When you come from Boston, as I do, you can’t help but be a Red Sox fan.
Chris Sale is an ace pitcher for the Red Sox. Unfortunately he’s had some tough injuries and surgery and has made a valiant effort to recover and get back on the mound again. He spent time during the rehab process thinking of changes he could make to maximize his performance. Nutrition became a focal point, despite the fact that weight was never an issue (183 lbs, 6’6”) other than he might be too thin. But Chris Sale said he has made some significant adjustments to his eating habits and discovered the power of food in the healing process.
Chris said “I made a lot of changes, just with junk food and processed stuff and gluten, The list goes on and on. Looking back, I didn’t really take really good care of myself in that aspect of my life — how I was fueling my body and the stuff I was eating. You can ask my teammates. I would show up on game day with a bag of McDonald’s or Taco Bell and that was my pregame meal to go pitch. That, mixed with a little bit better sleeping patterns and more hydration, I think has helped me out a lot.” (from Massive.com)
Are You Getting the Nutrients You Need?
Sadly, the focus so often is on weight, not nutrition. But as Chris Sale’s experience points out, you can be quite slim and be poorly nourished. The junk food he ate gave him plenty of calories but very little in the way of nutrients. Those junk food calories are mostly inflammatory in nature. Not good when you’re trying to heal, and pitch.
If you have achy knees, or chronic headaches or any other type of pain, look at your food and your hydration. Are you getting an adequate amount of protein from lean antibiotic/added hormone free meat, lentils, beans nuts, tofu or low sugar yogurt? Are you eating multiple servings of multicolored vegetables and fresh fruit? Are you eating a couple portions of organic whole grains like quinoa and brown rice, both of which are gluten free? Are you drinking multiple glasses of water daily and limiting caffeine and sugar free sodas as well as regular sodas? Are you limiting your sweets to very infrequent indulgences? Consider this as a framework for high nutrient healthy eating. Look at where you might be deficient in getting the nutrients you need and slowly make corrections. Experiment a bit and see where you might want to make some changes.
A Couple of Client Stories
It’s not only professional athletes that benefit from nutritional changes. I worked with Emily who was recovering from uterine cancer. She worked in a field where lunch was always on the fly and late days in the office resulted in microwave popcorn for dinner when she got home hungry and tired. After a few weeks of adjusting her processes, advance meal prep being one of them, and eliminating the popcorn and other junk, Emily reported that her chronic queasy stomach felt much better. Without realizing it, Emily had been feeling poorly for some time. Changing her food and routines made her feel much better.
When I first met Carol, she told me she’d been on every diet you can imagine, and she named several of them. Her bookshelves were loaded with Atzins, Zone Diet, Weight Watchers, Keto , Grain Brain and Paleo to name a few. She was frustrated because she’d lose weight and then gain it all back. What was missing was the idea that healthy eating that stabilizes weight is a way of life, not a diet with a time frame. It’s a way of life in what you eat, who you associate with, how you manage your time and your stress, and how you value your health, not the scale. It was not easy to get Carol to stop weighing herself daily. but once she realized it was not what the scale said, it was learning how eating enough healthy foods and not too much could be a way of life that would lead to gradual weight loss.
Notice Marketing in Women’s Magazines
Here’s what I think they are telling us:
you must be perfect
you must be ageless
you must be happy
you must be slim
Believe you are perfect just the way you are. Once you do you will care enough about yourself to nourish yourself in the best ways possible, through nourishing food, rest, movement, serenity and warm connections. These are the 5 Pillars of Lifelong Wellness
Visit my program page for information on options for making changes in your nutrition. Along with coaching options, you receive a copy of my book Food Becomes You - Simple Steps for Lifelong Wellness, or you can order the book separately.