Military Diet
As we enter the new year we understand that many of our friends are looking for ways to get healthy, to start a new routine or simply to make healthier choices. We have looked at various initiatives and quite intuitively the military diet caught our attention. As we read about the premise behind the military diet it brought lots of questions to mind. Is diet a good idea? What do our warriors think are the best initiatives? What advice do you give to others looking to make a dietary change? We want to hear from you and we want to learn from you.
Jennifer Dawson is the content manager for a health and wellness site. Here is a link to her blog about the military diet. We are grateful she adapted information for a transitioning veteran and has provided it for us to share with you.
Sculpting Diet For Civilian Life
After years relying on MREs amongst mess hall meals, the freedom of having food on demand at any given time, and in any variety, can sometimes leave you feeling like a kid in a candy shop once you’ve returned to permanent civilian life.
What can also go out of the window is your level of nutrition.
The Importance of Fitness
You don’t need telling exactly how important the state of your body is to your overall condition as a human being. Maintaining rigorous fitness is essential and provides you with some of the psychological order that helps with life. A key part of this fitness is nutrition.
Despite the glut of MSG-loaded and incredibly tempting options out there, you might be interested to read about how sticking to the military diet will benefit you in many ways long-term.
Adapting the diet to home life
A key part of adapting the military diet for day-to-day life is to not be overly punishing on yourself. Split your weeks into sections; eat healthy for three days, using a good range of low-calorie, high nutritional value and high quality foods to keep your body on it’s toes. On the other four days, relax a little, though you should try and stick to some semblance of healthy eating and not go overboard.
Still, the onus is on you to enjoy yourself and not stick to it so rigorously that you don’t enjoy eating after perhaps a long time where you weren’t able to.
What to eat
With time and effort on your hands, opt for high protein, high fiber items. Trial toast or crackers for breakfast with small amounts of peanut butter or cheese, and have metabolism-boosting black coffee.
Try to include lots of fruit in your diet. The sugar can give you an energy boost and help to quell feelings of hunger, especially when you’ve had a good bit of protein from chicken or pulses along with it.
For a treat, consider sweet carrot sticks in hummus, or a flavored cottage cheese snack.
The psychological benefits
We’ve covered the benefits of nutrition to your fitness and you probably well know them anyway. What you might not know is how your nutrition affects your first-hand, everyday psychological health. Harvard Medical School have found that food affects the happiness regulator serotonin. In short, what you put in your gut will have profound effects on the production of a hormone that brings balance to your mind.
As a veteran enjoying the fruits of your labor, you might well be tempted to dive into an unhealthy diet when you’re living back at home – and who wouldn’t. But keep your mind towards healthier options and you can be reaping the rewards that impact not just on your waist but your head too.
Physical Fitness
A lot of people think of fitness as a simply “being in shape”. Fitness should encompass not just the body but the mind and soul as well. We’ve learned that all of it touches one another and not just how you “feel” but how you act. The subconscious is a powerful thing; for that is what drives us more than we like to think. For GallantFew (fitness) is more about finding balance in what we do so that how we act matches how we want to act. Without having to make a conscious decision to act a certain way.
Work, family, friends, leisure; all these things add stress to our lives. Now stress can either break us down or it can push us forward. There is a difference between good stress and bad stress. And stress does have an accumulative effect.
Read a complete blog post on physical fitness.
GallantFew Functional Fitness (GFIT)
Throughout the year we focus on various aspects of the GallantFew STAR and showcase how our programs and services layer into GallantFew Functional Fitness (GFIT).
GallantFew can help you identify where you are holding yourself back and help you become intentional in each of the five points of the STAR: Physical, Emotional, Spiritual, Professional and Social. To learn more visit our GallantFew Functional Fitness page.
Connecting with a GallantFew Guide is critical in helping a veteran make that transition and get connected to that local social network. Guide or not, make it a goal to meet one new person every week! If you are struggling, know that you are NOT alone. If you find yourself lost in social media, comparing your life to others, break away from it. Reach out to someone LOCAL and start talking! If you’ve received help from an organization, let them know!! Write a review, post on their FB wall, share your experiences on your social media.
Your story WILL change lives. It WILL help others. ONE TEAM, ONE MISSION.
Run Ranger Run
Interested in joining a team that will help you be accountable to some of your physical fitness goals to start 2018? Join us for Run Ranger Run.
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