Last week I started a topic that I am personally working through myself. How fit do you need to be? I introduced a little pyramid on how I am approaching my health and fitness at this point in my life. This week in part 2 of a 7 part blog series.
Nutrition is the base of the CrossFit pyramid, and after learning hard lessons in my fitness journey, nutrition is the base of my pyramid too. Many know I spent most of 2018 and 2019, rebuilding my health. I took 14 months of zero drinking alcohol, 105 days of zero sugar, tested ketosis, and ultimately found out that nutrition is the single most important key to healthy living and performance.
In your twenties, you can get away with treating your body like an asshole. Eat what you want, and if you are training hard, you can, in some respects out train your diet. Add kids, life, stress, this, and that, along with sleep deprivation. I could not keep body fat off the same as I used to. As you can see in this photo, some extra pounds accumulated. Things needed to change.
I got a bunch of blood work done, and cholesterol was not where it should be, and also, my testosterone was very low. My first thought was that is why I am gaining fat, low testosterone. Not that my increasing body fat, stress, poor diet was causing my low testosterone. Interesting thought process there. The first thought process removed any personal responsibility for how I was living my life; the second thought was because of choices I made, and the way I was living was causing me to have a poor health outcome. Personal responsibility, something that is void in some segments of our society these days. I almost fell for it myself.
My wife, my health care mentor, said that if I take care of my body for a year, and if my blood work most importantly, my testosterone doesn’t come back to normal after year, then I can look at hormone therapy. Lord knows, being a man in his thirties, I don’t want to suffer from low T. Not to relive this story again, but after a year of chasing a perfect diet, all my blood work, body composition, health and feeling of wellbeing all came back to the optimum levels I should be living as a leader in the health the fitness industry.
It started with nutrition. I found out with my body type being an Endomorph (my body likes fat and dislike carbs), I did very well with a paleo style diet and carbs around the Welded class workouts. It took me a year of testing, keeping notes, and adjusting to finding out what works optimally for me. A year? That seems like a long time. Today I am a year past that journey, and other then the added stress from society, I am feeling better and performing better than I ever have.
COVID shut down I had a few drinks, more than usual. But I held on to my healthy eating pretty strong. Today, I am still going strong on my healthy eating habits, with my biggest fault being not eating enough. Spending a year focusing on my nutrition changed many habits, and now these habits are part of who I am. Now living a healthy lifestyle is not a chore but more of who I am. Nutrition is the foundation of all health.
Nutrition is not complicated after all, but it takes time to learn what you need for you. Everyone is different, and to fine-tune what you need to optimize performance takes time. How optimal you want to live determines how much effort you need to put into your nutrition, but learning some key things, and you can live a very healthy lifestyle with some simple principles. The downside and dirty secrete. It takes work, discipline, self-responsibility, and there are no short cuts.
If you want to live a healthy life, you have to put in the work. You are not alone, and the Double Edge Community is stronger than ever. We are here to help you! If you are struggling with your nutrition, book a consultation, and we can spend time building you a plan.
Our foundation plan is complimentary for Double Edge Members. Email Joaquin@doubleedgefitness.com or [email protected] to get your foundation plan. Or click here to book a consultation with one of these two coaches to detail how they can help you overcome the nutrition hurdles and live your best life.
Basically, to live a healthy life, you must put energy into nutrition; there is no way around it.
Here is a more current photo. Nutrition made the difference, and is still making the difference today.
