Nutritious and Healthy Food – The Complete Guide to Energizing Your Life

Introduction

In our latest blog post, we’re going to be talking about the importance of diet and healthy food on your overall health and how it can support your training programme.

We’ve talked a lot recently about exercise and how many benefits this has for you, and whilst exercising is important, supporting it by eating well is paramount to success. There’s an old saying that goes ‘You can’t out-train a bad diet’ and if you’re a person who wants to see the results of your gym work this is most certainly true.

But eating a balanced diet is so much more than just seeing results in the gym; eating healthy food is critical to supporting your overall well-being and helping you maintain a good quality of life.

Diet is the area where many people struggle and often find it much harder than following a training programme. We also totally understand how difficult it can be to continually make healthy food choices with so many different unhealthy foods readily available which often cost less than healthy ones.

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But if you struggle to answer the question ‘healthy food near me?’ and always opt for a quick unhealthy food fix then do continue reading as we’ll open your eyes to how eating healthy can be easy, exciting and affordable.

An Explanation About Healthy Food and Unhealthy Food

Ok let’s start with one of the most discussed topics in the fitness world; healthy food and unhealthy food, and the differences between them.

If you ask anyone to list unhealthy foods (junk foods) most people will come up with a few of the following options:

The one thing that all these foods have in common is that they’re all processed which means they all contain ingredients that have been processed and their natural state has been altered. Also, most of these foods contain a high amount of sugar which increases the number of calories present, and where sugar isn’t included, they’ve been cooked in a way that makes them unhealthy.

So, what about healthy foods? If you ask people to list these then they’ll come up with some, or all of the following:

And as you’ll see, the difference between these foods and the unhealthy ones is that they’re not processed and they all contain single, or very few ingredients. They’re also all-natural foods so they haven’t undergone any form of processing to transform them away from their original state.

We obviously can’t list all the foods in the world here but we hope, after reading this that you begin to understand how to separate unhealthy and healthy food groups.

Can I Eat Unhealthy and Healthy Foods?

This is where it gets interesting and it all depends on your goals and ambitions on what you want to achieve in terms of body fat percentage.

For the general person who is training to keep active, following the 80/20 rule is a good option as eating healthy 80% of the time versus 20% unhealthy provides a good balanced diet. Lots of people who follow this way of eating will be strict between Monday and Thursday and then ‘let go’ a little bit over the weekends. The great thing about this method is that if you’re clever and play to your body’s strengths you can still lose weight if that’s one of your goals.

The next step up from the 80/20 rule is the 90/10 and as you’ll have guessed already, this one is stricter in terms of unhealthy food consumed but if followed correctly will lead to a drop in body fat. The main issue with this method is that sticking to a 90/10 ratio is very difficult for the average person and would entail missing out on weekend treats and indulging at office parties.

Finally, the hardcore option is the 95/5 rule and this is only followed by professional athletes and those training for bodybuilding competitions. Under this regime, you’ll be living on lean meats and vegetables with very minimal treats thrown in along the way. One example of this is Sergio Ramos, the famous football player who follows a strict diet and only allows himself a small treat once every 15 days.

So, ultimately, the choice is yours and you need to decide what suits you best but for the average person there is certainly a way of fitting unhealthy and healthy foods into the diet.

Delving Into Different Diets

If you’ve got an interest in health and fitness then you’ll have most certainly come across different types of diet plans. There is so much information out there it can be hard to choose which ones are best, but rest assured we have covered the key ones below and provided you with some useful information to help you decide which one meets your needs.

Keto Diet

The basic rule of the Keto diet is that you eliminate most of the carbohydrates from your diet. On this type of diet, you’ll eat foods rich in protein and high in healthy fats. What this diet aims to do is to put your body into a state of ‘Ketosis’ which puts your body into a state of effectively burning fat and producing ketones for the liver. As you might expect, the types of food you can eat whilst following this diet include, fruits, vegetables, meats and seafood, cheese, eggs and nuts.  

Pros

• High protein diet helps with weight loss
• Rich in whole foods
• Minimal preparation and cooking

Cons

• Reduction in carbohydrates can cause fatigue
• Consumption of high-fat foods can lead to a cholesterol increase
• Can cause flu-like symptoms which is often referred to as “Keto flu”.

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Mediterranean Diet

If you’ve ever visited a Mediterranean country and noticed their diet you’ll have seen that it consists of an array of fresh produce, including fish, meat, fruit and vegetables, dairy, cereals and olive oil. The food groups which are prohibited from this style of diet are processed and ultra-processed foods as the focus is on fresh, whole food groups. As you would expect from consuming a diet rich in healthy food, it has a profound positive impact on your health and contributes towards staying healthy.

Pros

• A diet that includes a good variety of fresh and whole foods.
• Eating this diet will be very positive on your overall health and will contribute towards a reduction in illnesses and a boosted immune system.
• Helpful towards weight management and feeling satiated.

Cons

• Following this type of diet can be costly as buying fresh ingredients isn’t cheap.
• Compared to such diets as Keto and low carbohydrate, the Mediterranean diet is rich in carbohydrates which may not support some individual goals.
• There are no predetermined weights and measures to follow as guidelines so it is up to the individual to show self-restraint when it comes to portion sizing.

Dash Diet

The Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) diet focuses on supporting people who wish to improve their blood pressure. If you decide to take up this type of diet you can expect to be consuming fruits, vegetables, lean meat and wholegrains. This is a good one to consider if you are a sufferer of high blood pressure because this can ultimately lead to further medical problems such as heart disease, kidney failure and strokes. By embarking on the DASH diet you should see a reduction in blood pressure from consuming healthy, non-processed foods, and even better if it can be combined with cardio exercise.

Pros

• Proven to positively contribute towards a healthy weight, a reduction in blood pressure, and also helps towards lowering diabetes.
• You can adapt your existing diet to follow the DASH guidelines.
• There is still room for unhealthy foods in moderation.

Cons

• Only needed if you are suffering from high blood pressure.
• Can be restrictive in which foods you’re allowed to eat.
• Following other diets may be more beneficial.

Carnivore Diet

This one is for the meat lovers out there. The carnivore diet focuses on eating red and white meats, organs, eggs and dairy. By eliminating all of the other food groups such as fruit and vegetables, grains and other plant-based foods, you are removing a lot of vital nutrients from your diet.

Pros

• Meat is full of protein and highly satiating therefore you will consume less food on this diet.
• Meals will be simple to prepare
• Low sugar diet

Cons

• By removing nearly all of the food groups you will be depriving your body of vital nutrients.
• The carnivore diet is restrictive and therefore will be difficult to stick to.
• The diet is high in fat, cholesterol and sodium.

Low Carbohydrate Diet

The clue for this type of diet is in its name – it’s a low carb diet! The interesting thing about this diet is that often people think that you either need to completely remove carbs from your diet or severely restrict them. However, even on a low-carb diet you can still eat a small amount of carbohydrates per day. The early part of this diet will be very testing as your body adapts to fueling itself without the presence of carbohydrates which may cause you to feel tired and weak.

Pros

• Can be effective for weight loss.
• Can help improve other areas of your health such as blood sugar and insulin levels.
• Has been known to cause the skin to appear better.

Cons

• It takes time to adapt to this diet and may cause you to feel tired in the early stages of adopting it.
• Can cause constipation due to the lack of fibre in your diet.
• This diet may be difficult to stick to in the long term.

Alkaline Diet Plan

This is a diet that many people might not have heard of and is certainly not as well known as some of the others on this list. This diet plan instructs you to eat a vegan-friendly diet and focus on eating things like fruit and vegetables, nuts, seeds and legumes. Whereas many of the other diets we’ve looked at are rich in protein sources present from meat and fish options, this diet will make it more difficult to obtain your sufficient daily protein intake. The overall aim of this diet is to try to balance the PH levels in your body by consuming alkaline foods and not acidic ones.

Pros

• Vegan and vegetarian-friendly
• Contains fresh food with plenty of vitamins
• Can help with areas such as weight loss, better cardiovascular health and a stronger immune system.

Cons

• It will be more difficult to reach your daily recommended protein intake due to the lack of meat and fish in this diet.
• This is another restrictive diet which forbids certain food groups.
• If you are used to consuming a full range of foods it may take time for your body to adapt to this diet.

All the above diets help you reduce your overall calorie intake, which is the deciding factor in weight loss. They all most certainly have their pros and cons but none of them are going to solve the main issue if you continue to overeat.

We also recommend either consulting one of our trained professionals at Elevate Training or looking for a registered dietician who can help recommend a suitable diet plan to set you on your way to achieving your goals.

How to Stay Healthy ?

Staying healthy over a long period

How to stay healthy over a long period is a key question for many people. We have put together a list of basic rules you can follow to set yourself on the right road to a lifetime of healthiness.

1. Get proper sleep every night. Between 7-9 hours per night if you’re an adult.
2. Eat a balanced diet that consists of whole foods.
3. Exercise regularly.
4. Have fun.
5. Don’t drink too much alcohol.
6. Drink plenty of water.
7. Don’t smoke.

How to stay healthy isn’t rocket science but does require some discipline and you need to treat it as a lifestyle rather than something you need to do every day.

Best Fat Burning Foods

Speeding up your weight loss

If you are looking to speed up weight loss and want to know some of the best fat-burning foods, we’re sorry to tell you that there isn’t a single food out there that will burn fat.

Now that the bad news is out of the way, let’s give you some better news – although that magic best fat burning food doesn’t exist, by eating well and exercising regularly, including a mix of cardio and strength training you can supercharge your body’s metabolism to become a fat burning machine. We have a detailed article on weight loss, you can read it.

Common Questions & Answers