You are what you eat, pure and simple. When you put crappy processed foods on a continual basis into your body at some stage your body is going to revolt via injury, sickness, disease or a combination of these.
Nutrition is the foundation of everything. It forms the basis of how you feel both physically and emotionally, it impacts how every single cell in your body functions. The trouble is that most of the population are nutritionally deficient, yes even triathletes.

Do you find yourself getting sick often? You’re likely malnourished.

You might think you’re eating a ‘balanced’ diet but unfortunately that term has become adulterated by the food industry, most doctors and even most nutritionists.

Balance should really mean that the optimum proportion of all necessary food components is provided. The problem is that many professionals are giving advice that as long as the carbohydrate source (disregarding make up) is balanced against some protein and fat with some essential vitamins and minerals than you’re essentially eating a balanced meal.

Case in point… go have a look inside your pantry and see what ‘healthy’ cereals (check the length of the ingredient list) you have in there. You’re told to add low fat milk and you now have a ‘balanced’ and even nutritious meal… your simply being fed lies.

For a true balanced meal it is important that your obtaining the optimum quantities of all essential nutrients. Food needs to be balanced within itself, each meal and over the entire day. How do you achieve this balance? Start by eating whole foods, better still raw foods, that nature has balanced for us.

You need to eat from different groups of foods to balance a meal, like grass fed meats, fresh fruit and vegetables preferably from your local farmers markets (even major cities have these), organic is better if you can afford it. some diary products are ok, again look for free range and better still RAW milk and finally nuts and seeds.

The daily balance is achieved by eating balanced meals. I know your going to ask about snacks… especially as an endurance athlete. In reality snacks are only a minor component of our diet (or should be) so its ok not to be fully balanced, however you must choose whole foods instead of the packaged junk foods that are common snacks.

That brings me to the worlds biggest addiction… Sugar. Today there is plenty of research and evidence that clearly shows that the state of our health or lack thereof is due from the enormous increase in the consumption of highly refined or processed foods with sugar and white flour being the main two culprits. We can only take so much food in, so as these crappy food components increase we get less and less of the nutrients from other foods we need for health.

There is so much to cover when it comes to understanding all the things at play with nutrition. Hopefully over time I can drip some good nutritional recommendations in. It will be up to you to further investigate for yourself and then essentially make your own decisions. It’s going to take work because as the saying goes there is no free lunch.

If you truly want to be a better athlete, then the start of that process is a life long pursuit of being the healthiest person you can. Getting in optimum portions of all essential nutrients will positively effect every cell in your body. When these work in harmony so do you. Sure we can cheat it as many do and still get performance. But for how long. Top results are fantastic to have, but if you reek havoc on your long-term health is it worth it?

How do you start?

Your aim this week is to start eliminating junk food from your diet. This is defined as any food that contains added sugar and additives. Also if a food makes you sick, avoid it.

For those of you that are endurance athletes…

You might ask about sports nutrition… good question. Many athletes use bars to snack on each day thinking they are healthy. Not only is that an expensive past time but have a look at the ingredient list and use logic.. can all those chemical additives be good for you? I would also do a search into what sports nutrition you’re using and what they contain. Typically the ingredients are a big part of the cause to race day nutritional woes (not the full picture but definitely part of it).

Also how often do you need to be taking gels, bars etc in training? I believe you only need them in your long workouts. 1-2 times per week is plenty. Outside of that water and real foods are much better.

If you looking for a company that truly cares about the ingredients in their sports supplements then you can’t go past Hammer. I don’t get paid to do that, its just from my own research, application and talks with them that led me to this point.

We’re only getting started.

We do get a lot of customer questions here at Trigger Point Performance Therapy Australia and I thought it would be good to post both the questions and answers in regular blogs to help other readers out too.

Founder Cassidy Phillips started the company primarily as a research project to regain a quality of life he had lost when his body started to break down. Regaining the ability to do the things he loved, led to the desire to empower individuals to understand how they could take back the control and rid themselves of their biomechanical challenges through education and our performance tools for self massage.

We continue on with that mission here at Trigger Point Performance Therapy Australia and have seen so many positive changes and that excites and motivates us. You know, it’s not what the product is, it’s what the product and empowering education can do for you.

We also know overcoming the obstacles you face is a multifaceted approach (nutrition, hydration, posture, self massage, movement and mindset). I can say with absolute honesty and certainty that some of what your health care professionals are telling you is just plain wrong. I don’t believe it’s blatant dishonesty but they like many others have been fed biased lies and said enough through varying portals of media it’s very easy to see how these lies become believed truths.

Do we know it all? Of course not, learning will never cease… but more times than not we may find the need to be “out with the new and in the old”.  Research back in time, did we have the same issues we see today? You know, the quicker aging process, the level of disease, unhealthy bodies and the need for so many drugs!

We want to provide information and links so you can research for yourself and make better informed decisions about your health. Without your health you have nothing. You’ll either find that a little light switches on and leads you on a journey of self discovery and how you can effectively look after yourself.

Many people say, its expensive to be healthy, that maybe so. But I believe injuries, sickness and disease cost a whole lot more. You have a choice and a responsibility to yourself and your family to be the best you possibly can be.

We start tomorrow.

Hi all,

We just wanted to give customers an update on deliveries. We’re still sending out orders but as the rains continue and with flood waters rising some areas are cut off from delivery.

This is the latest information on Australia Post website. I’ll have a little more information today when I aim to send out today’s orders.

Sorry for any inconvenience but we can’t beat mother nature.

Cheers

Kristian and Charlotte

I found this YouTube clip yesterday and Gary Moller hits the nail on the head with tendon injuries. I’m always saying its a multifaceted approach to truly getting rid of injuries. Treatment whether it’s through using our tools and education or a therapist is only one part of the puzzle. Posture and hydration are others but a big missing link is your day to day nutrition. As Garry goes on to say in the video below, if you feed yourself crap how can you expect to have healthy muscles, ligaments and tendons let alone perform.