Busy Bee Health Essentials 1: The Importance of Nutrition
The Importance of Nutrition
1. What are nutrients? (The basics in short): nutrients are the building blocks your body needs to function well. There are five important nutrient categories: protein, carbohydrates, fat, vitamins, minerals. A sixth might be considered as well. This is water (however: water = minerals).
Why is nutrition so important? I believe we all know it but don't have the time or consciously take the time to consider what it means to eat healthily or take care of your body's nutritional requirement. I'll try to make it short.
1. The correct nutrition is important to keep your body healthy.
Hint! Healthy might sound a bit vague considering how much information is available on the internet. So let's clarify what healthy means. Healthy = your body is working to the best of its ability. It's working at 100%. It's working the best it can and efficiently to help you achieve your goals. You don't hurt anywhere. You don't forget what you were about to do just two seconds ago. You don't have problems with energy.
Does this sound like something your body is currently NOT doing? Do you feel some aches here and there? Do you feel like the problems you are thinking about should be solved faster or that you're much too tired most of the time? That's likely because you haven't paid a lot of attention to your nutrition. Without the correct nutrients reaching your system (= body) you're bound to develop some aches as your body tries to repair itself with substances you're no supplying it with.
2. Knowledge of nutrition is important because without knowing what to put into your mouth, you're more likely to put in junk. And the more junk you put in the more lethargic and energy-less you'll feel. That's a given. If your body doesn't get the nutrients (= building blocks of efficiency) it needs, then you can't expect it to work at its maximum efficiency any more than if you put diesel into a regular gas engine.
3. Nutrition is actually quite easy to do and will simply all aspects of your life (including work, home life, hobbies, and necessary tasks such as food preparation) drastically if you invest just a little bit of time in learning the basics. Don't have a little bit of time? Ok. Then spend the minuscule amount of spare time you have (or even want to spend) on reading this blog. It'll all be explained in less time than it takes you to eat a cheeseburger.
As soon as you understand the basics of the ideal diet for your busy life you'll be freed from having to think of it ever again. And the occasional slip won't hurt you much either.
Let's examine briefly what you really have to know about Nutrition
It sounds complicated but is not. It comes from the food you eat and therein some foods are more nutritious than others. In general: a simple apple (= unpackaged food) or a piece of densely packed rye bread (pumpernickel) are much more nutritious than highly processed foods (= packaged foods) which have been stripped of everything that might have been healthy in the raw material.
A lot of products you can buy in the shop (which come mostly in packages = packaged foods) have been processed in order to become more palatable (= tasty but usually unhealthy). An example: wheat. The regular white wheat flour you can buy in a shop (to make cakes or other pasty treats) is almost 100% empty calories. The nutritious parts of wheat (all the stuff that gives wheat it's yellowish-brown colour) have been stripped from it to leave only the delicate inside of the grain behind. This has further been processed to make it smoother in order for it to become more palatable. In effect it has become little more than a powder of calories and carbohydrates (but not the good ones. More on that later.)
It follows that: If you want nutrients you need to eat (mostly) unprocessed foods. In the case of wheat this could be whole-grain wheat. Caution! Wheat flour is cheap. It is used to make a lot of the soft and sugary pastries (and even bread) you can buy at the quick-market in your train station. It's the staple a lot of commuters grab onto when they want a quick snack. But it isn't a great snack and neither is it nutritious. It's mostly empty calories. All these will do is make you gain weight while they're not actually supplying your body with anything useful.
The alternative? (In the case of wheat) See if you can find whole-grain bread. A lot of bakeries have those as well (but they are more 'difficult to eat' and therefore not as popular). These whole-grain breads are foods you'll have to chew a bit more (Oh dear!) but they will fuel your body longer than white breads and they will also give it additional nutrients and therefore assist in your quest for good health.
Nutrition is important for both your physical and mental health. Your body can't run for long periods of time without proper nutrition and neither can your mind. We'll look at this in more detail in another post. I hope this post has given you a good basis on why considering proper nutrition is necessary. We'll next look at what role exercise plays in keeping you healthy and the move on to patience and persistence in changing your diet (+ what this diet should look like even if you're incredibly busy).
WriteBot.
Was this post informative? Subscribe to updates on the top left!
1. What are nutrients? (The basics in short): nutrients are the building blocks your body needs to function well. There are five important nutrient categories: protein, carbohydrates, fat, vitamins, minerals. A sixth might be considered as well. This is water (however: water = minerals).
Why is nutrition so important? I believe we all know it but don't have the time or consciously take the time to consider what it means to eat healthily or take care of your body's nutritional requirement. I'll try to make it short.
1. The correct nutrition is important to keep your body healthy.
Hint! Healthy might sound a bit vague considering how much information is available on the internet. So let's clarify what healthy means. Healthy = your body is working to the best of its ability. It's working at 100%. It's working the best it can and efficiently to help you achieve your goals. You don't hurt anywhere. You don't forget what you were about to do just two seconds ago. You don't have problems with energy.
Does this sound like something your body is currently NOT doing? Do you feel some aches here and there? Do you feel like the problems you are thinking about should be solved faster or that you're much too tired most of the time? That's likely because you haven't paid a lot of attention to your nutrition. Without the correct nutrients reaching your system (= body) you're bound to develop some aches as your body tries to repair itself with substances you're no supplying it with.
2. Knowledge of nutrition is important because without knowing what to put into your mouth, you're more likely to put in junk. And the more junk you put in the more lethargic and energy-less you'll feel. That's a given. If your body doesn't get the nutrients (= building blocks of efficiency) it needs, then you can't expect it to work at its maximum efficiency any more than if you put diesel into a regular gas engine.
3. Nutrition is actually quite easy to do and will simply all aspects of your life (including work, home life, hobbies, and necessary tasks such as food preparation) drastically if you invest just a little bit of time in learning the basics. Don't have a little bit of time? Ok. Then spend the minuscule amount of spare time you have (or even want to spend) on reading this blog. It'll all be explained in less time than it takes you to eat a cheeseburger.
As soon as you understand the basics of the ideal diet for your busy life you'll be freed from having to think of it ever again. And the occasional slip won't hurt you much either.
Let's examine briefly what you really have to know about Nutrition
It sounds complicated but is not. It comes from the food you eat and therein some foods are more nutritious than others. In general: a simple apple (= unpackaged food) or a piece of densely packed rye bread (pumpernickel) are much more nutritious than highly processed foods (= packaged foods) which have been stripped of everything that might have been healthy in the raw material.
A lot of products you can buy in the shop (which come mostly in packages = packaged foods) have been processed in order to become more palatable (= tasty but usually unhealthy). An example: wheat. The regular white wheat flour you can buy in a shop (to make cakes or other pasty treats) is almost 100% empty calories. The nutritious parts of wheat (all the stuff that gives wheat it's yellowish-brown colour) have been stripped from it to leave only the delicate inside of the grain behind. This has further been processed to make it smoother in order for it to become more palatable. In effect it has become little more than a powder of calories and carbohydrates (but not the good ones. More on that later.)
It follows that: If you want nutrients you need to eat (mostly) unprocessed foods. In the case of wheat this could be whole-grain wheat. Caution! Wheat flour is cheap. It is used to make a lot of the soft and sugary pastries (and even bread) you can buy at the quick-market in your train station. It's the staple a lot of commuters grab onto when they want a quick snack. But it isn't a great snack and neither is it nutritious. It's mostly empty calories. All these will do is make you gain weight while they're not actually supplying your body with anything useful.
The alternative? (In the case of wheat) See if you can find whole-grain bread. A lot of bakeries have those as well (but they are more 'difficult to eat' and therefore not as popular). These whole-grain breads are foods you'll have to chew a bit more (Oh dear!) but they will fuel your body longer than white breads and they will also give it additional nutrients and therefore assist in your quest for good health.
Nutrition is important for both your physical and mental health. Your body can't run for long periods of time without proper nutrition and neither can your mind. We'll look at this in more detail in another post. I hope this post has given you a good basis on why considering proper nutrition is necessary. We'll next look at what role exercise plays in keeping you healthy and the move on to patience and persistence in changing your diet (+ what this diet should look like even if you're incredibly busy).
WriteBot.
Was this post informative? Subscribe to updates on the top left!
Comments
Post a Comment