Get Real Resolutions

It’s no wonder no one ever sticks to dietary New Year’s resolutions. Who wants to stop eating ice cream and cinnamon rolls? I’m here to set you free from resolutions so onerous a medieval monk would cry for mama. Following are nine workable dietary resolutions that you can live with—all year.

• Drink at least eight glasses of water a day.
  Water is one of the most important nutrients for your performance. Unfortunately, it’s also the most deficient nutrient among active individuals. Why? We often don’t know we’re drying out. Dehydration is clinically defined as a loss of one percent of your body weight in water, but our thirst mechanism doesn’t kick in until we have lost two percent. That’s why it is so important to drink even when you don’t feel thirsty. Remember that your body’s best method of dissipating heat during exercise is by sweating. If you are dehydrated, you won’t eliminate heat efficiently. In fact, athletic performance is negatively affected when you lose a mere two to three percent of your body weight as water, and performance decreases proportionally as you lose more water weight.
  
  
• Pay attention to portion sizes.
  Remember what a bagel and slice of bread used to look like, back in the day? How about a serving of meat at a restaurant? Pretty small, right? Well those days are gone. Instead the consumer is being lured to purchase foods because they are bigger and, by implication, better. Unfortunately, this trick to get the consumer to buy often results in patterns of overeating. Can’t remember what a serving used to look like? To determine servings as defined by the American Dietetics Association, check our serving equivalencies.
  
  
• Fill the tank before you exercise.
  The body needs fuel, especially if you exercise in the morning after a full night of rest and fasting. Your body burns calories while you sleep and in the morning your reserves are running low. For a great workout, fill that tank with carbohydrates. Food choices depend on your type of activity and your personal tolerance. For running, liquids (like sports drinks) usually work best and for cycling solids (like toast, bagels, or bananas) are okay.
  
  
• Eat enough carbohydrate to fuel your workouts.
  Although protein and fat are important nutrients, during exercise the body primarily uses carbohydrate. It’s the body’s gasoline so aim for a total of 60 to 65 percent carbohydrate in your daily diet. Fruits, vegetables, and whole grains will help you fill the fuel the tank on your way to fitness.
  
  
• Refuel after your event.
  Your body has an extremely sensitive fuel gauge and wants to keep the tank full. It converts carbohydrates to glucose in the blood or stores the glucose as glycogen in the muscles and liver. But an intense or long workout depletes those carbohydrate levels. Because your brain depends on carbs for fuel, your body is programmed to refill the tanks. Without a fresh supply of carbohydrate (in the form of food), the body breaks down its own muscle and converts a few of the amino acids to glucose to refill the tanks. That’s bad because the cannibalized muscle is what makes you strong and fast. To avoid this vicious circle, refuel immediately after you exercise (within 15 minutes) with carbohydrates and a bit of protein.
  
  
• Eat smaller meals throughout the day.
  Do you find yourself a victim of mood swings and energy lulls, periods where you are irritable? These personality changes are often symptoms of low blood sugar. The solution? Eat smaller meals, more often. One way is to divide your meals into breakfast, lunch, pre-exercise snack, post-exercise snack, and dinner. To work at its best, your body needs a steady level of glucose in the blood.
  
  
• Don’t skip breakfast.
  This one is so important it deserves a separate category: Always refuel in the morning after your overnight fast. It doesn’t rob you of much precious sleep if you crawl out of the sack a few minutes earlier and eat some cereal with skim milk and a banana. Add orange juice, a piece of toast with jam and a cup of coffee or tea, and you’ll be ready for the day.
  
  
• Exercise.
  Research shows that to maintain your fitness level, you must exercise a minimum of three times per week. To improve, four or five times a week is required. A recent study showed that people who lost weight and, more importantly, kept it off for at least five years, exercised at least an hour a day, five times a week. If you backslide, return to your exercise routine as soon as possible to avoid losing what you’ve gained. Endurance fitness is lost more quickly than strength. It takes 7 to 10 days for endurance to decrease; about 14 days for significant losses in strength.
  
  
• Rest.
  Sure, exercise is important—but so is rest. Your muscles adapt and get stronger during recovery, not while you’re using them. Immediately after exercise your muscles look bigger because the contraction resulted in water uptake into the muscle making them look “pumped.” Actual muscle growth (protein synthesis) happens much later, during the recovery period after your workout.