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Fitness Nutrition - Fitness From The Inside Out

What is fitness nutrition? When you think of fitness, you may immediately visualize the powerfully-muscled man sweating as he runs a marathon, towel around his neck and bottled water in hand. This is an extreme view of fitness, and only partially accurate.

You don't have to run marathons to be fit, nor do you need Schwarzeneggerian muscles. You do need to understand how to fuel your body properly, how to recognize signs of ill-health, and how to create your life in such a way that fitness is an integral part of work and play.

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Being fit does not necessarily mean being healthy. If fitness only meant good health we would not see so many young athletes (marathon runners, soccer players) dropping dead right on the playing field. Start developing a fitness nutrition diet by eating properly. Your food is your fuel. If you put apples and raw carrots in, you're supplying specific essential nutrients. If you put cupcakes and black coffee in, not so much. The FDA recently came out with a new food pyramid. At the bottom are healthy starches, then fruits and vegetables (treated separately), then milk and protein, and at the tiny peak fats. Using these guidelines properly, and especially learning what a correct serving size actually is (3 oz. protein is NOT a restaurant steak), will establish a healthy diet for you.

A healthy diet means more energy. Your food should be your medicine, your medicine should be your food. The ages old wisdom still applies today to fitness nutrition: One once of prevention is worth more than 2 pounds of medication. Sugars and caffeine give you short bursts of energy, followed by fairly long periods of lacking energy. This is not the way to eat if you want to be more physically active. Notice above that starches are at the bottom? These are the foundation; good starches like whole wheat breads and brown rice give you immediate energy, but also provide slow-release energy as they digest, maintaining a regular level of sugar in your bloodstream. There's a reason marathon runners often have spaghetti with plain marinara before a run.

It's relatively easy to fit a healthy diet into your lifestyle just by planning ahead. Even if you have a busy work schedule and often work through lunch, you can keep granola bars and bag lunches around so you can eat while you're at your desk. (It's wiser to take those breaks throughout the day, but that's a different issue.) It's much harder to fit an active lifestyle in if your work and personal habits don't already revolve around physical activity.

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Start by figuring out how much time a day you need to get moving. For most, about an hour of low-impact activity that raises the heart rate is enough. That's a lot of time, but you can get it in by micro exercising: parking at the backs of parking lots, walking or running up the stairs instead of taking the elevator, even doing exercises at your desk during the day.

Remember those breaks? You will find you are more productive if you take them. This is even more true if you use your breaks to get active. Physical activity boosts your brain activity, and taking periodic breaks will allow your brain to get its creative work done in the background.

Your brain also functions better if it's living in a body that is healthy and properly fueled. Don't think you're getting more work done if you skip the exercise to do work instead. Integrating good fitness nutrition into your day will keep you healthy, wealthy, and wise.

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