a supportive diet is crucial for fitness

Regular exercise planned by an expert is central to improving your fitness levels, whether your primary aim is to build muscles, lose weight or both. However, it won’t produce the results you’re looking for in isolation. In particular, both your diet and lifestyle need to be in sync with your exercise regime.

 

What to Eat

 

Many people assume a healthy diet means cutting calories and reducing carbohydrates, but this is over-simple at best and can be damaging at worst. When you’re exercising, it’s important both to get enough calories and to eat the right balance of nutrition. A good start is to cut out junk and processed foods, but you need to be more specific.

 

  • Protein is essential to build and repair muscles, so all meals should involve a protein element. This could be poultry, lean meat or fish, but could also include eggs, dairy or legumes.
  • Carbohydrates provide energy, so a low-carb diet would leave you without the energy for your exercise. Whole grains are preferable to processed carbs, while many fruits, vegetables and beans contain good carbs.
  • Fruit and vegetables should ideally make up half of any meal, as well as snacks. A good tip is to have a good variety of colours in your vegetables — not just to make the plate look more interesting, but because the colour reflects the predominant nutrient.
  • Fats have an even worse reputation than carbs, and saturated fats are best avoided as much as possible. However, some fat is essential and can be gained from food such as nuts, oily fish and olive oil.

 

When to Eat

 

Regular meals are vital for any healthy diet, but especially when exercising. Breakfast, in particular, should be a substantial, balanced meal and should never be skipped, while it’s advisable to eat 55% of your daily carbs by lunchtime. Starchy carbs should be avoided in the evening, as they won’t be fully absorbed.

 

It’s also important to plan your snacks, especially just before and after an exercise session. You’ll need energy before starting a session, and fruit or nuts are excellent for this, especially bananas. After exercise, your muscles are particularly receptive to absorbing nutrients, so something like a whey-based shake and a small quantity of carbs are good at that point.

 

Your Lifestyle

 

Diet is vital, but a stable lifestyle is also important while exercising (and even when you’re not). Besides the obvious changes like quitting smoking and reducing alcohol intake, it’s important to sleep well at regular hours.

 

More generally, a positive emotional state is important, though regular exercise and a healthy diet will in themselves help with that. Your regime shouldn’t feel like punishment, though, and it can be worth very occasionally enjoying something that’s not ideal. You can still keep it moderately healthy, though — if you treat yourself to a pizza, for instance, be sure to have a salad with it.

 

If you need to know more about supporting your exercise regime with a healthy diet and lifestyle, you’re very welcome to get in touch with us.