Some people love to preach “musts” and “have to’s” and “nevers” when it comes to nutrition.
I rarely find much truth in these types of absolute statements.
However, there are certain facts that don’t quite pertain to what you must DO with your diet but rather are just facts that you may not have known, or have even recently had some solid research done on.
1) Frozen fruit and vegetables are just as nutritious as fresh produce (and sometimes MORE!)
When produce is harvested to be frozen, it it picked at it’s peak season of freshness and very quickly flash frozen to preserve that state.
While sourcing fresh produce from your local farms is never a bad idea, the longer it sits on the shelf the more nutrients it can lose (the bioavailability of the nutrients decreases).
So is this something that is really worth stressing over to optimize your health?
Need ideas on how to eat and incorporate more veggies into your diet, well I highly recommend the cookbook Thug Kitchen (http://amzn.to/2uvtASH)- warning they do use some adult language to keep things entertaining.
Although the cookbook is all vegan recipes, you can easily add some animal protein to the recipes to make them your own.
So just eat your damn vegetables, but don’t discount the convenience and ease of frozen!
2) Fruits will not make you fat, and the sugars in them will not give you diabetes.
No body, and I will put my money on it, got fat JUST because they ate too much fruit.
Does fruit have sugar in it? Yes – naturally.
Fruits are actually loaded with tons of phytonutrients that have actually been shown to DECREASE the risk for diabetes.
Berries are especially good choices. My number one choice would be strawberries because of there high volume to calorie ratio (big amount of food and little calories).
Fruit also contains a decent amount of fiber which is a plus for controlling blood sugar and bodyfat.
3) Coffee won’t dehydrate you, and is great for pre-workout.
When I first started down the path of nutrition, people taught me that caffeine will dehydrate you and weaken your bones, so it must be bad.
Always be weary of these kinds of people who hate on coffee…
The truth is, that yes, like any other DRUG, the dose is very important. If you load up on tons of caffeine a day it can wreck your adrenal system, mess up your sleep, and overstimulate your CNS.
However, coffee by itself won’t dehydrate you – AND a little jolt of caffeine before you workout is a good idea (unless you workout late in the day).
There are tons of studies showing that pre-workout caffeine increases performance, in both strength and aerobic capacities.
4) Your food choices and consumptions do not reflect on you as a person.
While this isn’t really “science”, it is something that I wish more people would realize.
When you allow food to stress you out, and say things like “I ate like a bad person” or “I ate BAD” or even “I’m eating so good now” you are totally screwing up your mindset when it comes to food.
Food is food, I can’t say it enough. If we eat too much – we gain weight. If we eat too little – we lose weight PERIOD.
It doesnt matter if it’s GOOD or BAD food, it doesnt determine your well being or your status in life – it’s just food.
Once you finally let go of giving food so much power in your brain, and look at it from a pure nourishment point of view – results will come, with MUCH less stress.
5) Fiber intakes are still sadly low in the USA
Average fiber intake in the USA: 15 grams.
Recommended intake: anywhere between 25-40 grams per day.
Why is this important?
Fiber helps with lots of things (colon and gut health, yes) – but especially weight control and management.
Fiber adds to fullness and satiety tremendously.
I recently had one client who we set a goal for eating 200 grams of protein per day, and 40 grams of fiber per day without fiber supplements.
Thats all he focussed on, and guess what – he lost over 20 pounds at a solid rate.
Why did this work? Because when you focus on getting this much fiber, you will learn what foods contain more fiber and which ones do not – so when you need to reach a certain fiber goal, you will automatically increase your fruits and veggies, and whole grain choices – and thus automatically (in theory) decrease your consumption of calorie dense garbage.
So get your fiber, eat your fruits and veggies, drink some coffee, and stop letting food control your life.
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Stay healthy my friends,