Today we continue the topic of forming better eating habits. As we mentioned in the previous article, counting calories and carbs and such, is not what you should be doing. It's a waste of time to play that charade. Drinking too much water (or any liquid) is also a mistake.

It's all about finding a fundamental balance. Nobody can give it to you - you have to find it, and changing your understanding and concept of food will help you do it. Easy access to food enables bad habits. If you had to go chase it or gather it before eating - you would not have the opportunity to stuff your face for pleasure. Have some self-restraint, you do have free will, you know.

We eat to live, we don't live to eat. Food is our source of energy. Your body will process it and take what it needs and get rid of the rest. Understanding that, sends the carbo-loading and hydration out of the common-sense-window. Carbo-loading for endurance events, for example, is as effective as high knee drill for speed in running, i.e. there is more of an illusion going on. There are other things that you can eat that are 100 times more effective for endurance events.

As an athlete or an active person one of the most important things to understand is that your body is an open system (so to say), there is a constant and ongoing exchange of information with the outside world. What we need to do is sort out the fundamentals of eating and leave the rest to our bodies. We need to learn to listen to what our organism is telling us. We need to develop our perception.

What is balance in eating? How do we find it? How do we learn to maintain it? None of those questions are easy or simple, and all require an understanding of things on deeper levels. The answer lies in developing our perception.

The amount of food you need, and types of food that you need do not depend on your athletic regimen and load. Everything depends strictly on you individually.

Gels, powerbars, vitamin drinks or sports drinks are all a trap. A mental and a financial trap. Excluding these from your diet should be one of your first steps. Feel free to wait for scientific studies 5 years from now showing the negative impact of such substances on your body's operation, or simply use your mind now. There are plenty of real foods that can give you exactly what you need without any added chemicals. Real food also costs less and tastes better.

What should you drink and eat instead to help yourself recover after training? Subscribers of our newsletter will find out. (Click here to sign up to receive our articles by email). To find out how to eat before training, read this article.

Hydration is a much discussed topic. Hydration and prehydration are nonsense. Lots of trends in health and fitness industry stem from the absence of a conceptual understanding of the subject. Drinking more water than you need sends your kidneys in overdrive and flushes out everything. So if you packed yourself with vitamins (another questionable trend), hooray! you just washed it all out and your kidneys will pay the price. Now what?

Just like some other unfounded trends, the hydration trend is about money, not about you. FYI, as WebMD states, "drinking excessive amounts of water can cause a rare, life-threatening condition called hyponatremia." On a smaller scale - you'll get an upset stomach.

Bad choice in food we eat affects the entire body, it's no secret. Certain allergic reactions to foods express themselves through joint inflammation, other reactions to food show up as gain of weight, headaches, etc... so improving your diet you're literally affecting and ensuring the well-being of every part of your body. As diverse and able as we are on many levels, our inside operates in a very delicate and fine-tuned balance. A minor deviation from that delicate balance could cause serious damage or even a complete shut down of all systems.

A good start would be learning to distinguish between empty stomach and hunger. Your stomach is not supposed to be stuffed with something at all times. Minimize the amount of food that you take in. Notice how each product that you eat makes you feel. So maybe instead of reaching for TUMS you should simply stop eating pizza. Instead of suffering stomach indigestion simply stop eating that which causes it. Eating simpler foods and simpler combination of foods is also a smart move in the right direction.

Another good thing you will notice is that reducing the amount of food you eat will lead you to the desire to eat less. It will bring the balance to your food cravings. Starvation doesn't work, but seeking balance does. In time you should find what works for you and what doesn't, how much to eat of what and when.

In nature, there are no breakfasts, brunches, lunches or dinners - there is a need to eat or a lack of that need. A hungry lion is a dangerous predator, however the one that just ate is a pussycat .... until he is hungry again.

You are in charge of your well-being. You will find the balance as long as you start looking for it.