Another area that we constantly receive questions on, is diet and nutrition. There is lots of confusion over this subject, so we will try and keep things nice and simple. This confusion wasn’t helped recently by so called experts disagreeing on the national news about what we should be eating. The government has its own published food plate. Many in the fitness and health industry would disagree with this and we are part of that camp. We feel the BANT food plate is far more upto date with its information, both food plates can be seen below.
BANT Food Plate
Govt Food Plate
Simple Food Guidelines
Here are a number of simple guidelines we feel will put you on the right track:
- Eat single ingredient whole foods – This is is as simple as avoiding processed food. Cook your own food, if you cant cook…learn!
- The amount of carbohydrate you eat should be directly related to how lean (how much bodyfat you hold). The leaner you are, the more carbs you can eat. (A sweeping statement but we find it to be generally true)
- Dont mix high fat and high carb meals ( ex of high fat foods: Fatty meats such as sausages, eggs, cheese, nuts etc)
- If you want to lose weight, you need to be in a caloric deficit (expending more energy than you consume either through calorie restriction or increasing exercise levels)
- Avoid dieting- dieting may be effective in the short term but will never be maintainable. Try to make changes that you can sustain over a long period of time.
- When beginning to change your diet, make lots of small changes. Extreme example, but if you were eating 10 pizzas a day, eat 5 a day and you’ll loose weight.
- Drink lots of water- You’ll be amazed how good you feel when you are constantly hydrated. Your pee should always run clear.
- Try to minimise the amount of sugar, alcohol and coffee in your diet
Traffic Light System for Nutrition
Green– Eat these freely and regularly
Meat, Fish, Eggs, Fruit and veg, nuts and seeds, herbs and spices
Orange – Think a little more about your energy requirements through the day when eating these foods. The more active you are, the more you can have.
Grains, Legumes, Pulses. Dairy
Red – You should only eat these occasionally and try to minimise as much as possible. That’s not to say you shouldn’t indulge yourself now and again.
Trans fat (found in cakes and biscuits), Processed foods, and refined sugar, alcohol.
