Woodlands Fitness Centre

Top 5 food rules

Thursday 19th September 2013

You can't transform your body without good nutrition. Somewhere along the production line, food got complicated. We no longer eat only what we hunt, grow or buy from markets. Countries that eat lots of processed food, meat, added fat, sugar and refined grains also suffer from high rates of obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular illness and cancer. But it doesn't have to be that way. These simple eating rules will help you sift out the nastiness from your dinner plate - here's his top 5. Follow them to get yourself a body that looks as healthy on the inside as it looks on the outside.

1). Don't eat any packaged food your great grandmother wouldn't recognise. Imagine your nan's mum at the supermarket. She picks up a pack of cheese sticks and hasn't a clue what they are. There are now thousands of products our ancestors wouldn't recognise. The reasons to avoid them include the huge number of useless calories and chemical additives they contain and the plastics in which they are packaged that could leak dangerous chemicals into the food itself.

2). Avoid ready meals with ingredients you wouldn't keep in your kitchen. Ethoxylated diglycerides? Cellulose? Xanthan gum? If you wouldn't cook with them, why let others use these ingredients to cook for you? Whether these additives pose a proven threat to your health or not, many haven't been eaten by humans for very long, so we don't know what they could do. It's best to avoid the unknown.

3). Eat only foods that will eventually rot. What does it mean for food to 'go bad?' It usually means the fungi, bacteria and insects that we compete with for nutrients, got to it. Processing is a way to extend the shelf life of food by protecting it from these competitors. But this often removes nutrients, such as ones that go rancid, like omega-3. Fewer nutrients mean you're less healthy and less likely to build muscle and burn fat.

4). Don't eat meat every day - keep it for special occasions. Flexitarians - people who eat meat a couple of times a week - are as healthy as vegetarians. But there's evidence the more meat you eat, the greater your risk of obesity, heart disease and cancer. It could be the fat, the type of protein, or that meat is pushing plants off the plate. Be on the safe side by swapping portion sizes: more veggies, less meat. It'll make you more of a man by making you less of your gut.

5). Eat all the junk food you want, as long as you cook it yourself. There's nothing wrong with eating sweets, fried foods and pastries every now and then, but food manufacturers have made eating these formerly expensive and hard-to-make treats so cheap and easy, we're eating them every day. If you made all the crisps you ate, you'd eat them less often. The same goes for cakes, pies and ice cream. Enjoy these as and when you're willing to prepare them.

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The Woodlands Fitness Centre Ltd
A: Unit 29, Peak Village Estate, Chatsworth Road, Rowsley, Derbyshire, DE4 2JE
T: (01629) 733 123
E: Woodlandsfitness@yahoo.co.uk
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