FOOD CHOICES: WHAT TO BUY?

When you get to the supermarket, what should you buy? What are the good food choices? It’s not surprising that the foods that promote health and prevent disease are the same foods that maximize energy and growth.

Plant foods will be the mainstay of your diet. They are full of vitamins, minerals, phytochemicals, carbohydrates, and fibers that are essential for energy, growth, and health. Choose whole, unprocessed fruits, vegetables, grains, beans, nuts, and seeds as frequently as possible. Vegetable oils and 100 percent fruit juices also play important roles in your diet. Variety within each of the food groups is just as essential as choosing foods representing each food group. For instance, eat carrots, broccoli, asparagus, cucumber, lettuce, and tomato, instead of eating solely from the bag of mini-carrots that you have stashed in your refrigerator for every meal.

Excellent sources of protein are lean cuts of beef, fish, poultry, eggs, and nonfat and low-fat dairy and soy products. Nonfat and low-fat dairy products are ideal sources of all the bone- building nutrients, some of which are also important for energy and protein metabolism. Again, variety is very important here. Different protein foods offer a mixture of different nutrients in addition to protein. Fatty fish like salmon are high in omega-3 fats, eggs are high in lecithin, dairy is high in calcium, and soy is high in isoflavones and fiber.

Shop the perimeter of your supermarket. That’s where you’ll find the butcher/fishmonger, fresh bakery, produce, and dairy sections. The aisles that offer canned beans and nuts are also important. Generally, the further you progress toward the center of the store, the moreprocessed and refined the food becomes.

Highly refined foods are not only depleted of the nutrients through heavy processing, but they are usually also very high in added sugar. While sugar can be a friend to an athlete when used around exercise according to the Nutrient Timing System, sugar at other times of the day amounts to empty, nonfunctional calories. The Nutrient Timing menu plans are designed to optimize added sugar in the diet to enhance both taste and performance. Sugar is added to the menus in teaspoons with exercise timing in mind. Because your body will benefit most from the timing strategy designed into the menus, it is best to follow that strategy most frequently. But if you would like to have all your added teaspoons of sugar at one meal, it will not hinder your progress if you restrict it to special occasions.