What You Need to Know About Reaching Your Fitness Goals – Part 5
Nova Health Club • July 5, 2018
Nutrition is Paramount.
Your choice of food affects everything! Hands down, if you are not consistently following healthy nutritional habits you will struggle to reach your health and fitness goals.
In the previous four parts of this series, we learned that to reach your goals you need to first be healthy and to be healthy you need to limit stress, improve sleep and recovery, functional move better and most important, put as much effort as possible into nutrition. The food you choose to eat has a direct impact on these areas of health - stress, recovery and movement. Food can be either the safest and most powerful form of medicine or the slowest form of poison. If you want to fight stress, improve recovery, move better and reach fitness goals then improving your eating habits is probably the best change you can make for your present body and future self.
Choose Food to Combat Stress. When you are under acute stress, your body releases specific hormones such as cortisol that help you combat the stress by regulating the amount of glucose in your blood (increased blood sugar levels). Because many people suffer from chronic stress, cortisol levels are always elevated and this leads to hunger response signals from the brain that often leads to overeating high carbohydrate or sugary foods. Stressed individuals have worse eating habits compared to those under less stress. As a result these overly stressed people put on unwanted body fat and because of the low nutrients levels from the low quality foods, they do not nourish the body the way it needs and along with becoming fatter, they can end up getting sick too. Being fat and sick is not what anyone wants! But we do it all the time to ourselves whether from ignorance, negligence or socioeconomic pressures.
If you suffer from chronic stress, be aware and take action by choosing super healthy, immune boosting foods! These foods will not only prevent weight gain but strengthen the very cells of your body that are being beaten up by your stress and poor food choices. Food is meant to nourish your body with nutrients, vitamins and minerals. When you are stressed, your body needs more of certain nutrients, vitamins and minerals and the food you eat will either provide this or it will not.
Stress busting foods rebuild and strengthen the body by providing nutrients such as B Vitamins, Omega 3 Fatty Acids and Magnesium. For example, B Vitamins can be found in dark leafy greens, eggs and whole grains. Omega 3 Fatty Acid rich foods include fish, flaxseeds and walnuts. Magnesium can be found in foods such as dark green leafy vegetables, cashews/almonds and legumes. These essentials are not found in the fast processed foods most of us choose to eat when looking for a quick meal to then get back to work with.
Furthermore, fortifying your already healthy diet with supplements to provide the above nutrients and vitamins should also be considered. Note that vitamin supplements in itself will not solve your nutrition deficiencies and should not be used to replace a bad diet. Supplements are just that - supplements - they are made to supplement what you are already doing well.
Improve recovery and move better with food. Exercise training is a stress on the body that breaks down muscle fibers and depletes energy reserves. Great training coaches and athletes know their workouts are not over until after their post-workout meal. After a workout, the average person does not consider their recovery meal and often neglects it entirely or can be seen at the coffee shop with a cappuccino and croissant. Working out serves a purpose beyond the 30-60 minutes of the workout so if you invest your time, money and hard effort into a workout why would you not serve the greater purpose by replenishing your body with a healthy post-workout recovery meal?
Neglecting to eat properly after and between workouts will not allow you to perform your best or get the most out of your future workouts. One of the main goals of working out is to put on muscle mass. Muscles that were exhausted from working out need the right amount of protein and carbohydrates in order for protein synthesis and muscle recovery to occur. Without these nutrients you risk losing muscle and increasing your body fat percentage - exactly what you are trying to avoid! A poor diet in between workouts will also zap your energy levels, affecting both for your daily activities and your next workout. When you recover from a workout with the right foods, your muscles and joints feel better, remain sore for less time and able you to move at their best during the day and at your next workout.
Food should also be used to help you recover from other stresses in your life outside of workouts. For example, when your immune system is weak with a physical illness, after experiencing even emotional stress or after a physical injury food can work in amazing ways that will help you to recover faster! All of these stressors require proper nutrition in order to aid recovery and get you back to feeling like yourself again. Lastly, sleep can also be improved with sound food choices. When you eat a diet high in vitamins and minerals, all the living cells in your body work better, the way they were designed to thereby allowing you to rest and sleep better at the end of your day.
As you can see, changing your nutritional habits is very important to reach your health and fitness goals but it can be one of the most challenging things to change because it takes more than just showing up to the workout or going to bed on time. Even when you know what you should be eating, doing so is much easier said than done. As humans, the food we eat is determined by our emotions, social interactions, media and financial status. To change your nutrition 180 degrees requires addressing all of these areas and doing this is very difficult as it sometimes will require a complete lifestyle overhaul. The good news is that it is possible and can be done over time. Just as it took years to become unhealthy or put on 25lbs, it can take years for massive lifestyle changes to occur. One step leads to the next…
That is why starting an exercise program is sometimes the best first step. Working out an extra three hours a week starts the healthy lifestyle change process and will lead to other positive changes in nutrition over time. Just don’t expect many performance and body fat reduction improvements from your exercise program if you are unaware of how to eat well or have been adapted to many years of a fast/processed food lifestyle. Furthermore, no matter how hard or how much you workout you can never out-train a bad diet.
Great lifestyle training coaches support people by educating, motivating and challenging people to make small progressive changes over time. By focusing on one positive nutritional change at a time, you can master it and then be ready for the next change. Some people attempt to make many changes all at once (all or nothing mentality) and sometimes succeed, however failure is more often the case for these people because they were not able to properly adapt the rest of their life and mindset with the changes all at once. If you are far in the deep end do not worry, it can be easy with one focal point at a time. For example, it could start by changing breakfast first. Then it could be packing your own healthy lunch, then it could be veggies at every meal then it could be changing to organic. Slowly but surely, you will adapt to a new eating plan that will make you healthier, less stressed, stronger, recover faster, move and perform better and get the results you deserve from your exercise program.
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Do Hard Things Now, So Life Becomes Easier Later Modern humans default to the easy way but it's not our fault... Throughout human history, we were wired to survive constant hardship - scarcity of food, threats from predators, harsh environments and manual labor for everything. Our DNA evolved for survival in these conditions, not for modern living. Imagine an early human stumbling across a fruit tree. It made sense to gorge - there was no telling when the next meal would come. The human who gorged had a higher chance of survival than the human who only ate a few pieces of fruit. Practicing self-control in an environment of scarcity would have been a death sentence. Likewise, if given a chance to rest instead of walking miles or hunting, rest was the obvious choice. The problem? Our genes haven’t caught up with modern life. Today, food is everywhere. We don’t have to fight to meet our basic needs. Technology does the heavy lifting, cars replace walking, entertainment is on-demand and calorie-dense foods are always within reach. Left unchecked, our instincts will always lean toward easy options like overeating unhealthy foods (that are so easily accessible) or driving to the store instead of walking. In other words, we’re still hardwired to take the path of least resistance. But here’s the catch: Choosing easy now often means a harder life later and choosing hard now often means an easier life later. Most modern humans are overweight, stressed, tired and dealing with chronic health problems because we’re following outdated survival programming that no longer serves us. It’s time to become aware of these defaults. To override them. To consciously choose the hard thing - because doing hard things is what actually makes life easier in the long run. Hard things like: Going to bed on time instead of watching another episode Preparing a healthy meal instead of grabbing fast food Moving your body instead of sitting all day Walking or biking to the store instead of driving Managing stress with deep breaths and fresh air instead of pouring a drink Looking at your habits instead of masking symptoms with medication It might feel uncomfortable because it goes against everything your biological programming is urging you to do. But that’s exactly why it matters. Don’t think of it as punishment or sacrifice. Think of it as an investment. Every time you take the stairs instead of the elevator, cook instead of order out, or put your phone down to truly rest, you’re building a life that’s easier, richer, and more fulfilling down the road. And remember: Do easy things, and you’ll have a hard life. Do hard things, and you’ll have an easy life. Most of the above information is probably not new to you. That’s because we live in the information age with the internet and now AI - we already know what it is we need to do. The problem however is implementation. This is where having a customized plan and accountability comes in. If you know the hard things you need to do more of but struggle with breaking past your ‘default mode’ then contact us for a complimentary consultation HERE .
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We are back with our second series of 'Pod Calls' available exclusively to our Nova Health Club members. Don't miss these unique sessions to help you level up your health and wellness game! What is a Pod Call? A Pod Call is a live online (webinar like)_ session with a Nova coach, offering support and insights on key health topics like fitness, nutrition, recovery and overall wellness. Why did we create Pod Calls? Our goal is your success and your health goals can not be built on fitness alone. After delivering thousands of personal training sessions, we noticed a disconnect between fitness sessions we were delivering and the other pillars of health (and lifestyle habits that happen outside of the gym). To get the most out of your health and your fitness sessions at Nova we need to link other pillars such as mindset, nutrition, stress and recovery. Training coaches who care about your results will agree that a couple hours of personal training each week is not enough time to workout AND learn everything you need to know about maximizing those workouts... Things like how to eat before or after workouts, what recovery habits should be practiced or the link between stress and working out are all subjects that you need to know on your health and fitness journey. Pod Calls are dedicated sessions where we teach you essential health and fitness insights that we can't often cover during your gym workouts. We hope you take advantage of these expert-led sessions that will enhance your workouts, teach you new concepts about health and bridge the gap between fitness and overall wellness. Upcoming Pod Calls (all times in EST) Mon Jun 2, 2025 (6:00pm) Topic: How To Eat Carbs For Better Energy, Muscle & Fat Loss Coach: Josh Allen Wed Jun 4, 2025 (2:00pm) Topic: Hip Mobility Using the 'CARS' (active session) Coach: Kim Vo Sat Jun 7, 2025 (12:00pm) Topic: Benefits of Single Leg & Arm Training for Overall Strength Coach: Matthew Nadler Tues Jun 10, 2025 (6pm) Topic: Releasing Neck Tension Coach: Zack Fernandez Wed Jun 18, 2025 (1:00pm) Topic: Training The Backside of The Core Coach: Colin Soltesz Thu June 19, 2025 (7:00pm): Topic: Ayurveda for Healthy Ageing Coach: Kayla Hutchinson These calls are free for Nova members and Zoom links for each call can be found in the Nova Mighty Networks platform. If you are not a Nova member and would like to attend any of these please email Info@NovaHealthClub.com for a seat. We look forward to seeing you then!
Check out the interview with Beth to see the habits, mindset and lifestyle shifts that helped her reach her goals
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