By Pete Ryan
Part 1 Nutrition
(This is part 1 of a 3 part series
about achieving optimal health find parts 2 and 3 at the bottom of this
article)
There are three aspects to gaining and maintaining health
and fitness. These pillars can be adjusted if you are an athlete, so you can be
a competitive athlete, a powerlifter, a bodybuilder and the three pillars still
exist, it is just that you have to tweak those components to fit those goals.
For now though we will focus on the idea of achieving
maximum health and fitness. The first
thing we have to accept is that you cannot maximise both health and
fitness.
Health and fitness are like a
bell curve, at first both will increase, but beyond a certain level one or the
other will suffer. So, you can achieve
the greatest health, but fitness will be somewhat lower than the ultimate you
could achieve, conversely, if you aim at the apex of fitness, then health will
not be optimal. This is just the way of things, so what you are after is
achieving the best balance you can between health and fitness.
With that said here are what I consider to be the three
pillars of health an fitness:
- Nutrition
- Exercise
- Recovery
I believe you need to balance these three things if you wish
to achieve your goals. You may have
other factors, but those are almost always included within these three. For example, say you suffer from huge mental
stress, due to work, relationships or similar.
The effects are managed within the “Recovery” aspect of your program
(potentially also the “Exercise” can help with stress reduction, even though
exercise itself is a stressor). There may be some uncommon factors that are
outside of these three pillars, but that will be unusual. For now we will focus on the the first of these...
Nutrition
This can be the most confusing of the three pillars as nutrition is
really in its infancy compared the other two.
Should you eat low carb, dirty bulk, IIFYM (if it fits your macros), IF
(intermittent fast), carb back load, raw food, Atkins? If you look at the
literature, you can avoid the confusion by find what virtually everyone
says. The answer shared by 99% of every
dietary expert you ask is “most people do not eat enough fruit and
vegetables.”. It makes sense to eat as much fruit as vegetables as you can. I
am talking about whole fruits and vegetables, not juices, or extracts or
refined products. I personally suggest that most people can succeed with 80%
whole foods and 20% other stuff (moving to 90:10 if you have a special occasion
you need to get into unbelievable shape for). This will allow for some foods
like a slice of pizza or a beer if you want one and still stay on track.
Learn to cook! You do not need to become a chef, but learn a
few meals that are wholefood and fairly quick and easy to prepare. These will
become your go to feeds when you are tempted by takeaway or junk. Experiment
with seasoning. Herbs and spices are not
only tasty, but they actually add huge health benefits to your food, so just go
and buy a different herb or spice now and again and find several that you like.
Let’s suppose you cannot cook right now, here is what you
need to do. Find a recipe you like the
sound of (there are several in the book “Introduction to vegan fitness and
health” https://payhip.com/veganbodybuilding
). Pick an evening when you have nothing on, buy the ingredients and cook. If it turns out well write down the recipe
and method used, your next free evening try another recipe…and so on until you
have 10-12 recipes you like. Once you have those you are set. Continue to try out new recipes once every
month or so and add to your list. It is really that simple. Over the years (or even with the changing
seasons) things will change. In summer you may like more salads, in winter
hearty soups may be more tempting? It doesn’t matter. If you are eating mainly
a wide variety of whole foods you will be ok.
There are a few cravats to this guide. If you are gaining unwanted weigh then you
will need to cut down. The simplest
method is to increase your green leafy vegetable intake and shrink the serving
size of the more calorie dense foods, so the volume remains the same.
Conversely, if you are losing weight, you may need to increase the more calorie
dense foods and eat less of the bulkier low calorie food.
Your diet over the years will be a slow, constant
transition, mutating as your goals change and your body changes, so keep that
in mind. There is not one perfect diet
that you can start eating at 16 and continue to eat until you are 80 years old. Your body changes and your diet has to
reflect those changes. There is never a need to rush changes, the best way is
to slowly transition, monitor every change and see if it has a negative or
positive effect on you. Never be afraid
to revaluate your diet and try something new.
There are other aspects of diet (like supplementation, special concerns for vegans and a few others, the book mentioned above covers those in detail), but for most people the nutrients to worry about are getting adequate vitamin B12, vitamin D and enough essential fatty acids.
If you want more details about diet and how to implement
changes, recipes or similar, then let me know in the comments below.
Part 2 - Exercise
can be found here
Part 3 – Recovery
can be found here
