Daily Reminders To Proper Nutrition

It is important to understand that in order to get in the best shape you not only have to work hard in the gym, but you MUST have the proper nutrition to fuel the results you are making. You must feed your body the right way, along with learning and developing the necessary eating habits that will promote the best overall results. As a trainer I have seen many people mistakenly think that losing fat is simply a matter of EXERCISING MORE AND EATING LESS. This conception has led many people to a dead end wall...but all this can be resolved by mastering what works for you body, timing, and balance.

I want to begin by discussing the idea of CLOCKING YOUR CARBS. Understand that too many carbs can give you unwanted weight gain and make you fat, but too few carbs for an extended period of time can slow down your metabolism. So this brings in the idea of TIMING! I want to give you a helpful tip that may be useful for you in your daily regimen.
**Consume a large sum of your daily carbohydrates at BREAKFAST AND AFTER TRAINING! Why?
**Eating at least 50 grams of FAST-DIGESTING CARBS first thing in the morning and immediately post-workout hinders training-induced muscle breakdown and keeps CORTISOL, a stress hormone that destroys muscle and slows metabolism, in check.

The next point I want to bring to the table is to MAKE CARBS WORK FOR YOU. First, you must understand that building MUSCLE is the best way to burn FAT in the long run and in order to do this you must make your workouts intense to get the results you want. Next, think about taking in 20 grams of whey protein and 20-40 grams of SLOW-DIGESTING CARBS (from sources such as fruit, sweet potatoes, or brown rice) 30 minutes before you strength train. This will help you power through you workouts with the required intensity. You want to keep your weight loads up and your rest periods short to burn through the PREWORKOUT FUEL!

Also, try to prioritize your SLOW-BURNING CARBS. Slow-digesting carbs consists of beans, whole-grain breads and pastas, oatmeal, brown rice and sweet potatoes. These carbs should constitute the bulk of your daily carbohydrate intake...don't forget that the exceptions being first thing in the morning and immediately after you workout. It is crucial that you understand why slow-digesting carbs are so important...they reduce the effect of insulin, the hormone that initiates both hunger and fat storage. Research confirms that athletes who consume slow-digesting carbs BURN MORE FAT THROUGHOUT THE DAY AS WELL AS DURING EXERCISE!

So take these three tips and make them part of your daily reminder to proper nutrition, and I believe you will begin to see the first-hand changes you have been looking for. Hopefully, all these tips will continue to help you in your journey to proper nutrition and overall health and fitness.

Muscle and Fitness. 2008. pg.100.

Stop And Eat

We eat for three main reasons...to provide the energy we consume to stay alive, to build and repair the body, and to enable parts of the body to function efficiently. Energy for INTENSE physical effort comes principally from carbohydrate, which is stored in your liver and in your muscles in the form of glycogen. There are three forms of carbohydrates: natural sugars (fruits and their juices), refined sugars (jam, honey, and soft drinks), and starches (complex carbs and found in foods like potatoes, pasta, and bread.

The other major source of energy is the fat that is stored around the body.  Fat has a higher energy density than carbs, which means that per gram it supplies more fuel: it is estimated that if all the energy stored in the fat reserves of a lean, 150-pound bike rider were there as glycogen, they would weigh about 275 pounds. Most people have enough fat in their bodies to fuel many hours of activity, which means there is no need to eat fat in any great quantity, particularly as any excess carbohydrate or protein is converted to fat and stored for future use.

Proteins play the major role in building up and repairing the body: they are found in meat, fish, eggs, and dairy products, in vegetables such as beans, lentils and peas, and also in carbohydrate-rich foods such as potatoes and bread. In extreme situations, protein is also burned to produce energy.

Vitamins and minerals enable the body's processes to function normally. For example, Vitamin A is important for maintaining healthy skin, helping fight infection and maintaining good eyesight--One source of this vitamin is carrots. Fruits, vegetables, fish, dairy products, meat and eggs are all important sources of various vitamins.

The final element is fluid. The body can function for some time without solid food by running off  stored energy and protein, but without water, a vital part of  all bodily processes, death soon results. A drop in your body water, through sweating, of just two percent will reduce your performance, five percent will cause fatigue and ten percent could be fatal.

Your intake of energy providers is vital if you are not to run out of the "fuel" stored in the muscles and liver. Body repair materials are equally important if you are to rebuild the muscle fibers you break down as you train, and if you are to construct stronger ones, which is the whole point of training.

Fotheringham, W. Cycle Racing. Pg. 52.

Answers You Can Use To Achieve Success

Anything worth having is worth working for

Q: Why is it important to eat more frequently throughout your day (every 2-3 hours/5-6 meals)?
A: You will metabolize your food (burn your fuel) more efficiently and consequently, have increased energy. Also, by combining these meals with exercise, you will raise your metabolism, stoking your machine (body), burning more calories, and reducing your body fat.

Q: Is cutting out fats from my diet essential for weight loss?
A: You must remember that not all fats are bad. Look to the heart-friendly unsaturated fats found in certain vegetables, nuts, flax seed, and fish. Some studies have shown that unsaturated fats may also promote weight loss and are better for your heart.

Q: How bad is alcohol when trying to lose weight or trying to get in good condition?
A: First of all, alcohol is not good for your waistline...a standard mixed drink contains 100 to 250 calories. And many people will eat more when they drink...alcohol makes you crave the foods you are trying to avoid. Next, the body processes alcohol differently from the way it does other carbs. DON'T FORGET ALCOHOL IS A CARB! Alcohol contains 7 calories per gram, compared to 4 calories per gram in most carbs. Your body treats alcohol as a toxin, so your liver processes alcohol calories before all others in an attempt to clean the toxins from your bloodstream. So as other calories wait on line, your body senses a rise in calories and shuttles many of them into your fat cells! UH-OH, NOT GOOD!

Q: Is bread really that bad for you?
A: Bread is filled with empty carbs that spike your blood sugar, sending your body into fat storage mode and increasing your sensations for hunger. BREAD IS EMPTY, WASTED CALORIES. Most types of bread really pack on the calories. For example, most bagels contain more than 400 calories. Now this doesn't mean to take out breads completely. Try to take out breads/crackers for a 2-3 week period and challenge your body...see how your body responds to the no bread plan!

Listen To The Facts

Do You Need Carbs in Your Diet?

Well...well...well...as a trainer this seems to be the question I here over and over again. Many times I come across people struggling with eating too many bad carbs at one time. While others are afraid of eating carbs all together. We all need to understand that carbs are so important in maintaining our overall health and fitness level.

First, we know that cutting carbs from your eating plan will help you lose weight, but we must also consider the flip side. Understand that your muscles use carbs for fuel whenever you train above 65 percent of maximum capacity. Also, carbohydrates are the MOST IMPORTANT FUEL FOR THE BRAIN AND NERVOUS SYSTEM. Cutting carbs will help you lose body fat, but you need them for high-intensity training. More than 50 years of research shows that athletes involved in heavy training perform better if they have carbs available in their diets.

So the answer is YES! Keep those carbs in your diet. You may want to lower your carbs on the days you don't train or on your light training days. You want to take in more carbs in the morning and start to taper them down after 2 p.m. Most importantly, you want to think of carbs as your friend...here to help you become better!

Get A Good Night Sleep

If you, like me, spend some nights tossing and turning, you might want to consider your diet as the culprit. Here's how: carbohydrates send tryptophan, an amino acid known to be a sleep aid, to the brain, while protein actually inhibits trytophan's sedative effect. So avoid high-protein dinners and just try to eat a well-balanced meal that contains carbohydrates (don't be afraid to eat carbs). Or you may be mineral deficient; iron, calcium, and magnesium all induce sleepiness. Try taking those supplements in the evening. 

Hunger can also keep you awake--maybe you're not eating enough (but don't overdo either; overeating can cause stomach pains that will keep you awake). And finally, maybe you're drinking too much alcohol. A drink can help you go to sleep, but it often causes wakefulness in the middle of the night and can interfere with the body's REM cycle, which is when the most restful sleep occurs.

Ryan, M.J. Instant Health And Happiness. Pg. 53.

Tips To A Lean Body

I can not stress enough that it is important to have a variety of methods in your fitness plan to increase strength, performance, weight loss, and decrease in body fat. You can't just pick one method and hope to increase all aspects of proper fitness. By adding new concepts and variety to your foundation, your body will become stronger and faster. You will also accelerate your fat-burning and keep your body from getting used to one particular approach...also known as hitting a plateau.

It is so essential that you make a commitment to fitness. You must treat fitness as a lifestyle...by doing this you will be able to control unwanted pounds and keep your body fat from sky-rocketing into outrageous numbers. You must get your mind right and mentally prepare yourself to do everything to accomplish your goals.

You must make the right decisions to overcome temptations and to stay on track. Below, I am giving you tips and strategies that will help decrease your body fat. Each strategy/tip will be separated in weeks.

Week One- The goal here is to cut your carb intake in half. We all know that when carbohydrate intake is lowered, the body turns to fat for energy. So in order to start shredding some fat, you want to cut your carbs by half. This process not only reduces calories, but it also helps control insulin, the hormone released with carb consumption that can increase your appetite. So for example, you are going to halve your carb portion sizes at each meal. Instead of having 1 cup of brown rice, you are going to have 1/2 cup of brown rice. Instead of having a medium plate of whole-wheat pasta, have a small plate. In this process, you'll burn fat and your desire to eat should also subside. Now remember, following a low-carb diet for too long can backfire for many, decreasing leptin levels and slowing down your metabolism. So cut your carbs in half for five days ONLY, you will then return to your regular portions after five days and will have a new strategy to begin. Introducing carbs back into your eating regimen after this kind of drastic reduction, kicks up leptin levels and metabolism. One of the most important findings is that when the body comes out of a brief, modified lower-carb diet, it becomes more efficient at storing carbohydrates as muscle glycogen. This process is the key for pushing through your workouts with a certain type of intensity you need to elicit strength, power, and endurance. Glycogen not only powers your training but acts as an anabolic stimulus, allowing the body to retain muscle even as you attempt to drop extra pounds. Another purpose is that it pulls water into the muscles with it, keep the muscles hydrated and strong. You also want to drop all carbohydrates from your final meal of the day-every day- to slash calories. When you go to bed with a lower blood sugar-level as a result of avoiding carbs in your last meal, the body is more willing to increase its production of growth hormone, which accelerates fat loss by mildly increasing the metabolism and boosting muscle growth. Muscle & Fitness. 2007. Pg.162.

Stay focused and have a good week one. We CAN DO anything we set our mind to.

Head Back To The Nutrition Drawing Board

One of the big questions I often hear is, "Do calories really cause you to gain weight?" Or, "how many calories should I be consuming?" Many studies have shown that if you consume calories and don't burn them for energy, you will store them as fat, which is a true statement. But you must consider the fact that an abundance of insulin is also a factor in fat storage, no matter how many calories you are eating. So the solution would be to keep calories and insulin in a healthy range that will allow you body to burn fat as energy. So for every meal and snack, think low-fat protein first, low-sugar carbohydrates second, high-fiber carbohydrates third, and small amounts of healthy fat to complete it.

Another suggestion on the drawing board, is do not skip on carbohydrates. Its primary function is to serve as a fuel source for the body. Restrictions of carbohydrates can be counterproductive and may not provide you with enough energy. Another interesting function is its role in maintaining immune function, if you are on a low carb diet you may be more susceptible to colds and other infections. Choose the right carbohydrates at the right time...consume high-glycemic carbs called simple sugars during and immediately after workout. Examples of simple sugars are fructose and sucrose. And make sure you are eating unrefined complex carbs for the rest of your day. Examples of these carbs are wheat, brown rice, and other grains.

So in order to perform better, to see your body composition change, and increase your immune function, you must take in the right amount of calories and carbs for you goals and for your individual body makeup. Tomorrow, I will include an example of a nutrition action plan that will help you stay on track and help guide you through the road to healthy eating!

Clocking Your Carbs And Make Them Work

It is important to understand that in order to get in the best shape you not only have to work hard in the gym, but you MUST have the proper nutrition to fuel the results you are making. You must feed your body the right way, along with learning and developing the necessary eating habits that will promote the best overall results. 

As a trainer I have seen many people mistakenly think that losing fat is simply a matter of EXERCISING MORE AND EATING LESS. This conception has led many people to a dead end wall...but all this can be resolved by mastering what works for you body, timing, and balance.

I want to begin by discussing the idea of CLOCKING YOUR CARBS. Understand that too many carbs can give you unwanted weight gain and make you fat, but too few carbs for an extended period of time can slow down your metabolism. So this brings in the idea of TIMING! I want to give you a helpful tip that may be useful for you in your daily regimen.

**Consume a large sum of your daily carbohydrates at BREAKFAST AND AFTER TRAINING! Why?
**Eating at least 50 grams of FAST-DIGESTING CARBS first thing in the morning and immediately post-workout hinders training-induced muscle breakdown and keeps CORTISOL, a stress hormone that destroys muscle and slows metabolism, in check.

The next point I want to bring to the table is to MAKE CARBS WORK FOR YOU. First, you must understand that building MUSCLE is the best way to burn FAT in the long run and in order to do this you must make your workouts intense to get the results you want. Next, think about taking in 20 grams of whey protein and 20-40 grams of SLOW-DIGESTING CARBS (from sources such as fruit, sweet potatoes, or brown rice) 30 minutes before you strength train. This will help you power through you workouts with the required intensity. You want to keep your weight loads up and your rest periods short to burn through the PRE-WORKOUT FUEL!

Also, try to prioritize your SLOW-BURNING CARBS. Slow-digesting carbs consists of beans, whole-grain breads and pastas, oatmeal, brown rice and sweet potatoes. These carbs should constitute the bulk of your daily carbohydrate intake...don't forget that the exceptions being first thing in the morning and immediately after you workout. It is crucial that you understand why slow-digesting carbs are so important...they reduce the effect of insulin, the hormone that initiates both hunger and fat storage. Research confirms that athletes who consume slow-digesting carbs BURN MORE FAT THROUGHOUT THE DAY AS WELL AS DURING EXERCISE!

So take these three tips and make them part of your daily reminder to proper nutrition, and I believe you will begin to see the first-hand changes you have been looking for. 

Muscle and Fitness. 2008. pg.100.

Remember What Your Mom Said...Eat Your Breakfast

Everyone knows that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Breakfast is the meal that gets you ready for your day. Helps you focus, and it gives you the energy you need to get through your day. So if we know all these things, why do we continue to skip the most important meal of the day. Why don't we give our body the fuel it needs to help us get through our day. Keep in mind, that every time you skip breakfast your body has to play catch up for the rest of the day. Not to mention, without breakfast you will have a hard time focusing and will continue to slow down your metabolism. So try to eat breakfast daily...give your body what it needs to start the day. Here are a couple of breakfast recipes that you may want to try.

EGG WHITE VEGGIE SCRAMBLE (SERVES 3)

Cooking spray, olive oil preferred
1 Cup Mixed Bell Peppers (red, green, and yellow), diced
1/2 Medium onion, diced
6 Medium Mushrooms, diced
1 Cup Egg Whites
6 Tablespoons low-fat Cheddar or Monterey Jack Cheese, grated
Salt & Pepper to taste

1. Coat skillet with nonstick cooking spray and place on medium heat.
2. Combine and saute all vegetables until tender, around 3 to 4 minutes.
3. Add eggs and cheese; stir until egg whites are firm.
4. Add salt and pepper to taste. Serve hot.


NUTRITION PER SERVING
Calories: 106
Fat: 2g
Protein: 15g
Sodium: 247mg
Fiber: 2g
Carbohydrate: 7g


BREAKFAST BURRITO (SERVES 2/SERVING SIZE IS 1 BURRITO)
4 Large Egg Whites (or equivalent egg substitute)
1 Tablespoon 1% Low-Fat Milk
1 Teaspoon Chopped Fresh Cilantro
Dash of Coarsely Ground Black Pepper
Cooking Spray
2 Tablespoons Reduced-Fat Shredded Cheddar Cheese, divided in half 2 (8-inch)La Tortilla Factory Low Carb Tortillas, heated
4 Tablespoons chopped, Seeded Tomato, divided in half 2 Tablespoons Bottled Chunky Salsa, divided in half


1. Whisk the first four ingredients (through pepper) in a medium bowl.
2. Coat a medium nonstick skillet with cooking spray and place over medium heat. Add the egg mixture, and stir with a heatproof rubber spatula to scramble.
3. Sprinkle 1 tablespoon cheese down the center of one tortilla; top with half the scrambled egg, 2 tablespoons tomato, and 1 tablespoon salsa.
4. Roll up burrito-style (fold bottom up and sides to center). Repeat with remaining ingredients.

NUTRITION PER SERVING
Calories: 139
Fat: 5g Protein: 
15g
Sodium: 247mg
Fiber: 1g
Carbohydrate: 5g

Michaels, J. Making The Cut. Pgs. 62-63.

Well-Balanced Eating

Do you crave carbohydrates? Whole grain breads and cereals are thought to aid in making us feel calm and happy because they help speed tryptophan, an amino acid, to the brain. Tryptophan increases the levels of serotonin, that magical chemical that makes us feel good.

That's why every time you go on a diet, you turn into a snarling monster. While several diets extol the virtues of a high-protein, low carbohydrate diet, most nutritionists believe that whole grains and cereals should make up a good portion of our daily meals.

So if you're feeling low, try a diet that is moderate in whole grain breads and cereals. Just avoid the high fat and sugar- and you'll feel better without putting on pounds.

Note From Trainer: Please understand that each meal that you consume must be one that is well-balanced. Many get into eating regimens that contain more protein or low carb and very little veggies. The best advice I can give you is that each meal SHOULD be a well-balanced one. A protein, a carb, and a fruit/veggie. It doesn't get any simpler than that. So give it a try...you will not be sorry! Your mind and your body will be thankful at the end of the day, but most importantly your mind and your body will perform for you and help you to stay on track!

Ryan, M.J. Instant Health and Happiness Boosters. Pg. 185.