What Should I Eat? - Part 1

This is the first part in a series of articles I'm writing on diet, nutrition and understanding how to make the best choices related to food. I want to share this information with you as it's sparked major changes in how I eat daily as a result of intensive study on the basics of nutrition and the human body. Feel free to comment or email with any questions! 

We've been taught that nutrition is confusing. Every health magazine, organization, agency and documentary seems to disagree on what we should and should not be consuming on a regular basis. The media is particularly a problem as you can see conflicting articles by different experts in the same publication! Eggs are bad, eggs are good, wine is bad, wine is good for your heart, eat meat, avoid meat! Then, when you head into the grocery store, you're assaulted by thousands of claims and advertisements. Food is labelled as "all natural", "low fat", "lite", "made with whole grains", yet very often there's a lie hiding in that label. Something may be made with whole grains, but have high fructose corn syrup as the second ingredient. Something may be labelled as all natural, but have genetically modified ingredients in it, that's not natural at all! All of this talk and false advertising serves to confuse you, as the consumer, to the point where you give up and just continue to eat the way you've been eating your whole life.

Let's start by making it simple. Why do we eat?

Food is fuel for our bodies and our brains. In the same way that your car cannot operate without gasoline, your body cannot operate without food. Our bodies convert food into energy to power our activities and functions. 

Food is fuel!

What functions does our body perform?

Seems obvious, right? We move, we walk, we talk, we work, we train! However, our bodies have to also break down food into energy, transport vitamins and minerals to our cells, fight off immune system attacks, and more!

What threatens our bodies ability to perform?

Stress. And not just the pulling out your hair kind of stress generated from a rough workday or travel (although that counts too)! A stressor is any event, experience, or environmental stimulus that causes stress in an individual - positive or negative. A few obvious examples are: missing your connecting flight, losing your job, the loss of a loved one. But it's the more common overlooked stressors that we need to take a look at: working out too hard with no recovery, lack of sleep, poor nutrition, flu season, environmental stressors like chemicals and toxins, dependency on stimulating substances (sugar and caffeine), and dependence on pharmaceuticals in lieu of a healthy lifestyle (i.e. things that could be resolved by diet, activity and therapy instead of a pill).

How do stressors reduce performance?

A good example is to look at the stressor of being short on sleep: your body repairs itself at night while you sleep, depriving your body of sleep means that your body is never able to catch up on the nightly maintenance that's required. Every day you wake up farther and farther behind. As your body falls behind, your immune systems is compromised. Your body begins to "borrow" energy from other tasks to make ends meet. Perhaps in order to keep working out 5 days a week without proper recovery, your body borrows energy from your immune system, leaving your body weak and susceptible to a cold or flu. Or maybe you consume a high amount of foods that cause intestinal distress that leave your body battling bloat, cramping, and diarrhea. Your body will then spend an exorbitant amount of energy trying to flush out the attack on your GI tract leaving you feeling fatigued. Common solution? Grab an afternoon espresso or a quick bite of a sugary treat. This creates a short-term stimulation of your adrenal glands, but a long-term negative result on your overall energy. It's like paying an outrageous interest rate on a credit card, it's just not worth it in the long run!

How does this relate to nutrition?

Since the food we put into our bodies is eventually broken down by your body into energy, the less complicated the food you eat, the less energy is expended on this process. As an athlete, you know how tightly you can budget your time to fit in training, a job, kids, family, and social activities. Much the same way, your body has to allocate energy. When you put food in that has been enriched, bleached, refined, stripped of nutrients, chemically altered with other ingredients, combined with fillers and even toxins(!), your body has a lot of work to do to sift through the junk for actual value. When you give your body simple easy to digest food in it's more natural form (vegetables, fruits, legumes, grains, seeds) your body is able to access that fuel quickly and move about it's other tasks leaving YOU with more energy.

EXAMPLE: Which breakfast is more taxing on our body?

Take a look at the two breakfast choices below and the ingredient lists that come with them. 

Breakfast #1: The first item is what I called "Hi-Fruct O's" but the ingredients are straight off the Fruit Loops box. 

Imagine breaking all this down to usable nutrients!

INGREDIENTS: SUGAR. WHOLE GRAIN CORN FLOUR WHEAT FLOUR. WHOLE GRAIN OAT FLOUR. OAT FIBER. SOLUBLE CORN FIBER. PARTIALLY HYDROGENATED VEGETABLE OIL (or COCONUT, SOYBEAN, COTTONSEED OIL), SALT,SODIUM ASCORBATE AND ASCORBIC ACID, NIACINAMIDE, REDUCED IRON, NATURAL ORANGE, LEMON, CHERRY, RASPBERRY, BLUEBERRY, LIME AND OTHER NATURAL FLAVORS. RED#40, BLUE#2, TURMERIC COLOR, YELLOW #6, ZINC OXIDE, ANNATTO COLOR, BLUE#1, PYRIDOXINE HYDRCHLORIDE, RIBOFLAVIN, THIAMIN, HYDROCHLORIDE, VITAMIN A PALMITATE, BHT, FOLIC ACID, VITAMIN D, VIATMIN B12

Breakfast #2: Oatmeal with sliced bananas, almond milk and a side of grapes

Super simple!

INGREDIENTS: ORGANIC ROLLED OATS, ALMOND MILK, SLICED BANANAS, CHIA SEEDS, MAPLE SYRUP, GRAPES, WALNUTS

Which would you pick? Based on the ingredient list the first breakfast has a bunch of complex ingredients. Keep in mind ingredients are listed in the order of quantity used. Since sugar is the first ingredient, that's what Fruit Loops are primarily made of! Yikes! Whole grain corn flour? That's a deceiving way to say corn meal. Partially hydrogenated oil is oil that's been heated, had a catalyst added to it (usually a metal) so that the molecular structure changes to be a thick, artery clogging oil that helps preserve the product. YUM! Natural flavors? They are made from "natural" chemicals - never trust the word natural! Innocent sounding fun coloring? Linked to cancer. Oh, and a dash of BHT (a combustible chemical) for good measure!

The second ingredient list is much easier to understand. Sure, it takes a 5 minutes more to make, but I bet you know what all of those things are! Did you know rolled oats are a great source of real fiber (not the fibers added back in to Fruit Loops) and minerals like selenium? Almond milk is much easier on the system than dairy milk (a common allergen or food sensitivity), bananas are high in potassium, chia seeds are a superfood packed with omega-3 fatty acids. Maple syrup is a natural way to sweeten your breakfast and add minerals like maganese and zinc without all the calories. Grapes provide vitamins and anti-oxidants to boost your immune system and walnuts are high in healthy fats which help your body repair itself.

It's pretty clear that your body would have an easier time and get more 'bang for the buck' with the oatmeal, wouldn't you say?!

Coming up next a discussion about different eating practices and figuring out what dietary changes may be best for you!