finally you start re-introducing foods one at a time and wait for a couple days to evaluate how our body responds.  If you don’t notice and adverse response to the introduced food you are most likely free and clear to incorporate the food into your diet.  If you notice negative affects you are best advised to eliminate the foods from your diet.

Potentially Inflammatory Foods

• Dairy, eggs, cheese ice-cream
• Wheat other gluten rich grains like barley and spelt,
• Corn, Corn Syrup, Soy, Soy Milk
• Refined white/brown sugar, honey, and maple syrup
•  Tree nut like peanuts and macadamia nuts,
• Non-organic meats with hormones,
• Alcohol, caffeine, Soda, energy drinks
• Conventional potatoes and any lightly skinned veggies treated with pesticides, chemicals and hormones.

Eating to support an active lifestyle!

I think the only thing worse then trying to get a quality workout with low energy is dealing with a gut bomb from a meal eaten to close to your workout.  Eating and training doesn’t always follow typical healthy nutrition protocols.  For instance, low glycemic high fiber foods, typically considered a part of a satisfying healthy diet, doesn’t have much application before a training session.  You are actually better off with easier to digest foods like a a piece or toast with jam or a simple energy bar40-60minutes before a hard workout.  If you didn’t have time to get any solid foods in at all, a simple glucose based sports beverage would probably be the best.  After a workout…

Why timing is important

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