Eating decisions can create resolutions to circumstances that make us feel better and more productive. Weight loss, gaining lean muscle mass, and fending off illness are commonly sought-after purposes of adhering to healthy eating habits. Maintaining an optimal weight for our body type assists in managing a healthy fat mass to lean muscle mass ratio. Muscular strength and coordination are essential for conducting our everyday activities. Whether it be as simple as getting out of bed in the morning or as sophisticated as preparing for a three-week hiking excursion to Mont Blanc, ensuring our muscles and joints can perform in the arena we want to excel in is paramount to our livelihood. Society has become increasingly aware of shielding and preventing our body from contracting illnesses as simple as the common cold to extreme conditions such as diabetes or cancer. Choosing the foods that support our lifetime fitness and health goals are critically important tactics supporting our ability to successfully exist in our everyday lives and excel toward our goals.
Ideal situations for healthy fat mass to lean muscle ratios can be measured through several methods. A common tactic used to represent a person’s overall “fit-to-deconditioned” status is the BMI. A high BMI indicates a human is overweight. Whereas a lower BMI suggests, a person is in a healthier range of having a decreased amount of fat mass within their body. The size of our waistline and shirt sizes are also helpful measuring devices to grasp the amount of abdominal girth on our bodies. A simple comparison of waist sizes over a few months can reflect the status of how much subcutaneous fat mass may be present in our abdomen and hips. Lower bodily fat mass influences less likelihood of metabolic conditions such as the development of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cardioaterial diseases. Selecting foods with less fat and sugar content supports the body’s ability to utilize fat as a fuel source for physical activity and avoid storing fat under our skin, in our blood vessels, and around vital organs.
Strength, endurance, mobility, and our overall ability to move efficiently and pain-free are common aspirations people strive for so they improve their lives. Kneeling, bending over, or squatting down to pick up objects and interact with activities in various environments aren’t seen as too extravagant of a feat until that feature is removed from a person’s life due to muscular weakness. Some of our personal training clients’ goals include wanting to have the ability to kneel and pull weeds in their garden or get on their hands and knees to wrestle with their grandkids. On the more physically demanding side, we have personal training clients who wish to run marathons, get a gold medal at a pickleball tournament, or hike along the Swiss Alps. Either way, the body needs a body supported by muscles that offer strength to move the body through a challenging environment and endurance to perform physical activity for a prolonged period of time. Understanding which foods have adequate nutrient density, including efficient amounts of carbohydrates and protein, is critical to maintaining the composition of healthy muscle tissue.
Social media, magazine articles, and shows on our streaming television services offer helpful information to make optimal eating decisions. While this information is beneficial, there is a plethora of learning material. So much content that understanding healthy dietary recommendations can become overwhelming. Venturing into a new world of nutrition could be and introduce challenges on where to begin. A few simple tactics we have recommended to our personal training is to identify the correct time of day to eat, portion size, and balance of carbohydrate and protein amount in each meal.
- Portion size: Choose one protein source and one carbohydrate source. In each meal throughout the day, try not to eat more than a handful amount of protein and a handful amount of carbohydrates.
- The best times to eat: Sorronding eating times around the most physically active periods of the day supports the likelihood of using sugars from carbohydrates as a fuel source and the rebuilding properties of protein to repair and reinforce muscle structure. Additionally, practicing avoiding eating large meals when the body is in a sedentary state decreases the likelihood of fat storage.
- Identify proteins and carbohydrates: Eating a bag of popcorn, chips, or Snickers when hunger strikes isn’t going to cut it. The body needs lean protein and healthy carbohydrates to support lean muscle mass development and enough energy to exercise. Choosing a protein and a single-ingredient, minimally processed carbohydrate in each meal balances out the composition of the optimal nutrients to fuel the body and assists in avoiding overeating too many carbohydrates that could influence fat storage.
Focusing on the logistics of the foods we consume has the ability to supercharge our fitness goals. When struggling to find that chink in your armor on what’s impeding progress in losing weight or increasing strength, looking into what decisions surrounding food consists of has the power to substantially increase our ability to be more productive, have more energy, and thrive in our everyday lives.
Sean McCawley, the founder and owner of Napa Tenacious Fitness in Napa, CA, welcomes questions and comments. Reach him at 707-287-2727, napatenacious@gmail.com, or visit the website napatenaciousfitness.com.
