A little bit of everything

Food and nutrition hasn’t always been something I have paid attention to in a constructive way. Ensuring I got an adequate variety of different foods and nutrients was not my top priority. Being someone who has an absolute weakness for bread, has meant when hunger strikes, a lovely slice of fresh bread would hit the spot in one. Thinking about it, bread isn’t unhealthy, therefore eating lots of bread isn’t healthy? Right and wrong. A lot of bread is ok to a limit, but when it is not accompanied by anything else, it is. That’s where I went wrong. I was compromising all the other nutrients my body needed and instead just having bread. I was limiting my calorific intake by eating little else, and restricting the nutrients my body was receiving. As a result, I was loading myself up on carbohydrate for energy, and neglecting almost all other food groups. It was a severe case, but because of the lack of nutrients my body was getting, I became severely anaemic, having a haemoglobin of 7!

I must admit, when I am suddenly caught by hunger now I still resort to bread on occasion. There is however a huge difference. This now consists of toast with almond butter, eggs on toast with avocado, or depending on the student budget, smoked salmon. This helps to supply your body with healthy fats as well as protein and carbohydrate in a balanced, quick, and effective way. It doesn’t take long, and it doesn’t have to be fancy, but ensuring you are getting all he right nutrients is essential. Especially if you are pushing your body to higher limits by running. This is a vital note.

An individual who engages in regular exercises or intense activity, will require more protein, carbohydrate and an all-round greater number of calories. Therefore, if you want to take exercise seriously, make sure you fuel yourself seriously. It is far more complex and influential than you think. And this does not just apply to serious competitive athletes. Anybody who enjoys exercises and wishes to do it for other reasons than to lose weight, must ensure enough fuel is going into the tank. Even if you goal is to lose weight, it is extremely important you are giving your body all the nutrients it needs and not avoiding the key ones in order to cut calories. This is not conductive and it is not sustainable.

It is important to be healthy, but there is no need to ‘cut’ anything from your diet. ‘Everything in moderation’ as they say, is the answer. Allow yourself treats every now and then, eat pizza, but make sure you are getting everything your body requires alongside it. Pizza has all the nutrients you need; protein, carbs and lots of veggies (my favourite topping), so there is no reason to deny yourself of such food. I do eat healthily myself, and don’t have a massive sweet tooth, but my weakness when it comes to dessert is a warm chocolate brownie with vanilla ice cream. If you had it every day, yes, it would become unhealthy, but again, all in moderation.

It may sound like a joke, and I get jokes about it all the time, but your body is a temple. Treat it well, take care of it, fuel it efficiently, and it will do the job you want it to do.

---