You Asked For It! Nutrition and Diet (And I Changed My Blog Template - You Like??)

As we near the end of voting, I see a common thread of requests in the form of learning more about nutrition and diet. I am assuming this is MY nutrition and diet plans with perhaps a little sprinkling of general knowledge.

First, let me set the record straight...unlike my friend Cynthia (www.visionquester2.blogspot.com), I do not have a personal training certification. It IS on my list of things to accomplish this year along with an additional certification in 2009 for nutrition however my knowledge comes from three areas:

1. I read A LOT. Anything I can get my hands on related to diet and nutrition - blogs, websites, magazines, books, forums etc.
2. Personal experience. I have competed twice at this point and feel like both of those experiences gave me excellent insight.
3. Friends/family experience. Anyone that I know who trains or workouts or who is passionate about what their fitness goals, I quiz. Lots of questions.

Here is the one thing I have learned overall:
EVERYONE is different. EVERY BODY responds differently HOWEVER there are some universal truths. I have found these from reading the diets of hundreds of competitors over the years. In fact, I have a notebook that has them all! :)

• You must eat as much whole, natural food as possible.
• You must give your body ample protein - especially when training and building.
• Diet is AT LEAST 75% of your success (it took me a very long time to believe this but now I do - without a doubt).
• Fat is not bad if it is healthy fat.
  
• You MUST, MUST, MUST be consistent.

For me, the later has been the most difficult over the last two months. With work being as crazy as it is and my workouts being LESS than consistent, I have allowed that to affect my diet. Most significantly, not eating enough and not eating the good, clean foods I know and love.

Today, I would ask each of you to think about your food and how you view food.

• Do you think of it as FUEL for your body or do you think of it as a pleasure point?
• Do you understand how it digests in your system and how it fuels your workouts or do you just think of it as something you put in your mouth?
• Do you expect that 95% of your meals will be for fuel and only 5% will be for pleasure?

As you think about those things, relate it back to your goals. You MUST make paradigm shifts in your thinking to achieve your fitness goals if you do not view food as fuel and understand its purpose and breakdown in your body.

More on my diet tomorrow.
Jessica