If one of your health resolutions is to shape up your eating, please keep reading…
I have a lot of clients who set the goal of eating the perfect sports diet (no sugar, white flour, red meat, processed foods, etc.). These are the same folks who get mad at themselves for “cheating” if they eat a cookie. They consider themselves as “being bad” if they sneak a French fry. Sometimes they let their bodies become ravenously hungry because “there was nothing healthy to eat.”
As you make new-trition resolutions, I suggest you think about enjoying a sports diet that offers the balance of about 90% “quality calories” and 10% “whatever.” That is, some days “whatever” might be an apple, and another day “whatever” might be apple pie with ice cream. Though you may deem pie to be “bad” (note: it is actually tastes quite good), it can still be part of a balanced diet.
You need not eat a perfect diet to have a good diet. And also remember that eating anything is better than letting your body become too hungry by eating nothing when you were confronted with only “bad food.” On that day when you get stuck without any healthful food options, you’d be better off enjoying candy for a mid-afternoon snack than abusing your body by denying it fuel and putting it into muscle breakdown mode. (Yes, living “too hungry” is abusive.Please don’t do that!)
With best wishes for enjoyable meals and balanced food choices.
Nancy
For more information on how to design a sustainable sports diet, please refer to my best-selling Sports Nutrition Guidebook.