A strict regime of getting yourself into the gym or out on your favourite running or biking route can be worthless if you harm yourself with nasty stuff. Filling your body with supplements such as
creatine,
protein and
glutamine as well as
multi vitamins is a great way to stay fit and firing. However, a strong everyday diet is another awesome way to back up your hard workouts. Here are five rules for clean eating that will have you performing your best into your later years.
1. Water is your friend
What do you do when you want to make something clean? You wash it. What do you wash it with? Water. The inside of your body is no different. There are countless benefits to drinking enough water each day, including appetite suppression. These benefits are amplified for athletes who are constantly putting their bodies under pressure. Choosing water when you’re thirsty also ensures you’re not consuming other sugary liquids. To keep yourself from getting bored with H2O, squeeze lemon or some other natural flavour in there.
2. Trust the process, not the processed
Processed foods tend to be the primary culprits of nasty additive addition. Companies are forced to put in extra preservatives and food colouring to keep products “fresh” during shipping and while sitting on shelves. Unfortunately these substances are the ones that can do the most harm to your body, piling on fat and making you sluggish.
3. Keep it real
The best way to avoid processed food is to rely on good, fresh produce. Eating heaping helpings of fruit and veg is one of the oldest tenants of a healthy diet. But not all produce is created equally. The best way to get the vital vitamins and minerals found in fruit and veg is to buy it raw instead of canned or frozen. This way you’ll get the best, healthiest version of these important foods.
4. Stay in
Everybody likes to go out and grab a bite to eat every now and then. Paying a few bucks to let somebody else worry about cooking and cleaning isn’t such a bad deal, right? While going out to eat can be convenient, it can also take its toll on your body. Giving up cooking and cleaning responsibilities comes with the cost of giving up control of what ingredients are used, and most restaurants aren’t in the business of making sure you’re eating healthy.
5. Read up
Staying vigilant about reading nutrition labels is a key facet of eating clean. There are a couple general guidelines to remember when it comes to checking out ingredient lists. The first is that the fewer ingredients the better. Most of the time, ingredient lists become bloated due to additives and other nasty things your body can do without. This goes hand in hand with another rule: shying away from ingredients you can’t pronounce. These types of ingredients have usually been added after the fact.
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