This week I was a guest lectured at a strength and conditioning class being offered through the Kinesiology program at Western University. It was a great group and they asked lots of good questions.
The title of my presentation was “Nutrition: For Health & Performance.”
I sat thinking for a little while about how confused people become between performance and health. Most people who adopt a healthy diet do so based on the belief that eating healthier will make them stronger, faster, skinnier, more energized, etc. The problem is, that is not true.
Health is defined as:
“A state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.”
In contrast, Performance is defined as:
“a: the execution of an action
b: something accomplished : deed, feat
c: the fulfillment of a claim, promise, or request : implementation”
By definition, eating healthier only guarantees ONE result: that you get healthier.
Side benefits of health tend to be things like: getting stronger, faster, having less body fat, having more energy, etc. However, these results are not always a natural consequence of taking steps to grow your health.
It is possible to be very healthy and not look the way you want to look. It is possible to be very healthy and not be as strong as you want to be. It is possible to be very healthy and not feel good all the time.
For many people, you can gain a lot of health before you ever notice a change in your body.
On the flip side, it is possible to get results in very unhealthy ways. It is possible to lose a lot of weight and be more unhealthy than when you were heavier. It is possible to be very strong and muscular and to eat in a way that is destructive to your health. It is possible to be a high level athlete and be very unhealthy.
When it comes to our bodies, appearance and performance is often deceiving.
This is why I hate reading health magazines that share athlete diet secrets. Michael Phelps openly brags about his 12,000 calorie a day fast food diet. Rich Froning has said that he does not follow the advice that he gives clients with regards to diet because he can out train his bad diet. When their diets become headlines, it leads to confusion (at best) and hopelessness (at worst) for people trying to get healthier and achieve better results from their bodies.
People look to elite athletes and assume that they are healthy because they have confused performance and health.
So, going back to the lecture I prepared, it started with eating for health. This is where everyone should start. Start by consistently eating healthy (and by that I mean By Design) and see how your body performs.
If, once you are very healthy, you still have specific performance based goals, THEN it is time to start looking at other strategies to achieve specific results. Those types of strategies may involve changes in portioning, meal timing, specific nutrient intake, etc. All of which can be done while still eating only healthy foods.
Ultimately, the way you eat comes down to what you want. Do you want to be healthy, or do you want to perform a certain way, or both? Maybe none of the above. Some people eat because it tastes good, for tradition, for comfort, or to be polite. All of those are results too.
What are you eating for?
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