Tag food

Nutrition and Fitness Go Together

Congratulations!  You’ve just decided to get started on a fitness regime.  You’ve taken an important step toward improving your health and quality of life. But there is another step that is equally important – proper nutrition! 

Like an automobile, you must take care of the ‘whole package’ for maximum performance and functioning.  Even if a car’s motor is tuned up, it’s not going anywhere without the right gas in the tank.  Can you imagine putting dirty water from your dishes in your car’s gas tank?  Of course not!  It’s not the right fuel, and in fact would be destructive.  It’s the same with our bodies. We can do sit ups all day, but a steady diet of cheeseburgers won’t get you very far. Proper fuel promotes peak performance.

When I begin to work with a new client, they are often afraid of the ‘diet’ portion of the program. They fear what they will have to give up, or must live without – ‘forever’ (in their mind.) It’s just not that way. Proper nutrition is not a ‘diet’ in the way most Americans think about it; i.e. low carb diets, no-sugar diets, South Beach diet, etc. Proper nutrition is feeding our bodies the essential elements it needs for proper functioning. Good nutrition is like a health insurance policy, and guess what – it tastes really good!

Once you enter the fun and challenge of a personal fitness regime, you begin to invest time and energy into one of your greatest gifts and assets – your body. It’s uniquely yours, and it’s yours forever, so it only makes sense to take the absolute best care of it possible. A customized fitness program demands expending a lot of energy, which will naturally put your focus on the best way to ‘get’ energy. The answer lies in good food with the proper vitamins, minerals and nutrients.

Foods high in sugar, fat and sodium provide a short-term fix of immediate gratification, but often leave us wanting more, which is a difficult cycle to break. In the words of Dr. Joel Fuhrman, a physician specializing in nutrition-based treatments for obesity and chronic disease, “most Americans don’t even know what true hunger feels like.” Instead of living to eat, the focus should be on eating to live a fun, happy and pleasurable life. Foods with proper nutrition give us the energy we need, and feed us fuel to accomplish the tasks of life, and best of all to feel good!

At Full Spectrum Fitness, I can help you develop a specific plan tailored for your goals.  My plans focus on making sure you have the energy you need in the form of complex carbs prior to exercise to maintain stamina during a challenging workout, and protein afterward to help rebuild strained muscle tissue. Once you start, you will be surprised at how easy and naturally the rest will follow.

Please schedule time with me to develop your nutrition plan today!