Pillar IV : Food
The most common phrase ever - “Abs are made in the kitchen, not in the gym”
Yes it is the biggest true statements out there. No matter how intense we workout, do cardio, strength train, perform various core exercises but we will never reach where we want to be without investing our mind & time in eating healthy food and doing so consciously.
Eating healthy is expensive, until we need healthcare!
Why food matters if I can exercise a lot ?
The reason why most of the people get into fitness in the first place! They want to eat whatever, whenever & how much they desire. Nothing can be more far away from the truth. If you put bad fuel in the best sports car ever, it will never give you the same performance of a good one & will eventually choke the engine too !
Food is the cornerstone when it comes to being fit & healthy in your life. Exercise alone can never help you attain the goals & fitness level you always crave without fuelling your body the right way. A good fuel will helps to regulate your body harmones, provide you with essential micros & macros that will in turn helps you to get :
- sufficient protein for building muscles mass.
- enough glycogen reserves for running/cycling/swimming in a long distance event.
- keep your digestive system (the engine of your car) in top-notch condition.
- even to provide your body essential disease fighting nutrients.
- keep your mind in the most alert & a happy state.
- & many many more
Eating your food consciously!
Conscious eating is knowing what you put in your body & its respective consequence. Turning your mind off & eating junk food just because it gives you few minutes of pleasure is not an ideal way of living life forever. Yes having cheat days or enjoying your favourite food once in a while is actually a good thing but doing it everyday is not !
How to eat consciously ?
Healthy & conscious eating is more about choosing what’s right for you & also by loving the healthy alternatives more.
- At the end of the day, rather than craving a deep fried spring rolls, start to crave a healthy one instead.
- You would only be successful in your conscious food choices if you make the healthy alternatives more tastier in the first place so your cravings are automatically switched to that instead.
- Food is how we enjoy the life so making it boring, doing fad diets or thinking in terms that healthy food is not tasty can only put you back. Remember, you are not doing it for short term but the long one (in years/decades), so what actually works is a good diet which you can enjoy everyday & be excited for it at the same time :)
- Rather than making mac & cheese with lot of butter/cream, substitute it with olive-oil/milk.
- Make butter chicken chicken healthier & tastier by substituting butter/cream with cashews & nuts.
- Rather than drinking chocolate shakes, have healthy sugar free alternatives.
- Make healthy mayo by using cottage cheese & cashews.
- Using air-fryer/oven to make most dishes with less oil.
- These are few examples of how you can make daily food even more healthier & delicious. It’s all about being conscious !
- Stop worrying about losing fat, yes it doesn’t look good and yes it is the first thing when we think of being healthy, but doing diets is not a good solution either. Yes you will lose a lot of weight in the start but that is not sustainable in the long run + you will also loose the most important thing - your muscles which are on its own the biggest fat burner !
- Think about the long term game rather than the short one, fat will eventually go in few months or an year or so, but the quality of life & the long term benefits you reap of having a good, healthy and delicious diet will be so much more. It will help you in all forms of life & training as well.
The best diet is the one who can sustain for years & enjoy at the same time.
What to eat in the first place ?
A good rule is to know every single micro/macro in your food that you are consuming but neither is it ideal nor sustainable (unless you are an athlete). Instead focus your mind on rough idea of what this ingredient is made up of.
- Whole food above everything else, the closest is it to it’s natural form, the better it is like wheat, rice, fruits, vegetable, meat, dairy etc.
- Try to avoid as much processed food as possible, it contains a lot of different ingredients some of which are chemicals to preserve their life or enhance the taste only.
- Always read the nutrition label to know what you are actually putting in your body. Potato chips looks like a normal sliced potato but when you look at the back of the pack you realise it contains lots of unhealthy fat.
- Reiterating on the same point, making reading your habit, nutrition label, ingredients & what not. Don’t trust the front, always look at the back!
- Know the difference between good fats & bad ones. Healthy fats are very essential for your body and are generally obtained from nuts, fish, avocado etc. Read more, learn more, get to know the various types of good & bad fats.
- Make protein your biggest friend ever. It the single most important thing required by your body not just to build muscles but efficiently do many other essential body functions. Have at-least 1.5 - 2 times protein per gram of your body weight. If you are 70kg then have around 100-140g protein everyday no matter the source (of-course prefer natural over supplements)
- Well, needless to say the hydration ! Drink enough water & what I would suggest is to have electrolytes once a day as well which will helps to retain the water more efficiently by the body & also provides some essentials salts/minerals at the same time.
Hyperlinks
Saksham Khurana
Saksham Khurana
Saksham Khurana
