Good physical fitness is achieved by balancing several components. A muscular and defined body is not necessarily always the result of physical labor alone. Being fit means not being overweight, eating the right amount (and good things) and resting. In other words, the “Training, Feeding, Recovery” triad.
Focusing only on nutrition for now, while we often advise you on what to eat (there is a whole section of RunLovers dedicated just to this), today I want to talk about what is best to avoid eating .
WHEREAS, these foods are not poisonous and our advice is only to limit their use, possibly banishing them from your diet. Because yes, you can (almost) always do without. But let’s see in detail what we are talking about.
Sugars
Sugars-the plural-are not just the most common one you’re used to: the white one derived from beets, to be clear: sucrose. There are many sugars, and you can find them even where you least expect them. If you have the patience to read the ingredients in what you eat, you will find that there is sugar almost everywhere: from bread to sauces (ketchup and mustard, even in balsamic vinegar-obviously not the original one from Modena), in cookies, in chips and snacks (of course), in lots of fizzy drinks, and in many, many other foods. You may then find that the sugar you put in your coffee is nothing more than a small part of the sugars you inadvertently ingest. In short, knowing the ingredients of the foods you eat is important to limit your excess intake of the ingredients they contain.
Excessive sugar use leads to insulin spikes resulting from the intake of foods with a high glycemic index, resulting in continuous hunger pangs, in a vicious cycle that can lead to fat accumulation and, in the most severe case, diabetes.
And if you can’t find sucrose among the ingredients in the foods you eat, look for glucose syrup: this is a poorer (and less expensive for the food industry) sugar made from corn or wheat starch. But it is still sugar.
However, there are alternatives, at least if you can’t give up some sweetness in your coffee or tea: you can use healthier sugars such as fructose or honey.
Halls
Saying “salt” means sodium chloride. Used to amplify flavors, it is known to have the unfortunate drawback of raising blood pressure and thus, if taken in excessive doses, increasing the burden on the heart.
The recommended daily dose for adults up to 60 years old is 5 grams per day, 4 for those over 60, and only 2 for children. If 5 grams seems little or enough to you, however, you need to consider that it is inclusive of *all* the salt you take in through your diet, so even that contained in prepared foods, bread and almost everything you eat.
The habit you should acquire is to gradually take in less and less salt, so that you get used to eating increasingly bland foods. Limiting its consumption is, in short, practicable and decisive. If you can’t stand the blandness, you can use alternatives such as lemon juice, herbs, vinegar or chili. Or use the alternative: iodized salt.
Aspartame
I can already see you: since it is better not to use sugar but you cannot give it up, then you resort to sweeteners, among which the undisputed king is aspartame.
Used in diets and in light or calorie-free drinks, aspartame is a substance to which the body is not accustomed. Among other things, it has the unfortunate drawback of being perceived by it as sugar, but without having the caloric intake. So when you ingest it, your body expects to process sugar-derived calories but, not receiving them, what does it do? It still requires sugar. In yet another vicious cycle.
Aspartame abuse can also lead to very significant and disabling diseases. However, it can be replaced by other types of sugars of natural, non-harmful origin, such as stevia, a plant with sugary leaves.
Hydrogenated fats
Every food cycle has its enemies. A few years ago everyone was mad at animal fat, then the enemy became palm oil and who knows how many others. Hydrogenated fats were among them so much so that today they are banned and many industrial foods boast that they are not produced using them.
From a production point of view, a hydrogenated fat is obtained by the process of hydrogenating vegetable oils, which makes them solid. The most common hydrogenated fat is margarine.
The curious thing is that they were originally invented as a substitute for butter, only to find that they were more harmful, assuming that butter in modest amounts is.
What does excessive use of hydrogenated fats entail? Hydrogenated fats are a source of trans fatty acids, which are responsible for raising LDL (the bad one) cholesterol, which can cause many diseases, including serious ones such as cancer, diabetes, depression, Alzheimer’s, obesity and more.
As we saw earlier for sugars, a great many foods contain them, such as cookies, yeast and pizza dough, candy, potato chips, etc.
How to avoid them? Reading labels and choosing similar products but lacking them.
Gluten
It is a protein from which most breads and pastries are prepared, in the production of which it serves to give elasticity and texture to doughs. It is highly nutritious but can cause allergic reactions in predisposed individuals, such as those with celiac disease, estimated to be between 1 and 2 percent of the world’s population.
Unlike sugar (sucrose), aspartame, and hydrogenated fats, gluten is not an industrial product that did not exist before. In other words, our body recognizes it and can metabolize it. The fact that he is harmful to an all-too-small percentage of people should not condemn him to the role of villain, which in fact he does not play.
What is worrisome is that celiacs-who suffer from a condition that causes inflammation and atrophy of the intestinal villi following exposure to gluten, preventing nutrient absorption and resulting in diarrhea, iron deficiencies, intestinal lymphomas, and a generalized worsening of quality of life-appear to have increased about 4-fold in the past 60 years (an important side note: celiac disease Must be diagnosed by competent people. In fact, there is also non-celiac gluten sensitivity, which has similar symptoms but is not celiac disease).
This increase is attributed to the fact that during the same period the grains from which soft and hard flours- for bread and pasta, respectively-were genetically modified to increase their gluten component. Once again for a noble reason, which is to make grains more nutritious in fear of not being able to feed enough people.
Watch out for those five
Having come this far (thanks for hanging in there!), a necessary note: not all of these foods are dangerous or harmful in the same way. As we have seen, gluten is harmless to the vast majority of people. Aspartame and hydrogenated fats are much less so, and sugar, in modest amounts, gives you energy and tastes good, there’s little you can do about it!
As always, virtue lies in the middle, and it is up to us-me and you-to be aware of what we eat and the responsibility with which we do it. If you have coffee tomorrow with a packet of sweetener you will NOT DIE, if the puff pastry from which the savory pie you eat for lunch is made is without (animal) fat but has vegetable fats you will NOT DIE.
Moderation, in other words, has never killed anyone.
And most importantly: we wouldn’t want to censor the Mary Poppins ditty would we?
Just a little sugar and the pill goes down, laaa pill goes down, laaa pill goes down….
(Inspired by Jamie Logie)