Friday, February 8, 2008

Preception

I have been auditing a class of new employees through a personal training course. They have been pretty involved and its fun to see them get smarter as the days progress. The instructor, a good acquaintance, makes it all enjoyable. It sort of makes me feel smart, knowing that on the subject I am very well versed compared to new and open people. I haven't felt very smart lately. I certainly don't have all the answers, nor speak up when I do, but I have given a couple of funny anecdotes. Most of these employees are trainers with weight room backgrounds and mentalities so when I pipe up about long distance triathlon training it brings humor because they can't comprehend a training weekend of an 80 mile ride and 16 mile run. To them a workout consists of zero cardio and a total of thirty sets over sixty minutes. A long run might be considered a 5k. You know, because its metric.

I ran into 'just one more person' this week in class, who has a diet that has her not eating after 8pm. Her excuse is she goes to bed at ten, works out at five in the morning and eats breakfast around 7am. Thats eleven hours without eating and a workout in there to boot. It amazes me the mythos surrounding nutrition. In reality this person should be working within her daily nutritional intake and having a larger meal at night or more likely eating closer to bed time and then eating or drinking some calories before her workout.

Ack! I could go on forever. But that is what this class does, teaches people the fundamentals of nutrition and supplementation so that when they have clients they use modern fitness techniques and not gym myth or self help pap.

Someone will ask so here is the answer, just eat like you know you should. Whatever you put on your plate, most likely take half of it off. The less processed the better. The fewest combined ingredients the better. The fresher the better but yes frozen vegetables and fruit are often better nutritionally than stuff in the bins. Eat often. Graze through five small meals and not two large ones. Drink as much water as you can. There is much more but thats the gist.

6 comments:

M said...

It's almost laughable how basic and simple good eating is, and how many people don't get it. Where did this whole "no eating after 7 or 8 pm" come from? I think it was Oprah.

I would shrivel up like a raisen if eating after 8pm was banned.

TriBoomer a.k.a. Brian said...

When I would visit my grandmother's farm she insisted we grandchildren have one more meal before bedtime. Since we all had morning chores before breakfast she knew we would need the energy to function well.

Funny thing how she instintivly knew what was best.

Thank you for your post. There is sound advice in your words.

Stay tuned...

21stCenturyMom said...

If only that type of advice sold books there wouldn't be so many dogmatic, stupid, ill conceived diets out there.

Iron Girl Nyhus said...

Hmmm... now you've got me thinking...

Papa Tweet said...

Yes, I agree with you. Just be sensible. Eat only when you are hungry. Eat often. Eat colorful foods. Don't eat processed foods. Those are my rules too. I think the key word is sensibility.

J~Mom said...

Great advice. It's like the last piece of the puzzle for me...my nutrition has suffered for way too long!