I don't know about you, but sometimes "food" is just another F-word in our vocabulary. Many of us carry a lot of baggage, guilt and misinformation around how we fuel our bodies.
As an 80's baby, I grew up in diet culture. I watched the adults in my life obsess about the latest diet trends and fad supplements. In many ways, I'm not sure it is much different today. There is so much shame and judgement associated with how and what we eat...organic, free range, sugar free, low carb, gluten free, high protein, keto...on-and-on-and-on we could go!
Nutrition advice is freely given by any one (qualified or un-qualified) with a social media account. Your crazy uncle probably just told you about the latest cabbage and Kool-aid diet over Christmas dinner (I just made that up...please don't consume just cabbage and kool-aid)!
As the 2nd Pillar of Health, we can't avoid talking about nutrition, but for the purpose of this discussion, I want to keep things broad and generally applicable to most people.
Full disclaimer, I am not a registered dietitian or certified nutritionist. But I see everyday, how nutrition can positively and negatively impact your ability to move well into your 90s. If you are looking for an even more detailed assessment and plan, let us know, and we can get you connected with some fantastic, highly-trained, clinicians.
I have a 5 and 7 year old and they often ask me if a certain food is "bad" or a certain food is "good." My question back to them is how does it make you feel? How does it make you feel when you eat a little of it? How does it make you feel when you eat a whole bunch of it?
My daughter intuitively knows that when she eats too many chocolate chips or puts too much syrup on her pancakes, she doesn't feel good.
What I hope to teach them (and also share with you) is that food is amoral. It doesn't control you or make decisions for you. Food is a resource to fuel your body and its and important pillar of your overall health.
If you need help focusing on some simple nutrition changes, here are some really simple but incredibly powerful nutrition changes you can make to start feeling better right away.
You'll notice in the points below, we don't believe in total elimination of things society calls "unhealthy." We are hoping to shift the balance by increasing the foods that are better fueling our bodies and decreasing the foods that don't.
- Whats your sugar intake? Sugar is amazing. Seriously, who doesn't love warm chocolate chip cookies (my wife makes the best cookies)! That being said, we also know sugar is more addictive than cocaine. Taking sugar out of your diet entirely is almost impossible. Reducing your intake is the best way to go. Let's start with this. No sugar except fruit during the week. Celebrate on Friday night with some cookies you make with the kiddos. Sunday night, you jump back on the no sugar train and you only have to ride it out until Friday night again. Your body will thank you and don't be surprised if after a couple weeks your pants are way looser around your waist!
- Are you drinking your calories? Calories in juice, sweet tea, flavored coffees and alcohol can really add up. If you're going to get calories in, try and eat them. Switch to water if you're drinking sweet tea. If you're a coke or soda person, try switching to flavored carbonated water instead. This also includes alcohol. They don't call it a beer belly for no reason! Just like sugar, let's start with limiting alcohol intake during the week. Drink a cocktail in celebration Friday night!
- How is your water intake? The recommendation for most people is half theIr body weight in ounces. For instance, if you weigh 180 pounds, you should drink at least 90 ounces of water a day. One other little hack to help stay better hydrated is to sprinkle a little sea salt in your water. Salt helps us bind water internally and is a sneaky way to make all that water more effective.
- How is your protein intake? This is one area that many active people neglect. The recommendations for protein are about .7-1.0 gram per pound of weight. That means if you weight 180 pounds, you should get between 126-180 grams of protein per day. Ideally this comes from real food like lean meats, beans and protein dense dairy like greek yogurt. Track it for a few days and see if you're missing this important component. Many of the people we work with are way off on their protein intake.
- Test and Retest. Everyone's a little different. The best way to really tell if nutrition changes are working is to test something and then retest it. This could be as simple as the scale or subjectively tracking your energy level during the day. It could be as complex as body composition testing like a dexa scan or BodPod. Make sure you have something to track if you're trying to make a change. It's really the only way to know if it's working.
We could have so many more conversations about nutrition, but I'll leave it here for now.
Don't be surprised when you come in for your physical therapy appointment and your doc asks you about what you are eating. We care about you overall health, not just how well you can squat!
Eat something good today!
Doc Shawn
PS. If you are in pain, have an injury or just want to be healthier and move better for longer, then we should have a talk. We help people get out of pain and back to the high-performance pain-free life they deserve because life is more enjoyable when you can do the things you love with the people you love, pain-free. Schedule a time to talk today.
