Where do you get your nutrition from? I was talking to a guy at the gym yesterday and he was telling me about his fitness routine.
He comes into the gym three days a week and does twenty minutes of cardio and hits the free weights for about a half an hour and then he showers and heads back to work (or home or wherever.
) He's an 'older' gentleman in his sixties, and is in pretty good shape, but he told me that he just can't seem to lose those last ten pounds to get to his goal weight.
He has outstanding results so far.
He has lost 40 pounds over the course of two years, but he hit a plateau on hasn't made much progress in the past few months.
I talked to him a bit about muscle weight versus fat weight.
Muscles weighs more per square inch than fat does, so you can gain muscle, become leaner, but stay at the same weight.
He hadn't really thought about that and it put a positive spin on his plateau.
I'm not saying that staying at the same weight means you are losing fat and gaining muscle; that's not really common unless someone is hitting the resistance training pretty hard, and eating right.
That last part is the kicker.
Your diet is the greatest contributing factor to your fitness program and dictates what your body can do.
Think about the food you eat and compare it to the fuel you put in your car.
If you go to the gas station and fill up your tank with unleaded, you'll have efficient fuel economy and a smooth running car.
If you put high octane in there, you may get a little better performance, but not necessarily.
However, if you put diesel in your tank, the car is going to have major issues and unless it's a multi-fuel vehicle, it's going to need major mechanical work to get back on the road.
Junk food is like diesel fuel for your body.
If you put a bunch of junk in your tank, it's going to impact your performance and your fitness levels.
Diet and nutrition are 90% of a fitness program.
That's why Weight Watchers and Jenny Craig and programs like that can get you results if all you eat is their food.
It's total control of that 90% factor.
The problem with those programs is that you are losing fat and muscle, which is not a good thing.
So what are you doing to fuel your body? The best thing you can do is to eat as close to nature as possible.
The less processed foods you eat, the better it is for you.
Whole natural foods such as fruits and vegetables fuel you up and contain lots of nutrition.
You also need to make sure you are getting enough protein in your diet to support, among other things, muscle growth.
I also highly recommend a multi-vitamin/multi-mineral supplement, because it is impossible to get all the nutrients your body needs through diet alone.
I will also drop a hint here that the most popular vitamins (the ones you are bombarded with though television advertisements) are not a very good choice.
The best choices are vitamins that are bio-available, meaning they get processed and absorbed into your bloodstream and are available to your body.
Many of the large name brand vitamins pass right through your system without getting absorbed.