You Can’t Outrun or Outride A Bad Diet

It’s true what they say you can’t outrun, or even outride a bad diet. That is because of fitness, nutrition, and energy levels are all intertwined. It means if you want to be successful in your chosen sport or activity, you need to make sure user eating is on point too. It doesn’t matter how much exercise you do, in what you are putting in is rubbish, you are going to get the same out.

Exercise and Diet

While most people think the key to a healthy body is exercise and lots of it, it is actually more dependent on what we eat, than how many calories we burn off.

Remember food is there not just to provide energy, but it’s also integral to the proper functioning of your organs and systems. The nutrients, or lack thereof that you derive from food, all contribute to how effective your system works as a whole.

In fact, your diet makes up 80% of the cause of weight loss, with exercise only clocking in at a measly 20%. Yes, exercise burns more calories and raises your metabolic rate, so your body burns more energy even in a resting position. But, the great majority of weight loss and healthy weight maintenance is attributed to the food we consume. That is why most fitness programs come with a nutritional plan as well. You can see what we mean by researching the latest health and fitness crazes at tone it up reviews. What you put into your body affects it to a greater extent than anything else.

It, therefore, follows that to get the best performance from your body, you need to put in high-quality fuel. That means it is essential to deal with your diet as an integral part of your fitness and activity.

You are what you eat

So there might just be something in that age, old adage ‘you are what you eat.’ In basic terms we’ve come to think of it as eating a lot of fat, makes you fat.

In fact, fat has been the enemy for a really long time. However, recent research shows that this is not necessarily the case. Good fats are essential your body’s healthy function. They contain essential amino acid chains that your body cannot produce on its own. They also lubricate joints, which is important for exercise, and help brain function and development.

It’s even been mooted that they help to break down the bad hydrogenated and saturated fats in your system. This means eating them can lower your risk of subcutaneous fat storage and the associated problems this causes.

The problem with sugar

Another foodstuff that gets a bad rap is sugar. But then again, how many cyclist do you know that have a bag full of Jelly Babies and Jaffa Cakes to take on a ride? It i of course because they are easy to eat and choked full of sugar to help boost their mid performance ride. But, unfortunately, that sugar could be doing more harm than good.

Sugar is absorbed quickly into the bloodstream when eaten. This at first causes a spike in energy, often know as a sugar rush. This can be helpful for athletes who need to maintain a high energy performance over a space of time. The problem is that it’s not all that sugar does to your system.

Firstly, once the high has happened there is also a rapid fall of available energy in your system. This is often known as a sugar crash which causes people to feel sleepy or exhausted. Not much good if you are on a long ride or run. The best you can hope to do is just keep on pumping your body full of the sweet stuff, in an attempt to stave off the crash until you have completed your goal.

Secondly, the flood of sugar into the system releases the hormone insulin. This is needed to process the sugar, for it to be used then and there, or be stored for later use.

The problem is that if you flood your system with sugar regularly, then your cells can become insulin resistant. This means that they don’t respond to the release of insulin in the normal way. The don’t use or store the energy that the sugar in your system is providing. Therefore you blood sugar level stays high. You body then try to compensate and makes more insulin. This is because the stuff it has already made doesn’t seem to be doing its job properly. This can lead to all sorts of nasty health conditions like weight gain and diabetes.

That is why a lot of cyclists try to find ways of providing energy for their rides that don’t include the heavy use of sugar.

Eating Clean

One way of consuming less sugar and sorting out your food consumption is to, check out the trend for Clean Eating. In a nutshell, it’s a way of eating that prioritizes nutritious whole foods, over sugar rich, processed ones.

Many people are claiming it has weight loss, fitness, and health benefits, but what is it all about?

Well, the idea is that wherever possible you avoid pre-made or pre-packaged foods, so it means a lot of cooking and meal planning for the week. Unlike other diet plans you can eat bread, and pasta and even cookies. As long as they are created with ‘clean ingredients’ so not expect the to taste like the packet ones.

In particular, it has gained popularity because refined sugars are left out in favor of natural fruits, agave or stevia. It means you don’t have to cut out any particular type of food or cuisine, bit just have to cook them following clean principles.

Also, Clean Eating also promotes the consumption of unsalted nuts and nut kinds of butter.  This is ideal for bike riders, as the size of nuts and seed is particularly advantageous to the athlete on the go. Not only are they small and portable, but they are also a fabulous source of energy that won’t cause a sugar rush. So picking a good fat snack over a high sugar one will help to prevent the associated insulin resistance pattern and the problems that it can bring.