Being a person who loves endurance sports and racing I understand the importance of nutrition. However, for a long time my nutrition (ie. the way I ate) wasn't always matching what my body needed to most effectively fuel and recover. I would liken it to using the lowest grade fuel on a car with a premium engine that requires premium fuel.
I believe that we are all premium engines, however, the majority of the time we're using fuel that isn't going to provide our premium engines with what it needs to be at its best. People have accepted the fact that energy and youthfulness is something they had in childhood and that those days are done and gone. I feel that the world is waking up to the fact that this 'reality' we've been accepting for a long time is false and that we can achieve greater levels of energy and youthfulness no matter what age.
Where does it start? Well, one place it can start is with nutrition. One of the best pieces of advice I ever heard was a few years ago when I heard someone describing the benefits of eating foods in their most natural state. The idea being that we consume foods that have had little to no processing so, ideally meals are being prepared by you or by others right in front of you. The person went on to outline that eating puts stress on the body; meaning it makes the body work in order to digest the food we are consuming. If we eat foods in their more natural state there is less work the body needs to do because they are already in their more natural forms, as opposed to eating highly processed foods, which are far removed from what they once were and so the body has to work harder in order to digest it into the nutrients it can then absorb and provide to the body.
We have the ability to alter the course of our health by making the choice to fuel our premium bodies with premium foods.
What you can add to your fuel tank:
- Whole, unprocessed foods.
- Variety of colours.
- Try one new recipe a week.
- Small steps. You don't have to reach the goal in one step. Keep it simple.
- The P-word. Plan. In anything, how can you achieve the results you want without a plan?
These are just a few tips. And finally, my favourite one. ADD. Add to your current diet (way of eating), don't subtract. Focus on adding quality foods and you'll notice that when you do they will crowd out the 'lowest grade fuel'.
As Always, Strive To Optimize!