Food is Your Foundation
How you fuel your body is the foundation to your fitness. It is key to how your effective your training is.
Take a look at this graphic of the CrossFit pyramid that outlines what should be in a good fitness program and notice: Nutrition lays the molecular foundation for fitness and health.
If Nutrition is the molecular foundation, what does that mean? It means you can’t out-train a bad diet. You can maximize the effectiveness of your training with a diet of solid nutrition sources or you can diminish the effectiveness of your training with a diet built out of food choices with poor nutrition.
But first… the word ‘Diet’ here does not mean the typical definition of the word:
a selection or a limitation on the amount a person eats for reducing weight:
No pie for me, I’m on a diet.
But rather ‘Diet’ is:
food or feed habitually eaten or provided:
The rabbits were fed a diet of carrots and lettuce.
Habits. If we are to habitually eat from a range of food with good nutritional value, we would have a great nutritional foundation; one that fuels our workouts and allows our training to take maximum effect! But what does that look like? This graphic says so much. We have it posted at the box, have you ever REALLY studied it?
Real food does not have labels. Our meals should be made up of a palm sized protein source, surrounded by veggies with a thumb sized fat-source. Avoid the chemical shit storm of food-like items made in a factory and artificial sweeteners.
Do you need to ‘eat Paleo’ and ‘know your macros’ to have a solid nutritional foundation? Heck no. But either method can be a good way to start thinking about our nutritional habits. Our bodies are all so different that we can’t – and shouldn’t – fuel our bodies exactly the same way. There is no one size fits all. While a Paleo plan or counting macros works for some, it doesn’t work for everyone.
And remember… Abs are made in the kitchen! So much of how you look and feel is based on what you eat!
In closing, here’s a great quote from a Breaking Muscle article entitled: Real Food Fundamentals.
…one last tip a friend shared with me: Whenever anyone suggests some diet habit that sounds weird to him, he asks the person how much they can deadlift. If they don’t know what a deadlift is, he dismisses whatever diet plan they recommend.
In all seriousness, when it comes to designing your own eating and meal planning habits, look at the complete picture of who you are: your occupation, your activity level, goals, age, physical environment, current health, and your family history. As your life changes your eating habits may change too. Just remember to always stop and think about what you put in your mouth. That goes for the food you buy in the grocery store and what you choose to eat at restaurants.
