I think we all would agree that proper nutrition is a vital part of a healthy and active lifestyle. Unfortunately not many people fully understand at what scale nutrition can actually affect ones physical performance and visual appearance. As Mark Sisson, the author of one of the most popular fitness & nutrition blogs has said: “80% of your fitness related gains (including visual appearance) will come from your nutrition and just 20% from the way you train”. Probably many have heard the saying “ABS are made in the kitchen, not in the gym” and honestly I couldn’t agree more.

Unfortunately it’s almost impossible to offer a “one size fits all” formula when it comes to nutrition. We all are unique – what works for one person will not bring the same results for someone else. It’s vital to get the basics right, but eventually it’s all about individual experimentation.

There are six kinds of nutrients: carbohydrates, proteins, fats, minerals, vitamins and water. With obesity rates hitting all time high it’s pretty obvious that the nutrient ratio promoted by conventional wisdom isn’t optimal. Of course it’s not only the ratio, but also the types of food we use in our diet – carbohydrate rich and refined foods, hydrogenated vegetable oils, etc.

With so many nutrition trends and celebrity diets floating around it’s easy to get overwhelmed and feel lost. In the end it’s important to distance from all the hype and understand that the basics of healthy nutrition are dead simple. First of all you should eat foods that aren’t heavily processed and that are coming from natural sources. Second of all try to eat only food that make you feel good and helps to improve your performance. I can’t emphasize enough the importance of self-experimentation. There are no rules or magic pills, just basic guidelines.

It’s funny how many people are obsessed about reducing fat in their diet, while still loading up on carbs. Fat is an extremely important nutrient which plays a major role in brain development, metabolism regulation and cellular repair. Actually overloading on carbs is what triggers excessive fat storage. The video below will explain this in more detail.

If your aim is to develop a lean, healthy and strong body you might wish to obtain your calories from the food sources listed below.

Please experiment with your food, keep on questioning conventional wisdom and enjoy the process. Even though we have come a long way in terms of nutrition science we still don’t fully understand human body and all the processes (e.g. metabolism) taking place within it.

For more in-depth information on how to get the most out of your diet you might wish to visit the following links:

Mark’s Daily Apple
Robb Wolf – The Paleo Solution
The Weston A. Price Foundation

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