Does 'Fit' Represent Health?

We are bombarded with images of 'fit' women and we have been conditioned to believe this image represents health...but does it? Have you ever met a girl that is really fit? Have you talked to her? Or have you met the guy who looks like an athlete from Sports Illustrated? Chances are you have! You also envied them for their beautiful body and probably thought 'wow, they are so healthy'. This is where the line is very blurred.

The guy who resembles an athlete is not necessarily healthy, just like a body builder is generally NOT healthy. Being around 'fit' people a lot, I can tell you what it takes for this athlete to look this way. Let's start with his horrible diet of meat & protein shakes! I once asked a 'fit' guy at the gym what his diet was like, and he said I eat a ton of meat and drink protein shakes a few times a day. He said 'I try to stay away from carbs, even fruit, then I allow myself a cheat day and I binge out on pizza and junk food'. Sounds healthy, right? No way. We know a high protein diet is acid forming and contributes to numerous health issues, cancer being one of them! Depriving yourself fresh fruit is extremely harmful. Fruit is nutrient rich, unlike meat. A diet without fruit is a nutrient poor diet and that is not healthy.

Cheat days. Why do so many 'fit' people have them, or quickly fall off their high protein diets? Cheat days happen due to lack of nutrition. The body will crave high energy food, looking for carbohydrates (that the 'fit' person denies himself) so when the craving is out of control one cannot make a healthy food choice. Turning to junk food, high in fat, salt, and sugar. Meanwhile a healthy person on a high fruit diet has no cheat days...we don't binge eat, we don't feel deprived. We don't need to cheat.

After these disgusting cheat days, he said he would hit the gym harder than ever out of fear all his hard work would go down the drain! WHAT???? He already works out for hours a day, some days twice a day. After a cheat day, his workout routine would be 1 and 1/2 hrs cardio, followed by an insanity style hour long workout. Why would you torture your body for the bad decision YOU made. Your body is your home, it is not your bodies fault YOU binged all day. It shouldn't be punished.

What does that do to your mental state? Does it feel good to binge? To deprive yourself of carbohydrates? To train for hours and hours? To feel like crap after the binge? To feel like crap after torturing yourself at the gym? NO, this is why this 'fit' person is not healthy. I once asked him why do this? His only answer...to look 'like this'. To jeopordize your health for looks is sad!

This is very common in the fitness industry, both 'fit' men and women follow this kind of lifestyle. Some women are even worse, over training on a regular basis, spending 2 to 3 hours at the gym, usually out of guilt from what they ate, or trying to lose weight quickly to fit into a dress or be ready for swim suit season.

Is it healthy to train 3+ hours a day if you only do it 3 times a week? Depends who you ask. If you ask a 'fit' person they would say sure it's fine. 'No Pain, No Gain' right? If you ask a healthy person, the answer would be it's NOT healthy. Over training for long hours puts unnecessary stress on the body, creating an acidic environment! If your diet is right, workouts can be short and efficient, keeping you lean & fit without the added stress! There are no binges when diet is right! There is no guilt when diet is right!

So does the 'fit' person always represent health? Absolutely not!

The Horrible, No Good, Food Day :/

It all began like any normal Monday, get up, get ready and go to spin class! I threw my bananas in my bag and headed to teach class. I usually push myself pretty hard, I love a good challenge, but today I decided to really crank the tension up and focus on hills!! The hour flew by, I was drenched in sweat, legs shaking, and I was starving!!! I began to eat my bananas...and did so in between training my clients. I was down to the last banana, number 7. I knew that 7 bananas wasn't enough.

As hungry as I was, I decided to make a "quick" stop at Walmart to grab some crafts I needed for my vow renewal projects...and then it happened! After walking through the craft section for about a half hour, I was ready to eat my own arm :( What was I doing...I needed to get home and eat! But...instead I got a bag of raw almonds to eat on the ride home! So...first mistake fruit & nuts...never go well together. Second...when hungry, fat (almonds are a high fat food) will not work. I was in need of fruit, water, carbs!!!

Despite knowing better, my hunger took over and I ate almonds. Each bite was actually worse than the other....not satisfying at all! Bland, boring, dry...now I was thirsty :( Finally home, I grab a huge bowl of cherries!! Not only was I still hungry, but I had a bloated belly and a little tummy ache...but hungry enough to ignore it.

The cherries were amazing I ate about a pound and then they were gone...still hungry! I reached for mangoes!!! I peel the first one and it was too ripe, pretty much gone bad :( Now...there is nothing worse than the taste of bad fruit, omg, gross! Peel the second one...and I could not get the awful taste out of my mouth! Time to move on...leave the mangoes alone!

At this point, fruit was not going to happen, I was still hungry and needed energy. I was already bloated and uncomfortable from the banana-almond-cherry combo, now here goes the next worst thing I could have done: EAT CRACKERS, lol! I needed something, quick while I prepared dinner! Nom, nom, nom, went the crackers! As I waited for dinner, my stomach ache turned into gas and even more bloating (gross I know) and I looked about 5 months pregnant! Not to mention I was in terrible pain and tired :( My energy was plummeting, I was under carbed, I under ate, and then filled my belly with poorly combined foods...that were now slowing me down. My body went into over-drive to digest this terrible combination! So I made a cup of coffee, lol!!! Now I was asking for it! And then I ate my cooked meal horribly bloated,strangly hungry and uncomfortable.

One would think, but all these foods are semi healthy and vegan, so what happened?

1st. Waiting till you are starving to eat is a really bad (terrible) idea. You tend to eat too fast, make bad choices, and  this will cause you to bloat and usually over eat.

2nd. Practicing food combining is important when you eat a clean, natural diet (any diet really, but it is hard to food combine on the S.A.D). Stomach aches become a thing of the past...and when something like this happens, it is very painful. Your body lets you know quickly that it is not happy with you! Unlike people on a S.A.D, where gas, bloating, heart burn and indigestion is a normal occurrence...this is not normal for me. I have become a clean, really efficient machine!

3rd. Mixing fresh fruit & cooked food (crackers) and coffee is not ever a good idea. It causes very poor digestion as well as fermentation...hence the gas, sour stomach, belching, etc. This is one rule I try very hard to not break! It is not optimal to allow fermentation to occur in the body!

What could I have done different. EVERYTHING!! I should have prepared a smoothie in the morning, drank it on the way to spin...and packed dates as well as bananas. I should have gone straight home as the hunger increased...starving myself to do some shopping was a bad decision!

We all have those days, we are human...tomorrow is a new day :)