What are the keys to Good Health & Optimal performance?
Great raw materials to build it from, repair it with, and fuel it with!
Everything our body does is a result of chemical reactions!
Nutrients are environmental substances used for these chemical reactions to produce energy, growth, and bodily functions.
Depending on the nutrient, these substances are required in small amounts or larger amounts. Those that are needed in large amounts are called macronutrients. There are three macronutrients required by humans: carbohydrates (sugar), lipids (fats), and proteins. Each of these macronutrients provides energy in the form of calories.
Micronutrients are dietary components, often referred to as vitamins and minerals, which although only required by the body in small amounts, are vital to development, disease prevention, and wellbeing. Micronutrients are typically not produced in the body and must be derived from the diet.
Enzymes are a substance produced by a living organism that acts as a catalyst to bring about a specific biochemical reaction. Enzymes can be destroyed during food preparation with something as simple as cooking!
Critical nutrients are called Essential Nutrients and are those that the body cannot synthesize on its own — or not to an adequate amount — and must be provided by the diet. These nutrients are necessary for the body to function properly. The six main essential nutrients include carbohydrates, protein, fat, vitamins, minerals and water.
How these nutrients are introduced into your body may have a great impact on how well they are utilized. Nutrients do not work alone but in concert (synergistically) with other nutrients. These nutrients must be provided not only in an abundance of individual nutrients but also the variety necessary for their optimal function.
As living organisms, we are made up of these nutrients, powered by these nutrients, and they run all of the systems in our bodies that keep us healthy and performing at our best! Not all sources of these vital nutrients are the same. Poor quality nutrients do not provide the same benefits as high quality nutrients.
If your body is made up of and run by the nutrients you ingest, should you be settling for inferior grade nutrients from poor nutrient sources or should you choose to have the best?
Currently, we are in the midst of a nutrition crisis as a nation where we’re overfed, yet undernourished. Our food is produced in a manner that makes it abundant and cheap to consumers. It is often made with toxic and addictive additives that are designed solely to ensure repeat consumption. We have an abundance of cheap food that is falling short of the recommended nutrient intake of several key nutrients. Inadequate amounts of key nutrients can leave us feeling weak, feeling sick, with low energy levels, not getting restful sleep, overweight, not handling stress well, poor libido’s, feeling toxic, feeling old, digesting our food poorly, tired, not recovering adequately between workouts. It leaves athletes not performing to their potential.
I shutter at the thought that my tissues are being created by and my body is being powered by cheap & often fast inferior quality foods!
As athletes, if we expect optimal or even adequate performance, we should insist on an abundance of high quality nutrients, from the best nutrient rich sources to have our tissues built, repaired, and nourished so that I will have not only optimal Health, but Optimal Performance. The fuel we use to move our bodies will directly affect how well it performs. And since this is all happening in a water soluble system, we must have adequate hydration.
When you get your nutrition right, you look, feel, and perform at your best!