Healthy Eating

Healthy Eating

Healthy Eating… What exactly is “Healthy Eating”? How do you define if someone eats healthily? Well if you were to look for a definition, it would probably be along these lines “Healthy eating is to consume the right quantities of foods from all food groups in order to lead a healthy life”, which to me and I’m sure to everyone else sounds about right, would you agree? But as always there is a little bit more to it than that. Of course eating healthy food is great for our bodies, however we need to understand that QUANTITIES and consumption of healthy food groups have to be specific to our personal needs, this is something I will discuss later on in the post but for now let’s digress a little.

We have defined what healthy eating is, so let’s move onto what healthy foods actually are! This is where in my experience, opinions vary and what one person sees as a healthy food, another person may disagree. However I’m going to express the opinions of myself and RikFit to my understanding on what healthy foods are.

As I’ve educated myself through recent years, I’ve come to a very simple conclusion, healthy food must first consist of natural ingredients, usually high or rich in nutrients and when consumed benefits bodily functions by supplying it with the energy, nutrients and the enzymes it needs to function effectively and efficiently. Natural foods more often than not tend to be single ingredient foods, this means that it will most likely be high in one Macro Nutrient (Macro nutrient are the larger nutrients within food, for example, Proteins, Fats & Carbohydrates), to put this is more basic terms, meats, fish & poultry etc. Tend to be very high in protein. Nuts, Seeds, Olives, Avocados, Oils etc. Tend to be very high in fat. Potato’s, Parsnips, Grains, Oats etc. Tend to be high in complex carbohydrates. Fruits tend to be high in simple sugars & finally non starchy vegetables tend to be high in fibre. (NOTE: Proteins, Fats, Carbohydrates can all be split into different categories e.g. carbohydrates have more than one form, simple & complex. Also fibre can be put under the carbohydrate category.). All foods are made up of Macronutrients and each food will have a different percentage of Macronutrients compared to another.

Now we can easily sit here all day and debate about how natural certain foods actually are and if grains should or shouldn’t be included in a diet or dairy or whatever, but there is a much BIGGER picture in my eyes. This is to get the average person eating the majority of natural foods in their diets on a day to day basis, of which to achieve we must take incremental steps to get there, this is why I’m writing a post on healthy eating and not optimal eating, so the average person understands how to actually follow a healthy nutritious lifestyle!

Before you even think of adopting a certain diet plan or regime, which if it is not a sustainable one for YOU, could possibly lead to failure, why don’t you just set yourself a goal of eating natural foods. If you cannot hunt it, gather it, grow it or create it using natural processes, then don’t consume it! Adopting a new approach is great but it is very important that the new approach is catered to what you can physically and psychologically handle. This is why opting for the most simple approach of “I’m going to eat natural healthy foods from now on” is such a great place to start. You can easily work with this foundation to suit your personal needs, for example, you can create a eating pattern that first suits you, the only rule you truly have to follow is the one of “is this food natural? Yes = Eat, No = Avoid” (The first rule I give to RikFit clients for the first 2-3 weeks). What you will find is that through following this for around a month, you will naturally cycle through foods to opt for ones that make you feel and function better, think of it as a “Trial & Error” period, it’s a time where you learn if high fat foods make you feel good or bad, high carb foods give you energy or take it away, high protein foods fill you up more or less etc.

The great thing about eating natural foods is the fact that the foods contain nutrients and enzymes, of which most processed foods and chemically altered foods contain very little. Nutrients and enzymes help nourish the body, they help it grow, repair and function efficiently. This is mainly through natural foods containing large amounts of positive digestive enzymes that help improve gut function, especially improving digestion and nutrient absorption. One thing you realise when educating yourself on nutrition is that the GUT GOVERNS ALL. What you eat, when you eat, how much you eat can have huge impact on mood, feelings, performance, hormones etc. If you have never truly supplied your gut with what it needs to function well, you will have never experienced how good you can feel and how well you can work on a natural nutrient rich diet.

Coming away from this before I babble on any longer I’d like to make a quick point of, I’m not saying never eat unnatural food again, all I am saying is if you want to progress your health, your body image, your physical performance or how you think and feel, then start by giving the body what it needs and what it is used to having for thousands and thousands of years. Its only in recent years that we have truly veered from the path and made all these low fat, no carb, sugar free, processed food that we have grown to eat and consume on a day to day basis because they are “easy” or “tasty” or make you think you feel good.

To summarise, opt for natural nutrient rich foods, why? Because the help nourish the body to help it grow, repair, regulate and function efficiently. Start by setting a goal of “I’m only going to eat natural foods for the next couple of weeks”, once you have completed this, begin to manipulate your macro nutrients, see if you function best on carbs or fats but always make sure you have a baseline of protein to avoid any lean tissue loss. Once you have completed this, then you should begin to manipulate calories and calculate what your minimum requirements are (BMR Base Metabolic Rate). I can guarantee if you do this correctly you WILL get results, it’s impossible not to, then all you need is a little fine tuning to get you to the goal you have set depending on the realism and achievability of it.

I hope this has been a good read for you and as usual I felt I could have gone off on 10 different tangents but managed to somewhat keep it simple, remember that these are my views and the views of RikFit, no one else’s. This is just what I have experienced and found works best for the majority of people. I hope you all have a great day and please feel free to comment and ask questions, good or bad, everyone is entitled to their opinion.

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