It’s true — many people come into our initial No Sweat Intro seeking out a fitness program, and they’re surprised when the conversation switches to nutrition. Some people don’t know that this is a service that we offer, and others didn’t know it was something that they needed. There are many reasons why nutrition is important to complement your fitness desires. You might be searching for weight loss, muscle gain, to help your sport performance, or just be healthy again. There are a few common pillars that we see when people come through our doors initially, and 9/10 of them – arguably 10/10 of them – can be supported and improved with a coached nutrition program.
So why is nutrition important to these things we want to achieve?
WEIGHT LOSS
This is one of the most common ones we see when we speak to our clients for the first time. After COVID struck, we spent a lot of time sitting around, stuck at home, replacing newfound freedom with bad habits. The weight creeped up, and now people are trying to regain control on their lives. It’s never been as important as it is now to be on a healthy trajectory. So why is nutrition important to complement this pillar?
Nutrition is the base of everything that we do. We can workout like crazy for an hour, but spend the other 23 hours of our day being negligent about what we’re putting into our mouths. It’s great to have a goal, but it’s important that all areas of your life support that goal, so this includes what happens in the other 23 hours of your day. We need to make improvements on our current habits, not necessarily take the restrictive, cold-turkey approach. Having guidance to get through this process and set you up with success to handle social events, restaurant outings, stressful times in your life, etc., is so incredibly important. We want to make sure the other 23 hours of our day support that 1 hour we work incredibly hard during.
Nutrition is absolutely critical in aiding weight loss. Fitness is the accelerant on the fire. But we need to build the fire first, and we do that with nutrition. So while a fitness program will start to help you see results, the nutrition factor is the piece that will really make the difference, and quicker.
GETTING STRONGER
It’s a common perception that in order to get stronger, we just need to push more weight. Well, yes, that is true; we do need to move heavier loads long distances across different time domains. But we also need the nutrition to support that. We need to make sure we’re intaking the right quality of foods first, and then the right quantities. Naturally, if you have never lifted weights before you will see an increase in lean muscle mass. We can emphasize those results however, by focusing on our nutrition to complement that. The right amount of energy will ensure that we have fuel being used to build lean muscle mass and not body fat, and it will also ensure our recovery and hormonal responses are regulated. If all systems are in check, the results will be that much better.
ATHLETIC PERFORMANCE
The trouble is, we think that just in order to be a better athlete, that we need to be doing more athletic things. Spending all our time in the gym training, and training really hard. Then going to practice and busting our butts off out there, to put our training to the test. We go to bed that night, wake up the next day for a game. Might hit a blood-flow session before game time, and then hit the bed after and repeat all over again, day after day.
Recovery is so important for these folks, and recovery doesn’t just look like “taking a day off.” Having the proper framework set by nutrition is important to ensuring muscle repairs itself, energy systems fill up the reserves, and our hormones can do what they need to do. It’s one of the most overlooked factors of most younger athletes that I see, however. Because these are often teenage kids, it doesn’t need to be complicated. Nutrition never needs to be complicated. They just need the information presented in a way to ensure they’re a) eating enough to perform, and; b) getting enough to recover.
If you want a long career, enhance your performance above your peers, or just ensure you feel better during your game, nutrition is absolutely vital in your preparation. Pizza and pop won’t keep you running forever!
BECOME HEALTHIER
I love this pillar when potential clients present this goal to me. It’s something we all should want, don’t you agree? And often when we think of being unhealthy, it correlates with going to the doctors and receiving medication to “fix” whatever it is that ails us. Food is medicine. It can be healing. Food has incredible rejuvenation properties when it’s focused on and prioritized. There have been many clients walk through our door with insulin problems, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, mental health issues, etc., that have all been able to decrease or eliminate their prescribed medication. And as a result, they feel better. They’re better able to function, make it through their day-to-day, have more energy, better mood, and be in a position that allows them to be a human that can contribute to our society.
THE APPROACH
Nutrition doesn’t need to be complicated, yet fad diets or our own perceptions always make it so. As a society, we see fixing our nutrition as this giant burden we take upon ourselves. We’re not invested in it at first because the results don’t support our instant gratification type of personalities we have come to possess. Fitness is easy. It’s one hour of being uncomfortable, but we don’t see nutrition that way. Those 23 hours are daunting, as the opportunity to “fail” presents itself much more wildly. What if the approach was simplified for you? If you could take slower strides, see results as you go because you have committed to making improvements rather than complete changes, would that be easier to digest? What if we focused on improvement and not perfection? What if you had input on the approach – would that make you feel more confident with your newly-made decision?
THE FOUNDATION BEFORE THE DOORS AND WINDOWS
When we build a house, we pour the foundation first. This is important because it provides the base layer for everything else that our home becomes. We get excited about the doors, the windows, the wall paint choice, and the furniture we will put inside. But we know that we can’t focus on those things until we have that very base layer of concrete poured to make the foundation.
Nutrition is the same. We can have weight loss goals, we can want to get stronger, or feel better during our athletic endeavours. We can want to feel healthier and be healthier. But if we don’t start with that framework, it will be a little tougher to see the results we’re searching for, and make the changes we are wanting to make.
It’s not to say that change can’t be made with just fitness – it absolutely can. But once you build the fire, what happens when you pour gas on the fire?
The fire burns a lot quicker, a lot bigger, and it’s a lot more enjoyable to sit by this fire you built.
If you’re wanting to make some changes in your current lifestyle patterns, reach out to us for a FREE No Sweat Intro HERE. One of our Coaches will sit down with you and help you build the best path forward to help you reach the things you’re looking to achieve. If what you’re doing now is not working, let’s have a conversation. Click here to book.