Nutrition Education Changed my Life: Here’s How

It was not long ago that I became deeply conscious of my daily food choices, so I started looking at what I was eating on a daily basis. I made a food report of what I was eating and I started listening to nutrition conferences and what I heard over and over again was – we become what we eat. Another thing that really got me was hearing that the consequences of eating a poor diet are not immediate. When we eat a poor diet it takes some time before our bodies start changing shape and getting out of control. It made sense, eating junk food once a month will not make me get out of shape, it is the habit of eating junk food on a weekly/daily that will.

The path to health is simple – it is a mixture of eating healthy and exercising.

You probably got used to the things you eat so you don’t even realize that you could be eating differently. You have also associated yourself with that body you have developed throughout the years and that’s the only way you can picture yourself. “This is me, I weigh this, and this is what I will always look like.” Wrong! That doesn’t have to be the case. Only if you want it to. At any moment in time we can change our diet, at any moment in time we can commit to going to the gym and start changing our bodies.

When we change our diet we are changing our whole identity, we are becoming someone who cares about their health and who wants to maintain an active lifestyle for as long as possible and be proud of their bodies. At least that was what got me paying more attention to my diet.

Defining my goal

Our bodies are our temples, we only get 1 body for the duration of our whole life, we must do our best to keep it running for as long as possible and to be in good shape. Those two are super important to me – longevity and shape. Personally, if someone told me I could live to be 120 years old but I would have to have the physique of a cyclist or a runner my whole life I wouldn’t take that deal. I want a balance of looking aesthetic and living longer, not 100% to one side nor the other, I want a bit of both. That’s what I am aiming for. For example, when you think of someone who doesn’t eat meat you immediately think of a skinny dude, that’s just what we all think. I don’t want that, I am plant-based for various reasons but I want to build a strong, aesthetic body.

I lift weights about 3 times per week and I find inspiration in a lot of bodybuilders, that’s the body I am aiming for. That’s a body I would be proud of having. I know I will never have the body of a bodybuilder because I’m not willing to put in the hours of work they do to get the body they have, but the pursuit of such goal will get me a body that is at least in the top 10%. It’s one of those things that when you aim for the moon you might end up on a star. That’s why I think it is good to have “crazy goals”. Because as you work towards the impossible, you become better along the way.

To keep my body running for a long time means I have to give it all the nutrients it needs to fight off any chronic disease that might develop. There’s a lot of data linking diet and health, what you eat has enormous impact on the diseases you develop. For example, if you are obese you are much more likely to develop heart disease, high blood pressure, or if you don’t eat vitamin C you develop scurvy, there’s all sorts of diseases associated with vitamin or mineral deficiencies. So we must know what are the right things to eat. It’s also important to know what not to eat, for example, processed foods high in sugar and fat are a food to avoid, why? Because, for one reason, they will make you fat and being fat increases the chances of heart disease, remember? Same with salt, why should we minimize salt intake? Because it increases your blood pressure and that increases your chances of overall mortality. On the other hand, there’s foods you should increase the intake of, like beans, vegetables, fruit, for example, they are arguably the best foods we could put into our systems.

Learning about nutrition and exercise was a big deal for me. I will not have a strong body if I don’t workout/exercise, I will not live as long as I could if I’m not eating a healthy diet. These are facts. As soon as I realized this I thought to myself “why would I not want to be stronger and better looking?” “Why would I actively choose to eat a poor diet when I know that I am hurting my system and self-sabotaging myself? Aren’t we supposed to look after ourselves? It’s like we are our own supervisors. It’s like our mind is one person and our body is another. Our mind tells our body what to do. Every time I refused to learn about something that would benefit me, I would think “Why am I self-sabotaging myself?” There’s a lot of people who know about it and have changed their lives for the better, why would I refuse to listen? I am the only one who will suffer the consequences of the lack of knowledge.

Whenever you refuse to become better you are actively choosing to sacrifice a better version of yourself and settling for who you currently are.

What would make me happy?

Personally, I want a great mixture of a fit and strong body, and a healthy and well-run organism. That’s what would make me feel fulfilled and happy in this category of life. Learning about nutrition and fitness was a game-changer for me and I hope I can inspire you to stay curious about it. I hope you can find within you the ambition to improve your health, because that’s all you got. Health is the most important thing on this planet, for everyone.

Here’s what did when I was getting started:

• Eat a healthy breakfast – 4 of my favorites are: (1) Yoghurt with Muesli (2) Overnight Oats (3) Hummus Toast (4) Avocado toast.
• Go to the gym 2 times a week for 45 min. I did a 15 min search on Google before working out on how to use 5 basic machines and did those for weeks until I perfected the movement.

If you start with these 2 things, you are well on the way to getting all the rest of it right. If you find these 2 things are too hard, just do one of them. Start small, but start. What helped me was starting to think of myself as someone who cares about their health. I did an “identity change” and aligned my thoughts and actions with that new identity.

If you want to reach out to me, go to the “Contact Me” page or just leave a comment on this post.

I hope you found this valuable,

Best wishes,

Martim