An important skill that MMA athletes have to have besides punching, wrestling, and submissions is how to read a food label. The government, which may not always steer you in the right direction for what to eat, at least provides you with the ingredients and makeup of the food that you are eating. Reading these labels is essential in order for an athlete to know how many calories he ingests in a day, as well as what the composition of those calories are.
Having stated the importance of reading labels, I will now state that if you are reading a lot of labels, you may not be eating much of the right food. Last time I checked, there was no ingredient label on an apple or a chicken breast. Remember that most of the food you should be eating should follow the “If you can’t hunt it, pick it, or dig it up . . .” rule. That being said, and coming back to most people’s reality, you are going to eat things with labels on them, so you should know what they mean.
The first misleading thing to pay attention to is what is considered a serving size according to the label. For instance, you may have a big bowl of cereal or drink a 32-ounce sports drink and think you took in only the number of calories listed on the box. If the serving size is 1 cup of cereal or 8 ounces of sports drink, you may have just quadrupled the calories, and everything else listed on the label, without being aware of it.
After you know the serving size (and try to stick close to it), you can look at the total number of calories and find out what portion of those calories are made up of protein, carbs, or fat. The way to figure this out is to multiply the number of grams of protein or carbs in the serving by 4 (calories) and the grams of fat by 9 (calories). Then divide the total number of calories by that number to know the percent of each. This breakdown of what you are eating will show you how balanced your food really is.
The next thing that I think is most important is not the amount of sprayed-on vitamins the product has (take your multi every day to be sure), but the ingredient list. The ingredients are listed in order of the amount of each substance that is in the product, from the most to the least. So, if your cereal’s first ingredient is corn and the second listed is high-fructose corn syrup, you can be pretty sure you should throw out the cereal and eat the box; it’s healthier for you.
Another important thing to do with the food label is to identify the amount of sugar and sodium that is in your food. Processed foods are packed with sugar and salt. Not only are these two ingredients killers of performance, they are also killers of people. When you start to be aware of how much sugar and salt you are taking in every day, you will then have control.