How I improved my diet to overcome a dense working and sporting life

Mens sana in corpore sano is a latin speech to say that keeping your body healthy will make your mind healthy as well. BUT, the other way around worked for me.

I understood that for maximising my living efficiency, I had to had a really heathy body. And I thought, that the best starting point was starting from my diet.

I am more or less 1.82 m height and I used to weigh almost 100 kilograms. Well, I have been doing a lot of sport since 2008 and my muscular mass has been relevant since then, but not enough to justify that weigh.

I am “smart working” since 2015 when I resigned from my traditional 8 hours job as a Field Engineer into the biogas plant design and construction.

I play wheelchair basketball since 2009, two technical trainings, plus one gym session and one game per week during the sport season.

I felt powerful and on the wheelchair I was fast enough thank to my muscular tone BUT there were a few players faster than me. I though it was just a matter of power. But then I realized that I was simply “too big”.

So, the first attempt I made, was starting to go for more raw and less raffinate food.

In that way, I stopped eating commercial pasta, bread and meat. I simply replaced them with more raw cereals like rice, millet, quinoa, and ancient cereals. Yes, I am Italian, I grew up with “pasta al pomodoro” but growing up with a habit does not necessarily makes it healthy and good. And as someone clever once said: “we are not trees, we can move ourselves”.

Reducing pasta and bread and replacing the left quantities with the same products but made from rawer materials made me “deflating”, going easy from 98 kilograms to 88 kilograms.

My favorite producer of ancient cereals is called “DaMonte Natural”, it’s a small company in the North of Italy and they have really amazing products. You can have a look at their website here (https://www.damontenatural.com/).

My hunger naturally reduced, since my body was in need of a lower quantity of sugars. YES, we are talking about sugars, since refined cereals give a glycaemic peak that makes you feel sleepy about 30-60 minutes after eating it. And then hungry again. If pasta and bread are less refined, you will be eating a lower quantity of carbs and a higher quantity of fibres and proteins, you will feel less sleepy and satiety lasts more.

Besides, I am also affected by a sort of chronic sinusitis since 2015, when in my last working place I badly suffered from respiratory diseases, connected to an unhealthy office.

I always refused to define it a form of “chronic” sinusitis, since I was sure that in some way I could improve or solve it.

I discovered an Italian doctor that was suggesting to eliminate gluten and cheeses to avoid sinusitis.

Rice, millet and quinoa are naturally gluten free. I do not believe into “gluten-deprived” foods. Deprivation (like decaffeination) is a chemical process. With gluten removal I was looking to eat in a more natural way, in a less Genetically Modified way. I was not looking for even more complex foods, where chemical traces could be present for deprivation processes.

So, at the beginning of the “Covid thing”, I decided to test my body and stay three months with neither gluten, nor cheeses. I had been very strict in respecting this regimen. I was looking for a result from an experiment, so the protocol had to be followed thoroughly.

And my sinusitis improved! So I started a slow reintegration of gluten in my diet, but only in a raw form, from ancient cereals, and here I am. With a hard working rhythm and much sport training during the week and sometimes three games during the weekend.

How is my diet now composed by?

I now eat only grass-fed and free grown meat, that comes from domestic growing. So I know how those animals are grown. I usually eat meat not more than 2 times per month.

I eat fish twice a weak and I try to eat fish that comes from the sea/ocean and not from breeding.

I eat a lot of vegetable and legumes and I always go only for seasonal products, since our body needs what comes from the correct season. For example, you will notice that in a tempered weather like European, citrus fruits come only during fall/winter, when the body needs more Vitamin C. I also buy fruit and vegetable coming from close cultivations and I try to buy biologic stuffs, or anyway, something that I know that has not been treated a lot.

My breakfast is made of seasonal fruit and some dried fruit. I do not see coffee for at least three hours from my wake-up. And I suggest you doing the same, since once waked, our body needs simple things (coming from the fruit) and not stimulants (like caffeine).

What have been my results?

More energy on work.

10 kilograms less in my life and in sport that have led me to a even higher speed making me become one of the fastest player in the tournament.

More confidence in myself since I made up a good body-shape.

What are your food habits? Have you taken some evolution in the last period?