In a previous post, we went over different recovery methods and how you could use them to make more gains in your workout as well as have better health and wellness as you live. In this post, we are going to dig deeper into the diet portion. 


Now when it comes to food and recovery, it's similar to sleep. With both diet and sleep, you'll want to focus on these because they'll give you the most return on your investment. You have to sleep or you'll die. You have to eat or you'll die. So since you have to do them anyway, you may as well optimize them so you get better recovery. 

Getting your diet right will have you building more strength, more muscle, staying away from chronic diseases, getting leaner, and being healthy! So let's get to it!


Which Diet is Best?

People want to know if they should go Paleo, Vegan, Keto, Vegetarian, High-Carb, Low-Carb, Low-Fat, and even sunshine diet! Diets are something people get more dogmatic about than religion and politics sometimes.  At MindfulMover, we don't worry about any of these. Instead we start with several tips. These tips are made for you to get the most improvement for the least amount of work. Improving most these will improve your diet and recovery regardless of how you prefer to eat. 

1. Drink Enough Water

The amount you need is different based on your size, the climate of where you live, activity levels, and other things like medications. So a specific amount of how much water to take in can be difficult to nail down for each person. But it is something you should keep track of. Our goal with recovery is to reduce incoming stress and dehydration is a stressor. So if you're feeling thirsty, handle that and it will be a start to helping you recover!


2. Eat Enough Fruits and Vegetables
  It doesn't matter what dietary belief you hold or what dietary gang, set, or clique you rep, everyone can agree that eating enough vegetables is a good thing. You have the benefits of getting fiber to keep your digestive system clean, anti-oxidants to help recovery from stress work, and staying alkaline which helps you prevent the burn feeling from happening too early while lifting. Increase your vegetable and fruit intake up to 9 nine servings a day and reap the rewards. For the best benefits, eat your vegetables organic and eat them at the start of each meal. 


3. Eat Enough Quality Protein  
The source of your protein depends on what you're into diet wise, but for best effect, eat organic/wild animal protein. This could be grass-fed beef or wild caught meat like bison. A palm sized portion each meal is a good start to enough protein to ensure gains! 


4. Prioritize REAL Food  
This is one of our biggest tips. We have a rule with out trainees: until 95 percent of their diet is real good, we don't talk about macronutrient ratios, calorie amounts, and things of that nature. You can get way more benefits to your diet by focusing on eating real food THEN switching to those sorts of micro adjustments. The benefit is that you increase the amount of nutritious food you take in and keep out the foods that cause issues like junk food. 


Between those four tips, you can usually get a very big jump on your diet and recovery! Start with these four and then move to more advanced ones as you dial in your nutrition and improve your recover.