\nWhether your body is turning food into fuel or working away at your fat reserves, it needs water to efficiently burn calories. If you are not fully hydrated, your metabolism will slow down and you won\u2019t be burning calories as efficiently as you can.\u00a0 \u00a0Hydration also plays a role in performance, the better hydrated, the better you perform.\u00a0 And, staying hydrated can reduce your chances of sudden cardiac arrest and stroke!\u00a0 Try to drink half of your bodyweight in ounces of water each day.\u00a0 You can also click here for more hydration guidelines.\u00a0<\/a>\n
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Healthy Eating Rule #2.<\/strong>\u00a0 Try to minimize sugars and grains in your diet.\u00a0 Carbohydrates and grains don’t need to be eliminated… they are not inherently “bad” in reasonable quantities.\u00a0 But processed grains and processed sugars in particular should be minimized.\u00a0 So to make things simple, you will be leaner and healthier if you get most of your carbohydrates from\u00a0fruits and vegetables\u00a0instead of grains and processed sugar.<\/em><\/p>\n It\u2019s important to note that\u00a0potatoes, sweet potatoes, and other tubers\u00a0have fewer problems in terms of digestive system inflammation than grains do. Tubers were a more common part of the ancient human diet as a source of carbohydrates than grains ever were.\u00a0 Potatoes and sweet potatoes can be much better tolerated by very active people that have no problem burning off the extra carbohydrates.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Healthy Eating Rule #3.\u00a0<\/strong> Minimize high fructose corn syrup and artificial sweeteners in your diet.\u00a0 Most people don’t realize just how many calories and metabolism damaging high fructose corn syrup, sucralose, and aspartame they are ingesting.\u00a0 High fructose corn syrup and sucralose is in almost everything; \u00a0ketchup, salad dressings, cocktail sauce, marinades, diet sodas, etc.\u00a0 Be a label reader, avoid HFCS and minimize sucralose and other sweeteners!\u00a0 And despite deceptive advertisements out there from the corn refining industry that claim HFCS is no worse than sugar and is natural; this is far from the truth.<\/p>\n Healthy Eating Rule #4.<\/strong>\u00a0 Eat what our ancestors ate.\u00a0 Try to stick with simple, one ingredient foods that our bodies are used to digesting.\u00a0 These foods are:<\/p>\n And, follow the GOLDEN RULE #5.<\/strong>\u00a0 \u00a0For 90% of the time you will follow the above rules to a tee.\u00a0 \u00a0The other 10% of the time, you should cheat… Yep cheat.\u00a0 For example, if you\u2019re eating 4 meals\/snacks per day for 7 days of the week \u2013 that\u2019s 28 meals a week. Ten percent of 28 meals is about 2 or 3 meals.\u00a0 Therefore, you\u2019re allowed to \u201cbreak the rules\u201d 2 or 3 meals each week (I would prefer 2).<\/p>\n Don\u2019t binge \u2014 schedule!<\/strong><\/p>\n A caveat: your 10% meals shouldn\u2019t include downing an entire pizza, followed by a full box of Krispy Kreme donuts. Binge eating can rapidly destroy your progress and make you feel like crap, let\u2019s be clear on that.\u00a0 And, a day long binge is not the equivalent of \u201cone cheat meal.\u201d Rather, your 10% meals should include some foods, in reasonable quantities, that might not normally fit into your plan.<\/p>\n Now, you can get away with 80–90%. But, the closer to 90 or even 95% you get, the better the results.\u00a0 If you can follow your plan 90% of the time, you will soon see unwanted fat melt off your body. However, if you find yourself breaking these rules more than 80 to 90% of the time, your chances of failing increase significantly. Just saying\u2026<\/p>\n There are a couple of reasons why “cheating” works.<\/p>\n So, to recap, drink lots of water, limit sugars, eat more veggies, watch out for those artificial ingredients, and eat like our ancestors did.\u00a0 Then… cheat 10%of the time!<\/strong><\/p>\n I hope that these \u201cHealthy Eating Rules\u201d help to clarify and give you some nutritional direction. There are some other \u201crules\u201d that could be included but for the most part if you follow the above rules 90% of the time you will see some positive changes in your body composition and health.<\/p>\nLet me know if you have any questions. Aaron Zamzow<\/p>\n PS- If you are really looking to get your nutrition and your workouts back on-track, check out the FRF workouts we offer.\u00a0 Every program includes eating guidelines, meal plan, coaching, and access to the new FRF app…\u00a0(Click HERE).\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0Get results this year!\u00a0 \u00a0Start Today!<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/firerescuefitness.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/yuck-sugar-300x201.png?resize=300%2C201\")
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\nContinue to make progress everyday and Get FRF,\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/firerescuefitness.com\/2019\/01\/the-essential-rules-of-good-firefighter-nutrition\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/zam-signature-300x171.png?resize=149%2C85\")
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