Food As Fuel: 6 Things You Need To Eat To Maximize Your Performance

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You put in the hours in the gym and on the mat honing your skills and developing your body into a well-oiled machine, but are you giving it the high octane gas it deserves?  Most likely not.  I don’t say that to piss anyone off, but rather it is what I have observed over the last 20 years I have been working with athletes.  The focus is always on the exercise and vary rarely on the nutritional components of their program.

Lucky for you I am going to give you the “cheat sheet” on performance nutrition so you can reap the benefits that a proper diet can yield. Grab a notebook and start writing these down (Or just copy and paste like a normal person.)

1. Fruit – I’m not talking about guzzling down a giant container of “Grape Drink”, but rather try grabbing a piece of ACTUAL fruit. You know, that stuff that grows on trees and bushes?  Berries, bananas, apples, pears, pomegranates (Good luck getting those little red things out in less than an hour), grapes and oranges all count.  If it comes in the natural state it existed in out in nature, you’re probably doing a good job when it comes to picking out your fruit to eat.  Fruit has so many of the things you need for your body to perform at its best like natural sugars, vitamins, minerals, fiber and water all in a handy-dandy carrying case.  Thanks Mother Nature, you rock!

1. Eggs – Don’t let me catch you messing up Nature’s perfect food by disposing of the yolk and eating only the whites. Eat the whole damn egg, not just the whites.  Egg whites by themselves suck for many reasons including:
   1. They taste like cooked white crap
   2. They are boring as all get out
   3. They don’t have any of the kick-ass fats and proteins found in the yolk
   4. Did I mention they are boring?

Whole eggs give you the protein needed to repair all of the damage you’ve caused to your poor body with those killer workouts. Work hard, eat well, get results.  See the pattern?

3. Colorful Veggies – Grab you some deep green swiss chard, some bring red beets, a couple neon orange carrots and a few slices of yellow squash and you have a nutritional neutron bomb ready to blow your gains out of the water. Those different colors and variations between different kinds of veggies, means they each have a unique combination of micro nutrients, minerals, vitamins and macro nutrients.  Mixing up the types of veggies you eat helps ensure you don’t have any nutritional holes in your menu plan.  Plus it looks cool as heck when you serve it up.  Aren’t you just a fancy pants!

3. Avocados – Repeat after me: Fat is good! Incorporating natural fats in your diet helps keep your nervous system running smoothly and all of your hormones doing what they are supposed to.  Did you know Testosterone is a derivative of cholesterol?  Yeah, we might want to make sure there is enough dietary fat to ensure that stuff doesn’t get too low! (That’s boys and girls you know, so don’t think you can get out of eating fat ladies!)

3. Quinoa – This is a tough one…to pronounce anyway. KEEN-WAH.  There, better?  So, quinoa is what is known as a “psuedocereal” and oddly enough it is related to beetroots and spinach.  Go figure. So how nutritious is this stuff?

Here is the nutrient breakdown for 1 cup of cooked quinoa, or 185 grams:

• Protein:8 grams.
• Fiber:5 grams.
• Manganese:58% of the RDA.
• Magnesium:30% of the RDA.
• Phosphorus:28% of the RDA.
• Folate:19% of the RDA.
• Copper:18% of the RDA.
• Iron:15% of the RDA.
• Zinc:13% of the RDA.
• Potassium:9% of the RDA.
• Over 10% of the RDA for Vitamins B1, B2 and B6.
• Small amounts of Calcium, B3 (Niacin) and Vitamin E.

Got it?  Go buy some of this stuff today.  No, really, get going.  I can wait.

 

6. Beef – Yeah, that’s right. You know what is for dinner tonight baby.  Some good ol cow.  Beef has gotten a bad rap for far too long my friends and for no good reason.  Some idiots out there started this nasty rumor that fat is bad for you and because beef in all of its beauty can have a relatively high amount of fat content, it too went to the wayside on dinner plates across America.  Thank goodness that whole mess is over with and science has again shown us that beef = good.  Beef is super high in protein and if you buy meat from happy cows (grass fed) you’ll get happy fats that can actually improve your cholesterol levels and triglycerides.

One small tip for you here folks, don’t overcook the crap out of your beef.  If you want to have a steak, it shouldn’t be cooked until it resembles a shoe in consistency.  Sometimes less is more my friends.

 

You’ll notice Cheetos weren’t on my list.  Hey you, I can see the damn orange on your fingers, put those down!

Anyway, back to my point.  Cut out the processed crap, eat more whole foods and drink more water.  You’ll be shocked how much better you feel and perform in a very short period of time.  Our bodies are high performance machines start treating it like one by giving it the right fuel and you might be surprised how you feel next time you compete.

Originally posted 2014-12-17 00:49:05. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

The post Food As Fuel: 6 Things You Need To Eat To Maximize Your Performance appeared first on The Fight Mechanic - Jason Parsons.

by Jason Parsons via The Fight Mechanic – Jason Parsons