In educating others about nutrition, I’ve come to realize that aside from religion and politics, food rivals the touchiest of subjects. “Go ahead talk about my character, talk about my appearance, but by God don’t you dare talk about my food!” OK, maybe that is an exaggeration, but sometimes tempers flair on the topic of food.
Hi-ho hi-ho off to work we go..
I often get the question, or series of questions, demanding a simple thumbs up or thumbs down with regards to a certain type of food. “Are apples healthy?” “What about cheese? Is cheese healthy?”
There isn’t always an answer to these questions. Cheese, for example, is just cheese. Apples are, well, apples. Such questions don’t really provide us with a context that will help us eat a functional diet of quality foods. “But, they are just apples! They are healthy, right? Like healthier than red meat, right?”
So often we rely on buzz words or certain images of what we deem “healthy,” or right, or desirable. To continue with our above examples, in our society apples have a generally positive (healthy) connotation. Red meat has a generally negative (unhealthy) connotation. Well, the truth of the matter is if you were to eat a diet of only one or the other you’d be much better off eating just red meat versus just apples. Apples, which are nonessential foods (carbohydrates), are processed in the body as glucose (sugar), which one absolutely could not survive on alone. Red meat, for example, has essential elements to life that one could survive on alone.
Now, of course one shouldn’t eat a diet of just one type of food, but what if you could ask better questions? What if what many associations with nutrition and health you have in your mind are completely false? What if you were open to what might be true, even if it wasn’t what you wanted to hear?
Eating right is difficult. So, if you’re going to make the difficult effort to do so, you should really question what that diet looks like to you. Are animal products bad? Does eating fat make you fat? Is a Vegan diet the holy grail of nutrition?
I bet the answers will surprise you! Take advantage of the nutrition coaching from your instructors to steer your dietary efforts in a direction that will yield quality results!
Logan Gelbrich
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Saturday’s Workout:
5 rounds:
10 Yard KB Rack Lunge
10 KB Cleans
10 KB Push Press
10 Yard KB Rack Walk
10 KB SDHP
10 KB Front Squats