I think that a question every fitness professional gets asked over and over is "What is a good diet for me?"  If you Google the word "Diet" you will get about 164,000,000 results.  That's a lot of diets!

As a person sets out on their fitness journey, they often endeavor to change the way they live by adding exercise which is not easy; and changing the way they eat.  Often this means giving up the foods they love while enduring the discomfort that comes during the early phases of exercise.  The vast majority of the time this much change leads to one thing...Failure.

I am by no means a nutritionist buy I have found that by avoiding what is known as the "White Death" athletes can greatly enhance their performance without having to completely give up their favorite foods.

By "White Death" I mean white flour, white rice, white sugar and most potatoes.  These foods have very little nutritional value, have been almost completely bleached of their natural goodness, are metabolized into sugar when not burned immediately and inevitably lead to fat deposits.  However you don't have to completely change your eating habits...just make a few modifications.

The South Beach Diet is one of the most common sense approaches that I have ever read.  Not only is it a moderate change in eating habits but will in the long term lead to a healthy cardiovascular system.

So let's take a common sense approach and let me suggest that you start with exercise and let diet follow.  When you exercise, you begin to get in touch with your body.  As you begin finding an exercise regimen that fits you, your body will start sending you signals to indicate what it needs and what it does not want.

Along with your exercise journal it's important to make notes about your diet.  In a very short amount of time you will begin to see a correlation between good diet and good workouts.  Personally, I can't eat a supersized McDonalds meal and within half an hour crank out a three hour bike ride or an intense fitness class.  I've tried and the results are not pretty.

On the other hand I've enjoyed a Wendy's Mandarin Chicken Salad and fifteen minutes later was leading an intense cardio step class, sweating with my students and feeling great.

The bottom line is that there is no "Cookie cutter" solution to diet. Bodybuilders need lots of protein.  Endurance Athletes need complex carbohydrates and the rest just have to take a moderate approach and listen to our bodies.  The common denominator is getting in touch with our body and that means exercise.

For many years I operated under the misconception that because I trained so hard, I could eat anything that I wanted and get away with it.  To a point I guess that I was right but then I started eating better and lo and behold, my endurance jumped exponentially, my recovery time declined and in my first triathlon of the season I took over an hour off my personal best time.  For this I owe thanks to my wife Julie who has always maintained a healthy diet and set a great example for me to follow.