October 2020 - Blob Fitness

Supplements vs Whole Foods, Does it Make a Difference?

Posted on October 26, 2020 by Bashir Murtaza

Supplements vs Whole Foods, does it make a difference? Many people just throw down protein supplements or multivitamins in their daily diet.

Obviously, all things you get from supplements you can get from food though. Usually, we take supplements because maybe we don’t like the food that it usually comes from or we just don’t have enough time to eat that food. Do the pros of having whole foods though outweigh the pros of convenience of supplements though?

Pros of Taking Supplements

One of the main benefits of supplements is that it’s convenient. You can take them at any time that benefits you and usually, you can get them in forms that taste better than the whole food.

Convenience

So if you’re traveling to work or just getting out of the gym and you need to throw down a protein shake, that works perfectly for you. It’s usually much easier to do something like that than take out a container of cooked chicken breast and eating it on the spot.

Isolation

Another plus to supplements it that you can isolate the things you need and take what’s needed. For example, if you’re deficient in vitamin D, you can easily just take a supplement for it without having to worry about eating foods that contain Vitamin D that can throw you over your caloric intake.

Cons of Taking Supplements

You might think of things listed in the cons here would be artificial sweeteners. Which I do agree is a con, but I don’t think they’re so negative to have an overall negative impact on your health (unless it’s paired with unhealthy weight and lifestyle) So we know that the main benefit of taking supplements is that it’s convenient for use. So let’s go on to some of the reasons why supplements aren’t too great. So what’s the real issue with supplements?

Too much of nothing

If you ever look in the back of your multivitamins, obviously there is plenty of vitamins in there. However, most of the vitamins that are in there you don’t even really need, and the stuff you do need you probably need to supplement with for somewhere else.

For example, according to a 2011 study, 43% of Americans are vitamin D deficient (1). A great majority within the African American and Hispanic communities. However, if you’re taking a multivitamin you’re probably not getting the RDI (recommended daily intake). Even if you are, if you’re deficient in vitamin D, you most likely need to take over the RDI to have normal levels of it.

Nutrients aren’t Normally Paired Correctly

To piggyback off the example I used previously with vitamin D, let’s say you are taking a vitamin D supplement or your multivitamin contains enough vitamin D to help you keep you in normal ranges.

Vitamin D in general needs plenty of other vitamins and micronutrients to work correctly. Vitamin D will deplete your magnesium levels faster than normal. You also need vitamin K2 for vitamin D to ensure calcium is absorbed optimally. However, you’ll notice that your multivitamin most likely doesn’t contain enough vitamin K2 or enough magnesium to help with this situation, so guess what? You need to start supplementing those too.

The main problem with supplements is that in a lot of cases, it leads to a domino effect (usually in a case if you’re supplementing vitamins and micronutrients). You start supplementing and you’ll realize whatever supplement you may be taking is missing X and then you go to supplement Y to realize supplement Y is missing Z and so on.

Pros of Eating Whole Foods

You’re going to find here that most of the cons of supplementing are the pros of eating whole foods. However, let’s go in more detail on what whole foods can provide.

Having a More Nutrient-Dense Diet

Having a nutrient-dense diet is one of your best options when taking foods into consideration. A Nutrient-dense diet is a diet that contains foods that are packed with nutrients.

Here is a small list of some foods that are considered nutrient-dense and why that is so:

Salmon
- Packed with Omega-3s
- High Protein
- A good source of vitamin Bs, Magnesium, Vitamin D, Potassium
Liver (Organ meats, in general, are some of the most nutrient-dense foods you can eat)
- High in Vitamin A, Vitamin Bs, Iron and Copper, Phosphorus, Riboflavin
- Good source of zinc and selenium
- Good source of protein
Kale
- Packed with Vitamin C, Vitamin A, and Vitamin K1
- Good source of magnesium, copper, potassium
- Good source of fiber
Nuts
- Great source of magnesium, iron, and potassium
- Healthy fats
- High in fiber
Eggs (Mainly egg yolks)
- Great source of protein and healthy fats
- A decent source for vitamin K2
- Good source of vitamin D
Spinach
- High in Vitamin A and Iron
- Good source of magnesium and potassium

With all that mentioned in the list, we didn’t even cover all the other benefits those foods have but just some of the high nutrients they have. Mind you, there is plenty more nutrient-dense foods out there but that’s just a small list of foods compiled for you to get the idea.

Nutrients are Naturally Paired Correctly or are Easy to Do So

The pairing of nutrients is often fairly overlooked. Did you know something like Iron should be taken with something like Vitamin C to help absorption? How about vitamin B12 and folate?

You may already know all of this, but one of the cons I mentioned above for supplements is that nutrients aren’t paired correctly usually. However, with whole foods, nutrients are either naturally paired together or easy to pair together to provide extra benefits.

So for the example that we used earlier that Vitamin D should be paired with magnesium and vitamin K2. If you have a serving of Salmon, you’re already paired with vitamin D and magnesium including the benefits of a good amount of omega-3s and high in vitamin B and selenium content. Now the only thing you’re missing is vitamin K2, which you can get from something like egg yolks.

So something easy for breakfast like eggs, spinach, and lox (smoked salmon) can easily pack you with plenty of the nutrients you need, some are paired naturally, and provide more benefits than you would get from just supplementing all of those individually.

Even with that breakfast in mind, let’s look at the nutrition facts for something like that:

Calories	230
Protein	28g
Carbs	1g
Fat	12g
Iron	12% (RDI)
B12	41% (RDI)
Vitamin A	109% (RDI)
Vitamin D	26% (RDI)
Magnesium	10% (RDI)
Vitamin K(not k2)	121% (RDI)

Now if you look at that, that’s a small breakfast that easily covers a lot. We also aren’t looking at the other individual benefits each food direct has to it as well. That’s what makes eating whole foods that much more impactful.

Cons of Whole Foods

Even though there are many benefits of whole foods. Sometimes eating whole foods is just too inconvenient or it’s too difficult to pair foods with what you actually need.

Not as Convenient

If you have to cook all your meals, it can take up a good portion of the day. Especially if you don’t like cooking, it just becomes a chore at that point. Some people may work long hours and don’t have time to make these nutrient-dense meals for themselves and supplementing at this point is the better option.

Can End up Being Expensive

I do think supplements, in general, are expensive. However, in the day and age, we live in now, I feel that any whole foods you want to buy are always jacked up in price. It’s more of a privilege to eat healthily than anything else now in days. So when trying to find and buy foods that help with your diet, especially with nutrients you’re missing, you may end up spending a lot of money. For example, if you were just eating steak for the protein and that’s it, it will be more cost-efficient to get yourself a protein supplement and call it a day. However, you should be eating steak for the range of benefits it has and not just the protein alone.

So Does it Matter? + Final Thoughts

So to answer the question of Supplements vs Whole Foods and if it makes a difference, it does. Mainly going off supplements can lead you to not truly get all the nutrition you need and usually give you more of the nutrients you’re already good with. Eating whole foods will always be superior to get your nutrients due to its nutrient density and the benefits it has.

Supplementing isn’t bad though. I believe, you should supplement as necessary.

If you can’t go out in the Sun due to the wintertime and you can’t get enough vitamin D from food? Okay, take a vitamin D supplement. You’re supplementing for something that’s missing and you can’t get enough of it from food.

You should supplement as necessary. I do believe it’s very difficult to get all your nutrients from whole foods. However, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try either.

If you want to learn more about dieting and nutrients, check out my article on Principles to Create the Perfect Diet For You.

References:

Forrest KY, Stuhldreher WL. Prevalence and correlates of vitamin D deficiency in US adults. Nutr Res. 2011 Jan;31(1):48-54. doi: 10.1016/j.nutres.2010.12.001. PMID: 21310306.

Pictures:

Photo by Lisa Fotios from Pexels
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5 Reasons to Start Training with Kettlebells

Posted on October 19, 2020October 19, 2020 by Bashir Murtaza

Kettlebells have been all the rage for the past couple of years. You’ll see athletes swinging them 100lb kettlebells and working up a crazy sweat. Honestly, it also usually looks pretty badass too.

What’s makes kettlebells so great though is that they can easily be used for resistance training but also incorporated into circuits. Due to its shape, it’s easier and safer to perform certain moves with a kettlebell than a dumbbell. Like the kettlebell swing.

We have so many different ways of training though. We can do barbell training, dumbbell training, kettlebell training, etc. So let’s go over why kettlebell training is unique and special in its own way and why you should start incorporating it into your workout routine.

1. Kettlebells Give you More Exercise Selection

I think one of the main benefits of kettlebell exercises is that you have a broad selection of exercises to choose from. Even though kettlebells mainly distribute all the weight at the bottom of it, most exercises you even do with dumbbells can be done with kettlebells. Even if you have to slightly modify it a bit more. You can easily do the following exercises with kettlebells that you would normally do with dumbbells:

Curls
Tricep Kickbacks
Shoulder Press
Bench Press
Lateral Raise
Squat
Row

and many more. If you plan on using kettlebells instead of dumbbells, I would suggest looking up form for the specific exercise. Like I mentioned above, since the kettlebell’s weight is mainly distributed at the bottom, there may be more effective ways of doing each exercise with the kettlebell than the form you would use for a dumbbell.

Some of the more highlighted kettlebell exercises to choose from are:

2. Kettlebells are a Free Form Weight which is Easier to Use and Better for Your Body

Kettlebells are free from weights. So it makes it easier to move around and it’s a non-restrictive exercise. Your body will use more stabilizer muscles to maneuver the weight than something like a machine would.

As well, since it’s non-restrictive you can move in the way you need to move. Now, this doesn’t mean you should be swinging with bad form by any means. However, depending on your anthropology, you may need to move weights around a bit differently. Something like machines at the gym doesn’t really let you do that.

3. Full body workout and ‘Easy’ Cardio and Conditioning

I say ‘easy’ cardio cause cardio is never easy, but it’s always a huge benefit when you can incorporate cardio and resistance training together. Hence why kettlebells can be very effective. If you look at the kettlebell exercises I pointed out above, you’ll notice plenty of those exercises are full-body exercises. You can easily combine some of those exercises into circuit training and easily get a full-body workout and some cardio in about 30 minutes’ worth of time. Personally, I find it better to do some type of HIIT resistance training than normal cardio, and kettlebells can easily achieve that.

4. Kettlebells can Train Muscles you Don’t Normally Train

If you ever wrote a training program for yourself and tried in to get in even the smallest of muscle groups, you’ll notice the list of your exercises grow long and the workout can take hours sometimes.

What I like about kettlebells, is that due to its expansive exercise selection you can easily choose exercises that help with train muscles you don’t normally train.

An example of this would be the Turkish GetUp as I mentioned above. When I was training a couple of years back, my rotator cuff was fairly weak cause I never properly trained it. I started incorporating exercises of it in my normal workout and it would just be daunting at some point and it would take too long.

I then incorporated the Turkish GetUp. Since it’s an exercise that helps with rotator cuff stabilization and is a full-body workout, I could easily remove some of the exercises I was doing and just incorporate this. After a couple of weeks of consistently doing it, I started to gain more strength and stabilization in my rotator cuff. However, the best thing was that there were no imbalances either. The Turkish GetUp is easily one of my favorite KettleBell Exercises.

5. Low Equipment Management and Mobility

At the time of writing this, we’re living in the COVID era. Gyms are actually open but plenty of people aren’t going back due to the high risk. Plenty of people are working out at home. What’s great about kettlebells is they don’t take up a lot of space and you don’t need many of them. You can easily have 2 – 3 kettlebells and be set. Since they don’t take up much space, you can always travel with them too if needed. This gives you an advantage that you can train when needed even when traveling without an issue. (Unless the Kettlebell weighs 200lbs?).

How to Incorporate into Your Workout

So we know that kettlebells can be extremely beneficial. Not only for its ease of use but it can provide a good full-body workout and you can do some traditional exercises with them too. So how do we incorporate them into your workout? Well, this primarily depends on your goals. However, let’s go over some normal goals and exercises you can incorporate and replace.

Gaining Muscle

Depending on if you’re already following a hypertrophy program and you’re trying to gain mass, you can easily throw in some kettlebell movements in there as well or use kettlebell movements to replace some exercises.

Here are some exercises you can replace with kettlebells to help with gaining muscle:

Dumbbell Shoulder Press -> Kettlebell Shoulder Press
- Better muscle recruitment and easier to perform
Goblet Squat -> Kettlebell Goblet Squat
- Easier to manage, better weight management
Standard Lunge -> Kettlebell Overhead Lunge
- Using more muscles and stability

Cardio

If you’re trying to get more cardio in, then kettlebells can easily be used to do a quick HIIT workout that works up a sweat.

A quick circuit could be something like the following (All exercises with kettlebells):

Swings x 20
Squats x 20
Lunges x 20
Shoulder Press x 20
Burpees for 30 seconds

Do 3 times and rest 30 seconds in between exercises and sets.

Here is an image version of it if you want to save it:

Even something as simple as that would work up a crazy sweat and provide some good strength gains.

If you’re curious if cardio can be detrimental to your gains, check out this article.

Power and/or Strength Training

Kettlebells can provide benefits to maximal and explosive strength(1). There are plenty of exercises that can help with this but the main one is the kettlebell swing. When done correctly, it can truly have a huge benefit in your training. I would recommend incorporating it into your program. Maybe on a lighter day though or a day, you normally do cardio.

Final Thoughts

I believe Kettlebells can be a real benefit to your workout regimen. Whether it be to gain muscle, add additional cardio, or to assist with your power and/or strength training. What makes kettlebells great though is that they’re fairly easy to get and don’t take up too much space. You will be surprised about the benefits you can see once you start incorporating them. Personally, for me, I like to incorporate kettlebells to help with stability and other exercises I don’t tend to do often. I’ve seen improvements in many areas and I have no doubt that if you incorporate them into your routine, you will too.

If you want a kettlebell workout, feel free to send me an email and we can work one out.

If you want a good kettlebell exercise resource check out Pavel Tsatsouline.

If you’re looking for kettlebells to buy, check out Rogue or Onnit.

Note: I’m not affiliated or sponsored by any of these companies.

If you’re looking for other articles on weight lifting click here.

References:

Lake, Jason P.; Lauder, Mike A. Kettlebell Swing Training Improves Maximal and Explosive Strength, Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research: August 2012 – Volume 26 – Issue 8 – p 2228-2233 doi: 10.1519/JSC.0b013e31825c2c9b
Vancini RL, Andrade MS, Rufo-Tavares W, Zimerer C, Nikolaidis PT, de Lira CAB. Kettlebell Exercise as an Alternative to Improve Aerobic Power and Muscle Strength. J Hum Kinet. 2019;66:5-6. Published 2019 Mar 27. doi:10.2478/hukin-2018-0062

Photos:

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Beer Cheese Dip

Posted on October 12, 2020November 3, 2020 by Bashir Murtaza

I’ll be honest, I’ve only had beer cheese dip for the first time in the last 2-3 years. I had no idea what I was missing out on though!

The warm beer cheese with some pretzels is a great snack to having during October, especially during football season.

I wanted to take a bit of a twist with this recipe and somehow wanted to get more protein in this recipe. So of course, the best option is to use/add Kodiak Cake mix to it. In this case, we’re using the Kodiak Cake Carb Conscious Protein Mix.

Alright, so let’s get down to the ingredients for this.

Ingredients

3 tbs of Kodiak Cake Carb Conscious Protein Mix (Or replace with flour)
1/4 tsp of salt
1 cup of whole milk
2/3 cup of beer of your choice
2 tablespoons of butter
2 teaspoons of Worchester sauce
1/2 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1/4 teaspoon of cayenne pepper or paprika
1 teaspoon of garlic powder
2 cups of sharp cheddar cheese

If you rather have a quick image you can save, here you go:

Steps

Shred cheese in a bowl
Melt butter in a saucepan on medium heat
Mix flour and Kodiak Cake mix and pour in once butter is melted
Whisk in saucepan
Add milk slowly and continue to whisk
Add other ingredients one by one and continue to whisk
Once the mixture is starting to bubble, you can take off the heat

Again, if you rather have an easy image you can save, here you go:

Note: The texture will get thicker the longer it sits so don’t feel like you need to keep adding more Kodiak Cake mixture or flour to it.

There you have it! An awesome Beer Cheese Dip that not only you can use as a dip, but as a spread as well.

You can also refrigerate and heat up again.

If you’re looking for more recipes or another traditional Football snack and that utilizes Kodiak Cakes, click here.

If you’re looking for an amazing pretzel recipe, check out these Soft Pretzel Bites by Jordo’s World!

Principles to Create the Perfect Diet For You

Posted on October 5, 2020November 22, 2020 by Bashir Murtaza

Principles to create a perfect diet is one of the first steps to create a diet that leads to good health. A good diet can make you feel good, feel energetic, and a feeling as if you can take on the world. A bad diet can make you feel terrible and even potentially lead to mental health issues. (1)

So what’s considered a good diet? More importantly, what’s the perfect diet for you? Is it just calories in and calories out and maintaining a proper body weight? Is it eating “clean foods”? or is it a fad diet that you’ve come upon but haven’t really tried? We’re going to break down the principles of what makes a perfect diet for you and how you can achieve it.

Principle 1 to a Perfect Diet: Calories In and Calories Out

Calories in and calories out is a basic measure of how many calories you’re putting into your body and how much you’re burning off.

Why is calories in and calories out important? Well, the main purpose of it is to determine if you’re gaining, losing, or maintaining weight.

Simply, if you intake more calories then you burn, then you will gain weight. If you intake fewer calories then more you burn, you will lose weight. If you intake around the same amount of calories that your burn, you will be maintaining weight (or gaining/losing by a small amount)

I can go into more depth and consideration in an equation like this, but it’s usually broken down as simply as this.

Figuring out though if you’re trying to gain, lose or maintain weight is important. This will give you a key to how many calories you have to intake. If you don’t know how many calories you have to intake, check out my calorie calculator.

For more details on losing weight and gaining weight, check out this article on how to lose weight easily in a step by step process.

Summary: Figure out how many calories you need to intake to meet your goals.

Principle 2 to a Perfect Diet: Figuring out Macronutrients

Okay, so you figured out how many calories you need to intake.

Here is where things get fun and the fad diets start to come into play though.

Macronutrients are broken down into the following:

Protein (4 calories)
Carbohydrates (4 calories)
Fat (9 calories)

Macros play a very important part of your nutrition and will dictate the foods you intake. They also play an important part in how your body functions.

Note: I wrote an article stating Why are Macros Important. It goes into more detail about macros then I will be going in this article. So if you wish to find out more, please read that.

As well, if you already read the article, feel free to scroll down a bit more to see what macro range is perfect for you.

Protein

Protein is one of the main building blocks in terms of building muscle.

Someone who is doing a vegan diet, may not get the adequate amount of protein they need and will also probably be deficient in some micronutrients. Not having the correct amount of protein, for example, can lead to muscle loss, weakness, and other issues.

However, someone on a keto diet, who intakes low carbs, high protein, high fat may sometimes intake too much protein. This can also lead to issues like protein being broken down into sugar (taking you out of keto (2)) and can lead to weight gain.

The recommended amount of protein to make sure you’re not in a deficient is 0.8 grams per kg or 0.36 grams per pound. For someone who works out regularly, you want around 1.5-2.0 grams per kg or 0.65-1 gram per pound. (Assuming you’re working out)

So correcting your protein intake is the most important step.

Carbohydrates

Carbohydrates are something else that plays a big role in your bodily functions, especially when it comes to Fiber.

Someone who’s doing a keto or vegan diet may get a lot of fiber in their diet which is great for them. Someone who’s doing flexible dieting, may not get as much fiber as they really need.

Fiber can play an important role in your vitals too. Fiber (Soluble) actually binds to cholesterol and sugar which slows down carbohydrate digestion. Fiber also helps with stabilizing your blood sugar levels and protect against heart disease.

A good rule of thumb is to intake 10 grams of fiber per 1000 calories in your intake. So if you’re intaking 2000 calories a day, you should be getting 20 grams of fiber a day.

Fat

Fat is the macronutrient that gets a bad rep mainly cause of its name. We think fat will make us fat which is not true. We know excess calorie intake will cause weight gain.

What makes fat dangerous though is that 1 gram of it is worth 9 calories. More then carbs and protein. So it’s a bit easier to go overboard with fat and accidentally intake too many calories.

Fat isn’t all that bad though, especially when you intake the correct ones. Like monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats. Healthy fats can also play a part in helping with other vitals as well.

What Macro Range is Perfect for me?

So the question is, what macronutrient range is best for you? Well, it all depends on what’s sustainable for you and your health status. We already stated, having a specific amount of protein is important. So you should know that already. If you need to figure out your protein range (or range of macros in general), check out the macro calculator to get your range.

Now how about fats and carbs? When adjusting your fat and carbs, you should consider the following:

Sustainability
Health status

Principle 3 to a Perfect Diet: Sustainability

A sustainable diet is a diet that is easy for you to control your calorie range and not make you fall too short or too high of your calorie goal. To me, sustainability isn’t achievable without having foods that also make you happy as well though.

I know plenty of people who do keto diets because it’s sustainable for them. They don’t do flexible dieting because they can easily go overboard and eat too much. And you know what? That’s perfect for them.

They like the food they eat, and they manage to be able to easily keep in their calorie range with feeling in control.

For me, flexible dieting is perfect for me. I don’t like limiting my carb intake. If I do keto or something else, I’m not happy with the foods I intake, then I’ll “cheat” on my diet and be mad at myself. That’s not right and will only lead down a slippery slope.

If your diet is not sustainable, you won’t be happy with it because you won’t be able to follow it and you probably won’t be hitting your calorie range.

For me, my current macros are:

142g Protein
159g Carbs
100g fat

That’s good for me and easy to hit those goals. However, if I feel like too many carbs allows me to lose control and dip too far out of my calorie range, I can limit it. I can easily adjust it and do the following:

142g Protein
40g Carbs
159g fat

They both lead to 2100+ calories a day and I’ll be maintaining my weight without an issue.

All calculations are from the macro calculator.

Sustainability should be your main diet goal.

So what’s sustainable for you?

To find that out, you would need to experiment. I would recommend doing something like flexible dieting first and then from there if you find it’s not sustainable for your goals, try limiting certain foods. If that still doesn’t work try going on something on the more extreme side. I think it would be harder to go extreme and then keep adding in food to see what’s sustainable but that’s up for you to decide.

For example, if you’re doing flexible dieting first and you feel that you can’t help but keep indulging on carbs, try limiting your carb intake. You don’t have to be “keto” you can just be in a low carb state and you would readjust your macros and compensate carbs for fat. It may be easier for you now to maintain your calorie range and hit your macro goals while also it being easy for you to follow.

Health Status

Okay, so we know sustainability is the most important part. However, what happens if you have some type of underlying condition like diabetes or anemia?

Well, now we have to take that into consideration. If you’re someone who’s diabetic, eating things like carbs can get a bit tricky. Depending on your health you need to adjust your carbs, fat, and protein in a way that benefits you.

I believe also knowing your family history should be something you take into consideration. Maybe you’re someone who’s prone to being diabetic or have high cholesterol. So maybe you need to be limiting carbs, intaking more fiber, and/or more healthy fats than other people.

Note: It may take some time to figure out what is sustainable for you. So don’t be upset at yourself if it takes some time to figure out. Keeping adding or eliminating food and play around with your macronutrients in a way that you know is healthy and sustainable. As well, if you do have any history of health issues or underlying conditions, please consult your doctor about what foods can benefit you.

Principle 4 to a Perfect Diet: Micronutrients

Anyone who’s remotely into fitness takes some type of multivitamin and thinks they’re all good. Which in some cases, they are. However, this isn’t always the case.

I believe micronutrients is one of the underrated factors of your diet. For example, if you’re a vegan you could potentially be anemic and not be intaking enough iron.

I think the first step is to go get a test on your micronutrients. See if you’re deficient in anything. If you’re deficient in anything, try getting your diet to add more of that micronutrient(s) to your system.

You can also be too sufficient in a micronutrient and you may need to take out that micronutrient from your system. For example, I’m too sufficient in Vitamin B12. Most multivitamins are stacked with vitamin B12. so knowing that I’m not taking my multivitamin anymore. I try to personally get most of my micronutrients from food rather then multivitamins unless I’m truly deficient in it.

I think Health Status is important here as well. Trying to get micronutrients that benefit you and what you’re lacking is important. For example, if you’re anemic you’ll need more iron in your diet. So you may need to intake more liver or an iron supplement. Maybe you’re deficient in vitamin D (Which a lot of people are and multivitamins don’t have that much) you may need to take a vitamin D supplement or just get out more often.

You want to find what you need and don’t need it. Take out what is useless for you and put in what’s good for you. Dieting in the end all comes down to a balance.

Principle 5 to a Perfect Diet: A Balancing and a Lifestyle

A perfect diet should consist of balancing calories, macronutrients, micronutrients in a way that is sustainable for you. A diet is more of a lifestyle rather than something you do every couple of months. Your diet should make you happy with the foods that you eat but not make you go overboard in any category that can leads to future issues down the line. If that is to be a more extreme diet like Keto, that’s okay as long as it’s sustainable for you and you’re meeting your macronutrients and your micronutrients don’t take a beat in any way. A perfect diet will also make you feel like even if you “cheat” on it, it’s okay. You know you’ll get back on it the next day because it’s sustainable.

Final Thoughts

This article covers a lot but also not enough. Look out for future articles detailing different ways to improve your diet. As well, you can find out more on some of the other topics by checking out the articles I wrote on calorie intake and macronutrients.

There is no perfect diet for all of us. The perfect diet only exists on an individual level.

You may have expected this article to go into foods that will overall benefit you, which it doesn’t. This article mainly goes into the principles of creating a perfect diet and my idea of a perfect diet. Be on the lookout though for future articles detail foods that can usually improve your overall health.

A quote from Bruce Lee that I believe sums up the perfect diet is this: “Absorb what is useful, reject what is useless, add what is essentially your own”.

Put things into your diet that benefits you. Reject what you don’t need. Add in things that are essentially your own and make you happy.

References

Li Y, Lv MR, Wei YJ, Sun L, Zhang JX, Zhang HG, Li B. Dietary patterns and depression risk: A meta-analysis. Psychiatry Res. 2017 Jul;253:373-382. doi: 10.1016/j.psychres.2017.04.020. Epub 2017 Apr 11. PMID: 28431261.
Masood W, Annamaraju P, Uppaluri KR. Ketogenic Diet. [Updated 2020 Jun 22]. In: StatPearls [Internet]. Treasure Island (FL): StatPearls Publishing; 2020 Jan-. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK499830/

Photos:

Photo by Ylanite Koppens from Pexels
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