(Un)Healthy Living?

Written by Matthew Kirchner

In order to be healthy, you have to know what to put into your body to achieve your specific goals.  Inversely, you can be sabotaging all of your hard work if you are eating the wrong foods.  Your intentions may be good, but you may be putting things in your body that are limiting your progress.  One of my favorite sayings is, “You can work out ‘til you’re blue in the face, but if you’re not eating right you will not get anywhere.”  When it comes to “un”healthy, here are the 5 worst things that you can put in your body that are popular inside the gym:

1. Soy protein – To build muscle, you need more than protein.  Soy contributes to raising estrogen levels and converting testosterone into estrogen.  When digested, protein gets broken down into chains of amino acids and then testosterone builds lean muscle out of these chains of amino acids.    On top of that, 90% of soy grown on the planet is genetically modified.
2. Fruit juice – You may have the best of intentions, but drinks like orange juice and apple juice have tons of sugar.  Even drinks that say 100% fruit juice have added sugar.  High amounts of sugar will cause you to lose steam, feel dizzy, or crash during a workout.
3. Breakfast – Hold on, don’t attack me just yet.  The common misconception is that you should eat as soon as you wake up to jump start your metabolism.  There is no research supporting this and I used to preach this myself.  If you wait 2-3 hours after you wake up you will get a much larger spike in growth hormone which will boost metabolism.
4. Energy Drinks – I see people drinking these in the gym when they are tired or low on energy.  Overload on caffeine and sugar.  Manufacturers have to include taurine (a free form amino acid) in their drinks to counteract the large amounts of caffeine and sugar and keep your heart calm.  Stick with coffee.
5. Diet Soda (and regular soda) – We all know soda is horrible for us.  What we may or may not know is diet soda is equally as bad.  Diet soda spikes your insulin and causes you to ride waves of energy all day.  It will also cause you to store belly fat.  Quit drinking ALL soda and fat will melt off of you.