Week 1 Optimal Nutrition Course

by Matthew Palfrey February 01, 2015 0 Comments

Welcome to the first week of the Optimal Nutrition course from Sandbag Fitness. This free online course is designed to help you improve health, body composition and performance aka "what to eat to get the body you want". If you've done one of our online courses in the past then you know the drill - you will get the most from this course by participating and, ideally, sharing your thoughts in the comments section.

You'll find the details for this weeks lessons below. Please use the comments field at the end of the post to share any feedback, advice or comments you might have.

Lesson 1

Accountability is at the very heart of this course so Lesson 1 is all about setting and sharing goals. Health and fitness goals can be very personal so you might not feel comfortable sharing them with other people here in the comments below, and that's ok. But you do need to set them and you need to make some gesture towards attaining them. Being accountable in this way is an important aspect of any goal setting process. So, what goals are there?

• Losing or gaining weight
• Reducing or increasing your body fat %
• Gaining energy
• Feeling happier and healthier

You might have different ones that are more specific to your specific situation. For accountability sake, I suggest you do one or more of the following things:

• Take some 'before' photos
• Write your goals down in your food diary (see below)
• Write your goals down in the comments section below
• Share your goals with friends, family or your significant other
• Email me with your specific goals

Lesson 2

Progress can happen in many ways but, without a measure, how will you ever know what you've achieved? Anyone who has done the Sandbag Fitness Mastery Course will know what a difference recording your progress can make. It not only gives you an accurate record of what you've done but it gives you something to aim for on an ongoing basis. 

Food diaries, although simple, are a remarkably effective way to record your dietary habits. The diary you keep does not need to be anything fancy but it should include the following:

• A daily record of what you have had to eat and drink, ideally with quantities too
• A daily record of how you felt after each meal or snack
• A daily record of your general mood
• A daily record of your activity and exercise

In this first week I'd like you to aim to complete at least 5 consecutive days in your food diary. Don't worry about adjusting your diet too much at this stage, unless it comes naturally, just focus on recording information. In some respects, making the effort to record your average week rather than the best week you can possibly manage is a better start to the program. It will give you a far better point of reference to work from.

See you next week!

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