"Optimum health is not just absence of disease but presence of wellness in mental, emotional, physical, spiritual and social areas. Some would also include financial health."

Introduction

Optimum health is essential at all levels, from individual to society we live in to environment around us. We have to start thinking of wealth not just in terms of possession of money and properties but also possession of mental, emotional, physical, social and spiritual well-being.

Mental Health

The truth is mind is forerunner of all states.

With a proper mindset, a poor man can still be happy. Conversely, if mindset is not right, no matter how much material possessions you may have, you may still be a very unhappy person. Thus, Gandhi said, "The world has enough for everyone's needs, but not enough for even a single person's greed."

So a healthy mind is one that possesses a mindset that can lead to happiness and contentment with self and world around us. It provides clarity of thoughts, good insight and ability to see things through an unbiased mind.

To be able to see things through an unbiased mind is no small feat. It is extremely difficult to note or observe unfolding of events and phenomena without judging. We habitually associate emotions or feelings to events, and allow such emotions to direct our actions. Our likes for certain things and dislikes for others are closely associated with our emotions.

Emotional Health

It is our emotions that lead us to act impulsively at times. Thus a high level of self-awareness in this area is extremely useful. In fact, it is essential to our well-being. After all, things and relationships that may take us years to build can be destroyed in a moment of anger.

There are positive and negative emotions. Positive emotions such as love, compassion and joy should be cultivated, while negative emotions such as fear, anger and hate need to be eradicated.

When asked about this, a wise sage of India once illustrated with a story:

An old man said to his grandson, "Boy, I have two tigers caged within me. One is love and compassion. The other is fear and anger."

The young boy asked, "Which one will win, grandfather?"

The old man replied, "The one I feed."

At times, it may seem that we have no control over our emotions. This is not true. The truth is how well we manage our emotions depends on how aware we are of our emotions, particularly on arising of our emotions. The earlier we are able to note arising of our emotions, we better we can manage them.

More and more researches are showing that our well-being is closely linked to our emotional and mental health. Our body's immune system is generally enhanced by positive mental outlook and emotion. Conversely, it is depressed by negative mental and emotional states. Thus, stress, worry, anger and fear are some states that may lead to physical illnesses such as hypertension, cardiac diseases, peptic ulcers, depression and a host of other ailments.

Physical Health

Through his consulting businesses, John works with a diverse client population including high-level athletes wanting to win medals and championships. Furthermore, John will be completing his PhD with a specialization in exercise and nutritional biochemistry this fall. To say that this guy knows his stuff is an understatement.

In this issue, we decided to pick John’s oversized brain (no really, he does have an abnormally large head) to get his thoughts on a very important topic – Post Workout Nutrition.

grrlAthlete.com: John, what have you found to be biggest mistake in post-workout nutrition by athletes, and female athletes in particular?

John Berardi: The biggest mistake people are making is not doing anything at all about post-workout nutrition! Nutritionally, most people don’t plan for success – not even many of most elite of elite that we regularly work with.

I learned this lesson when I started working with a group of Canadian Olympians a few years back. When I spoke with them about their nutrition and supplementation I was flabbergasted with their lack of nutrition knowledge.

Now, prior to this time I would have anticipated nutritional ignorance or misinformation from average person but not from elite athletes. But I was wrong. In fact, athletes were just about as misinformed as general public.

GA: That’s too bad. What steps did you take after that?

JB: After re-evaluating my premises, I realized that because most athletes can stay lean and fit from high volumes of training their poor nutritional choices could be masked by a body that looks well nourished and healthy. Also, because they are already elite, they think they must be “dialed in”. It’s unfortunate that most of them never know just how outstanding they could be if they really took care of their nutrition.

So, once I get a hold of their programs, those already good-looking bodies usually change as their fat mass decreases and muscle mass increases. But even more importantly, they also improve their performance. This is why I spend a lot of time with my clients and athletes (even ones that already look great); educating them about making appropriate food choices and helping them improve timing of their intake.

GA: John, could you describe some case studies or examples?

JB: For example, most athletes don’t know that certain food choices before exercise can actually reduce their performance. Furthermore, few know that 6 hours after exercise are absolutely critical to recovery. My PhD work has focused on latter.

As a result of my academic training and my laboratory data, I’ve learned how to use food timing to maximize recovery after exercise. And while this is easy to do in athletes who don’t mind gaining weight (i.e. just eat A LOT), it’s much harder to do in athletes who want to lose weight (i.e. most female athletes and athletes in whom power to weight ratio must be high).

GA: So what types of things can someone do to maximize their recovery during these 6 hours?

JB: Well, for starters, there is a key principle at work here. Basically, muscles are most efficient at carbohydrate and energy uptake during this time. Therefore bulk of an athlete’s calories (especially carbohydrates) should come during this post-workout period.

Since fat is burned at high rates during post exercise period regardless of what food you eat, during this time most of ingested energy (protein and carbohydrates) will go to replenish depleted muscle energy stores and to enhance recovery.

Think of it this way. If you were to eat 100g of carbohydrates for lunch and 50g were to end up in muscle stores to promote recovery and 50g were to end up in fat stores to make you fatter, your body composition wouldn’t be improving and recovery wouldn’t be maximized. But if you were to save those 100g of carbohydrates until after exercise, all those carbohydrates would go to muscles for recovery with none of them going to fat cells. So which scenario do you prefer?

GA: Are you suggesting that athletes should only eat carbohydrates after exercise?