Diet Basics
I'll start this page about diet basics with a recent story. From Singapore, I went with the basketball team that I coach to a semi-rural area in South East Asia to play some of their village teams. It’s a good experience for these young players. When we foreigners play in this kind of rural setting, the game is the center of attention of the entire town because there simply isn’t much going on there in the evenings.
This story is not about my travels. It is about what I saw there. I was rather disturbed by the obesity rate of the children. I mean sure, in developed countries with our fast food and sedentary lifestyles it’s possible to see kids growing to obscene, blimp-like proportions but it’s the furthest thing from my mind for a rural setting.
What I noticed
But there they were, 3 brothers, age 5, 8 and 12 watching the game. They had
bellies sagging over their pants lines and rolls of fat covering every part of
their bodies. And they were not alone, there was a huge proportion of overweight
and obese kids (no, I didn't calculate their BMI... I didn't need to).
Having this kind of belly fat is simply killer. And from my observation I would guess about 30% of the kids age 12 and below are horribly obese. And another 30% are overweight. Scary (although admittedly, unscientifically gathered) statistics.
But why? These kids don’t have as much TV or video games (although they do have some) as the big city kids do, and they are comparatively active.
Why is this happening?
It’s simply a matter of the foods that are available to them. The foods that the
kids are all eating there are a surefire way to get tubby. And the prices of
these foods make them the food of choice. 8 large packets of fried snacks, each
packet the size of a medium fries at a fast food joint costs an amazingly cheap
0.40 USD. That’s 5 cents per packet…
It's no wonder the kids are blooming in all the wrong areas! But guess what? The weight gaining properties of those foods (trans-fats and high fructose corn syrup) are present in many of the foods that are available to us as well. So we need to beware.
What about you and I?
As a personal trainer in Singapore, I realize that food is a touchy subject we are abut to embark on here.
In Singapore, food is so integral to our daily
lives. This means 2 things. Correct diet basics can make a huge difference to
your progress because it’s such an integral part of life. On the other hand,
poor diet basics can be a big stumbling block for the very same reason.
Nutrition is so important that if you are looking for physical improvement, poor
nutrition will make your goals impossible to achieve.
Let’s put the importance of proper nutrition and diet basics into perspective. We will take a look at what it would take to overcome lousy eating and yet attain a decent physique.
The general consensus among the top personal trainers in Singapore and around the world is that it would take about 3 hours of intense physical activity (brisk walking or harder) EACH DAY to overcome a poor diet. I ask my clients to get about 3-7 hours of activity per week, but this is 3 hours each day.
I have just one question…
“Are you that free?”…
“no” you say?
I didn’t think so. You have a job, school, family, social and community commitments!
That’s why the wise way to go about this is to train hard and to eat right. “Eat right” seems easier said than done. I’ll admit that having good diet basics takes the ability to change some habits that may have been around since childhood (do you really need need NEED a bunch of sweet stuff for dessert each meal because that’s what you have been doing since you were six?). But it can be done, and faster than you might imagine as long as you keep the diet basics in mind.
Eating wisely is slightly more
complicated than the oversimplified statements which are really common like -
“eat more to gain weight and eat less to lose weight.”
As a personal trainer... This makes me very concerned
That is a very shortsighted approach that will fail in the long run. In
Singapore where I work, I have seen many people
who diet in such a way end up malnourished because the drastic cut in calories
is due to cutting out foods that contain vital nutrients. (It is also possible
to have a high calorie diet made up of lousy foods and that could lead to
malnutrition as well despite the high number of calories)
In addition, the minimal calories cause your body to think “oh I am lost in the jungle, I need to survive, I will get rid of all the things that require excess calories to maintain because that would need more food which I may not be able to get”.
These are examples of poor diet basics but unfortunately many people use the poor methods described above.
Muscle loss is the result. Your metabolism slows down, that means a lower ability to use calories in the once you finish the diet. Thus, you will get fatter than ever after you go back to normal eating.
This is what happened to many of my female friends when they went to traditional “slimming centers”. Quite a scam, yet they have no shortage of clients that return over and over again because of the fact that the slimming effect does not last.
What other industry gets repeat customers because of their own incompetence?!! Not many. But the slimming industry lacks diet basics or exercise fundamentals. It gets repeat clients to be fatter and weaker than ever in the long run! It is full of both fads and unfortunately, failure.
Another troubling trend is the ad campaigns that present one diet or food as the magic cure to all our eating issues add even more confusion to the average reader.
It seems like you need a PhD in nutrition to get things right (and even that is no guarantee). Often a diet will make one nutrient or food the enemy when in reality there are few purely “evil” foods (of course there are some... and these will have to go!). You just have to know when to eat them. We cannot let the advertisements “teach” us about nutrition. We need to be able to discern for ourselves what we should be putting into our bodies.
As a personal trainer in Singapore, I want to help set the health and fitness industry on the right path.
The right approach
Remember, if you had a million dollar, top of the line sports car? What fuel
would you use for it? Only the best grade fuel. Your body is your transport for
life whether you like it or not. It’s far more precious than any car. You need
to fuel it correctly.
The key to success as usual is a winning, champion mindset and a willingness to develop new, healthy habits to replace old, destructive ones.
I have seen personal training female clients here in Singapore go from really (and I mean really) soft to “wow!” in less than 6 months and guys who go from beanpoles to rock solid in a year. All this because they put what I have taught them into action and really got their eating habits in order.
Written For www.CoachJon.com Singapore Personal Trainer & Fitness Expert
Return From "Diet Basics" to the article page