When you’re exercising regularly and working hard, it’s essential to support your efforts with a good diet. We all know this for a fact. Energy, sleep and even concentration are dependent on not only getting the right nutrients, but ensuring you get the right balance too. It’s therefore important to take a look at the healthy eating plate:
Healthy Food – Proper Portions
You may have seen food pyramids, stacking the quantities of food you need in a week. All in proportion to one another. Plenty of information is available on calories and grams per serving. Some experts even like to ban foods from diets when suggesting other foods should be mandatory. However, such tight rules often fail to convey a real system of understanding healthy eating – and don’t serve us with any context to this practice as a whole.
At EMS Fitness we’ve always preferred the healthy eating plate. It gives us a much more complete guide to the nutrients we require to get the right energy without putting on weight. Understanding this simple guide makes getting a good diet much simpler than following large sets of detailed rules.
Plants and Fibre
Whenever you’re eating you should think about vegetables. A versatile food type that’s great in salads, stir fries, blanched, steamed or even roasted in the oven with a little garlic. Look at the healthy food plate. Plants (in the form of vegetables and fruits) should compose around 50% of your meals. By making this change in your diet, you’re taking the biggest step possible towards a healthy lifestyle.
Let’s not be presumptuous however. Many people often struggle to integrate this much plant matter into their diets. Be prepared to take a little time over this change, even if you like vegetables. And key to this step is knowing a number of meals and methods that allow you to bring more of this essential foodstuff into your diet.
High Quality Proteins
Protein is essential in building muscle, losing weight, getting good sleep and improving sporting performance. And guess what? Proteins make the ideal accompaniment to vegetables. Protein requirements can vary wildly from person to person, depending on factors such as age, sex, muscle mass and activity levels. By working with the personal trainers at EMS fitness you can discover what foods are best for your body – and start looking at meals that give you the correct levels of nutrient.
Carbohydrates – The Energy Food
Carbs, although often maligned by those on special diets such as keto, are an essential part of the modern diet. You’ll never find a better source of energy, but this doesn’t mean you should over do it when you’re feeling low.
With carbs, knowing the difference between good and not so great sources is key. Once you’ve found the carbs that suit you, it becomes a matter of choosing the appropriate levels and proportions in accordance with our lives – a professional cyclist will burn more energy than an office worker, and will therefore be able to eat more without negative effects.
One key differentiator that can help you find good carbs is the glycemic index. Foods with a low glycemic index, such as oats, release energy more slowly. Those with a higher glycemic index have been linked with diabetes, heart disease, eye problems and even bowel cancer. Making the right choice is incredibly important.
Fat – Essential to Healthy Life
Over the past few years we’ve seen fats demonised. We now live in a 0%, low fat generation. Not all fats are equal however. Extra virgin olive oil from an independent supplier is very different from an industrially manufactured supermarket short bread. Look at the type of fats you’re consuming. Try to stick to the monosaturated fats and polyunsaturated fats as these actually lower cholesterol and are known to be good for your heart.
Great Diet – Great Exercise
And if you want an exercise schedule put together by a personal training professional at EMS Fitness – then why not give us a call or drop us an email? We can help you put together a good system of training together with a great diet plan to help you hit your fitness goals.