Pitfalls and woes in fitness eating

Protein is bad, carbs are bad, fats are bad. Everything is bad. Protein makes your kidneys congested, carbohydrates make you fat and fats clog your blood vessels. Don't they? If you want to take all this "expert" advice seriously, then I really wish you much success in finding the foods in your diet that should be the key to your dream, healthy body.

Sometimes when I read the questions in fb groups, I think the idea of a healthy diet is probably that the only good thing we can do is eat sprouts and draw energy from the sun. Nowadays, when the internet is overloaded with information from all sorts of experts and "specialists", it's really hard for the average person to know what to believe and what not to believe, as the arguments are usually very convincing and everyone mainly recommends what works for them. One says it's best to eat three times a day, then another says carbs are hell, then another says protein is toxic. So what the hell are we supposed to eat!

With summer, the panic about the ideal swimsuit body is peaking and with it all sorts of experiments. Trying yes, but there is no point in trying something new every 14days just because you don't have a result yet!!! Or trying everything, all at once is best. So you want a recipe for a healthy body without going crazy? Use your head, that's all.

You want to lose weight, don't eat pastries/fruit/sides/fat/..., that's how I lost weight. You're not doing well? Well, try a detox! Because drinking only water/vegetable juices or eating vegetables is best for your body. Oh, yeah. This is probably the most common advice we read on the internet. The reality is that you don't have to skip your favorite foods. Do you like pastries? That's okay. Do you like fruit? That's fine. Do you like chocolate? I'm fine. I'm not an advocate of restricting selected foods or individual macronutrients. Some say to eat only protein + fat, keep carbs to a minimum. Some even say protein only and the rest minimal... And finally, the current trend of fat dominance. The body needs ALL macronutrients, just in the right amounts. We don't get fat after eating carbs or fat, we get fat because of the excess calories we take in.

The truth is that it is very important to eat food that is really food. What do I mean by that? In short, think about the quality of the food you are ingesting. For example, chocolate is not bad at all, on the contrary! Chocolate has many benefits for the body. However, there is no such thing as chocolate. If you buy a classic soap, you won't really find many benefits in it. Instead, invest in a good quality, high percentage chocolate and you will see that even a smaller amount will be enough, because good quality chocolate is bitter and does not contain sugar, lentils, biscuit pieces and I don't know what else. This is no longer a health food, but a marketing ploy by food companies to fill their budgets and it usually does your health no good. There is food that is food in the true sense of the word, and then there is food that only pretends to be food. These tend to be the 'fast foods' that you reach for when you don't prepare a meal or when hunger strikes and you simply have nothing better on hand.

Quite often it is also a problem that you are TOO FOCUSED on what you are EATING.

Yes, controlling your diet certainly does, but it must not completely control you and keep you so busy that you are unable to do anything else. I was recently intrigued by a post where a lady asked if a restaurant had calories written next to their food... When you understand that looking and feeling good is not about having everything counted to the gram, nonstop checking and eating exactly 2.5h - 3h apart, then you're halfway there. Because you can't universally say how many times a day and at what intervals you should eat. I am sure you know that some days are longer and you can manage six meals, but if you have a longer or busier schedule, you can manage only four meals. I find it crazy to say that three meals a day is enough, just like you have to eat seven times. It's up to what works for each of you and how comfortable you feel. When I'm hungry, I just go eat and don't worry about whether I ate five hours ago or four times today and that's enough. Eat when you feel hungry and don't snack every now and then. The moment you eat healthy, colorful, balanced, varied, and incorporate your favorite foods (whether it's baked goods or maybe a sweet every once in a while) and enjoy life, the results you've been waiting for will come. It's just better not to worry too much about it.

For example, have you noticed with any sport other than fitness that they focus so much on diet? In fitness, it's either hard dieting in order to sculpt, or overeating after a long deficit. Unless you're planning a competitive career, don't even look to this industry for much inspiration on healthy eating. Look at hockey players, rowers, and similarly high-speed sports, for example, where of course they tackle food, but not on the basis of putting meat on their plate and wondering if they can eat it whole, lest they accidentally have 2.11159 g of protein and "burn" their kidneys. They just don't do it. They're hungry, they eat a good meal, and that's the end of it. And also note that this type of person usually looks their best. They don't sweat the small stuff and their bodies are often in better shape than people who weigh every gram they put in their mouths every day.

Yes, it's fine to maybe weigh your food for a few days/weeks to get an idea of how much of what you're eating (supposed to be eating)..but to do it your whole life? You definitely don't have to. Eat a lot, eat healthy, have the occasional vice, play sports, have fun, do what you enjoy, surround yourself with positive people who will support and motivate you. And most importantly... everything you do, do it FOR YOU.