The Key to Finding Your Optimal Diet and Exercise Program

Three concepts that will help you determine the right diet and exercise regime for you

Fitness and nutrition don’t need to be difficult. We’re constantly bombarded with conflicting information — keto is the healthiest diet, we should all be vegan, we shouldn’t do cardio, we shouldn’t eat any fat, we shouldn’t lift weights. I’ve heard and read about so many different approaches to health.

And the thing is, none of them are wrong. How could this be? Well the truth is that there is no universally right approach to either diet or exercise. You need to experiment and see what works best for you. What leaves you feeling the most full of energy and confident in your body?

We are all built so differently, and therefore we respond differently to diets and exercises. Some of us need lots of protein, others need lots of carbs. Some of us respond really well to bodyweight workout, and some of us respond well to heavy CrossFit workouts. There is no right answer.

Finding your diet and exercise regime

Listen

“What some call health, if purchased by perpetual anxiety about diet, isn’t much better than tedious disease.” — George D. Prentice, Eighteenth century writer and poet

Constantly being stressed or worrying about what is right for us is actually counterproductive. This quote illustrates how this perpetual anxiety is arguably just as bad as the ill health you are trying to prevent.

So the trick is to pause, step back, breathe, and listen. You have to listen to your body, or you won’t figure out what’s working and what isn’t. Stick with a workout and/or diet for 4–6 weeks and see what happens. Do you feel good? Do you have brain fog? Are you recovering well? Are you sleeping well? Are your muscles growing? Are you getting stronger?

I tried intermittent fasting and found that I was sleeping terribly and my body fat percentage was at the highest it’s ever been. While I highly advocate for fasting and believe there are many benefits to it, it just didn’t work for me. And I would recommend that anyone wanting to fast to really tune into their bodies during that time. Some people respond really well, and for others their bodies can get really stressed. So now I eat breakfast every day, and looking back my leanest times have been when I have been eating a substantial breakfast daily.

Seasons of your life

What is right for you is also likely to change depending on your goals, your current situation, your age, and even your environment and what your current season of life looks like.

I’ve experimented and played around with both my diet and exercise for years. This is my seventh year of experimentation, and I’m still going. I’m still honing it, and for some seasons of life I have it nailed.

When I have exams or cognitively demanding things going on in my life — a time when my body composition and building muscle are less important than cognitive performance — I know that the best diet for me is the ketogenic diet because of the clarity, focus, and brain power it provides. I improved my exam results from mainly B+ to almost all A+ following a strict ketogenic diet in the lead up to, and during, my Master’s degree exams. While still exercising, as exercise is important for cognition, I am not focused on building muscle or performing well in the gym. I focus on movement rather than strenuous training.

However, when I am preparing for the World Champs, cognitive performance becomes less of a focus than physical performance. I need to be able to recover quickly, perform well on low amounts of sleep, and to ensure I have adequate energy for demanding days of up to 7 hours of training. In this season, I focus on ensuring adequate calories and a higher carbohydrate intake. I am also focused on building muscle and fitness, and improving my explosive power. Simply moving is not enough.

Your metabolism and other functions are also likely going to change with age. The amount of people who have said to me “You won’t be able to eat like that when you’re older” is mind boggling. Evidently, things change. And people over the age of 40 have experienced this first hand. So you are likely going to need to be altering things for the rest of your life, as your body changes.

Variability

Changing your up diet regularly is actually beneficial. Dr. Dan Pompa explains:

“The point is to mix it up and take advantage of your body’s innate adaptation mechanisms to increase health, lose stubborn weight and regulate hormones. The magic is in the variation and has helped transform many bodies and brains.”

Regularly changing and altering both your diet and workouts is actually really good for you. Your body was made to be adaptable, and if you never change anything you are going to reach a stagnant plateau. You won’t see improvements, your metabolism will likely slow down, and your health won’t be optimal.

Changing your diet regularly means you are getting a wide variety of vitamins and minerals, macronutrient ratios (carbs:protein:fat), and it will increase the diversity of your gut bacteria. This is also how our ancestors would have eaten — in warmer months they would have had access to a lot of fruits and vegetables, whereas in winter they would have eaten more meat and legumes. We evolved to eat seasonally — the natural way of varying your diet.

Similarly, changing up your workouts is the most effective way to see progress. For similar reasons as varying your diet, varying your workout will lead to developing different muscles, different energy systems, and will prevent overuse injuries. You will become more resilient and adaptable.

Exercise and nutrition don’t need to be difficult or confusing, and what one person is doing probably isn’t what you should be doing. Tune out the bombardment of conflicting information we receive everyday, and tune into your body; what is your body telling you about your current diet and your current exercise routine?

“While it’s tempting to think of exercise solely as a means to fitness or weight loss, it’s really much more about making you feel alive in your body.” — Dr. Suhas Kshirsagar

What makes you feel alive in your body? What exercise routine leaves you feeling better than when you started? What foods provide you with mental clarity and the energy you need to get through the day?

Learn to tune in to your body and listen to what it’s telling you. That is where you will find your answer.

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