What do you want to weigh? Do you have a health condition that a lifestyle change can help? Do you just want more energy? No matter what your fitness goals, your diet is just as important as exercising is. The two go together to help you be your best. There’s a saying, “You can’t out-exercise a bad diet.” It’s normally used when talking about weight loss, but the same is true for any type of wellness issue.
Your diet provides the building blocks for the body.
If you’re choosing your food wisely and in normal health, your body should have all the nutrients it needs to keep going strong. For those who don’t process the food as well, such as seniors, you need to take that into account when you’re creating your menu. If you’re including high processed foods or foods with added sugar, you’re adding calories, but with few or no nutrients. Choosing highly processed foods can also add toxins that affect the body negatively. Processed meats are some of the worst. No matter how much you exercise, it won’t provide the nutrition or detract from the toxic effect of unhealthy food.
Your diet also feeds your microbes.
You have more microbes in your body than you have cells. That’s right! You’re a walking nation of microbes. Some of them are good and some aren’t. Your diet determines how many you’ll have of each kind. Foods with sugar can feed harmful microbes, while those with fiber and healthy nutrients feed the beneficial ones. The beneficial microbes are part of the digestive system and make nutrition available for the body. They also play a role in almost every function, including your mood. Exercise also plays a role in the number of beneficial microbes your body has.
No matter what your fitness goals, it takes a healthy diet to achieve it.
Most people understand how a healthy diet can help them lose weight and even stay healthier, but don’t normally consider that it also plays a role in building muscle tissue. Just like other parts of the body, you need the raw material to build muscle tissue. You need a diet that’s high in protein and other nutrients, plus exercise, to build muscles.
- Consider the calories in food compared to nutrition. If you ate a large order of fries, you’d be eating the same number of calories as you would in 120 asparagus or 240 string beans! However, you’d get far fewer nutrients.
- No matter how healthy you eat, if you’re drinking soft drinks throughout the day or overly glorified coffee, you’re drinking sugar and a lot of calories. What you drink is also part of your diet.
- Don’t be food by artificial sweeteners. Eating healthy means more than just cutting calories. Artificial sweeteners are also unhealthy, and in some cases, worse than sugar. One study showed that diet soft drinks also increased abdominal fat.
- No matter what your fitness or health goal is, both a healthy diet and regular exercise can help you reach it. Also don’t forget about other healthy lifestyle changes, like adequate sleep.
For more information, contact us today at Iron Fit San Antonio