Back to basics
It doesn’t matter how much you work out, if you eat like crap your body will look like crap. End of story. If you are not eating the right type of foods you will never lose weight and you are kidding yourself if you think you will obtain a toned or chiselled look.
I overhear people on a daily basis justifying eating one thing or another because they went to the gym. Combined with the fact that most of these people are doing half-assed workouts, the 200 calories or so they burned off during their session most certainly does not make up for the high calorie food bombs they later ingest.
The way your body looks is 80 per cent (if not more!) determined by food and 20 per cent by exercise. Whenever some part of my body is not looking right, I immediately know my diet is to blame – it’s not because I haven’t been going hard enough in my workouts. After making a few nutritional tweaks here and there, I am confident I will get back to normal before long. Adding in an extra cardio session or two may help, but only if it’s combined with a clean diet. Of course, I don’t expect to look muscular without regular lifting sessions, but diet is absolutely the most important factor.
Yet so many people are fixated upon getting to the gym, and upholding this ridiculous “I earnt my pizza” mentality. One person I know is fanatical about completing three gym sessions a week, yet all of her post-workout meals are far from ideal: fried fish and chips, creamy pastas, burgers, nachos (you can see my thoughts on nachos here).
Even when someone finally admits that their diet is the problem and modifies it to be “healthy”, it often actually isn’t. But the general population is largely not at fault – the big corporations are.
Our diets have evolved in the past 50 years or so but, sadly, not for the better. People have more diseases and allergies than ever before, not to mention the growing number of overweight bodies on earth. It seems clear that society has rapidly degenerated since processed foods were introduced.
Rather than improving the quality of food, industry developments have focused on improving the speed of food delivery while also maximising profitability. Large companies make money by manufacturing processed foods which have a low production cost yet a long shelf life.
Humans have only been consuming grains and dairy for less than 1 per cent of our existence. It is hardly a surprise that many people’s bodies have not adapted and so many people are gluten and lactose intolerant! The problem isn’t actually the dairy and grains themselves but the way cows are farmed and grains are produced, which strip away most of the real nutrients and add unnecessary sugar and chemicals.
So what constitutes a good diet?
There is nothing complicated about it. All you need to do is eat natural whole foods that come from plants and animals. If a food claims to be healthy, yet comes in a processed, packaged form, it almost definitely is not. Your food should not have an ingredients list. Stay away from “convenient” types of food, and get back to a traditional style of eating.
This includes lean meats, fish, vegetables, fruits, oils and nuts, and grains in moderation. Supplements can be used, but only if the base of your diet is healthy. Drinking protein shakes will provide no benefits if the rest of your diet is made up of burgers and fries.
To lose weight permanently, you don’t need fad diets or appetite suppressants. You need a lifestyle change. Stop looking at salads and lean proteins as “diet” food and remember that what I am eating is just food, and not a mish-mash of artificial colours, flavours and preservatives. Healthy food can taste good, and you eventually come to dislike the taste of processed food. Nevertheless, you don’t have to be perfect all the time – cheat meals are acceptable on occasion.
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Food, food, food…………… I just don’t understand people. Getting fit and healthy is probably the easiest thing in the world. Its a shame people think its hard and make excuese about y they hate the way they look.
The industry promotes so many ‘get fit fast’ products, and people just forget that all you need to do to be fit and healthy is eat whole, natural food. It’s really not hard at all!
I am consuming your blog at such a fast rate right now, and I’m loving it. I’m loving your attitude and your honesty. However reading it you’re making me feel quite guilty about the packet of maltesers I ate today…
Can I please say, however, in the interest of being honest and providing feedback – I don’t think your blog theme fits. I’ve seen it used quite a few times by people I know and it usually accompanies something girly and frilly, like my friend who has this theme and has just put up chandeliers in her house. You don’t come across like that. Hope this isn’t out of line.
xo T.
Thank you. Any feedback is great! To be honest, I kind of randomly picked this theme and was planning on changing it later but I’ve gotten so caught up in the writing process that I haven’t done anything about it yet. Officially on the to-do list.
Thank you for your post. This is exactly what me and my husband were talking about this morning. He has been working out and not losing weight & we realized that our diet is way out of whack. After reading this Mom’s Guide (http://www.1dental.com/moms-guide/) about how kids are suffering because of consuming too much sugar, I started paying more attention to what I give my son to eat (pop tarts, juices, PB&J, etc). Way too much sugar! We are going to start over and figure out how to eat more healthy.
It’s funny to see how much of an impact diet really does have on your body. I always just think of exercise as something that makes me feel healthy and happy, not as a means of controlling my weight. I don’t have kids, but I have done a lot of reading about how to reduce sugar in their diet. As I mentioned in my post above, kids will eat what you give them eventually. All you need to focus on eating is whole, natural foods.
So true, I watch what my friends feed their kids in horror. So many people tell kids ‘ you won’t like it’ without letting them try things. Kids menus everywhere really piss me off. Nuggets, chips, basically if it’s yellow and fried it’s on a kids menu. My little one devours veggies, seaweed, avocado and just about everything else but turns her nose up at nuggets which makes me a little smug and proud but I just give her healthy stuff and never make a big deal about it. I just wish my palate had was the same and my fondness for chocolate wasn’t quite so developed
One of the things that irks me most is seeing what people feed their kids – it’s quite scary! Although I may be speaking prematurely, I will be giving my kids healthy foods from day one. You should be proud of raising such a healthy appetite!
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