So, I wasn't sure about what simple truth to talk about this week but while I was going through some old books from school, I stumbled across a few research studies that were done on portion control, and it inspired me to write about portion control and intuitive eating.
Intuitive eating is when you listen to what your body is telling you. So instead of eating until your plate is clean, just eat until you feel full. Babies are usually very good at it, but as they grow older they stop listening to their body, and start eating because mom said so, or because it just tastes good.
Part of the study that was conducted found that when people are given bigger plates than smaller plates, they tend to put more food on the plate. It's the American way to take big portions, get more food for your money and to eat everything on your plate and not be wasteful. Am I right? By doing that, we have become accustomed to eating more. So what's the big deal with eating just a little bit more, or not wanting to be wasteful? Well, 100 more calories per day equals 10 lbs added to your weight by the end of 1 year. Maybe if 100 calories could be cut each day, then at the end of the year, you could lose 10 pound!
One simple suggestion for cutting portion sizes is to eat until you no longer feel hungry rather than eating to feel full, and make sure you eat slowly in order to pay attention to how you feel.
Keep up the hard work, the challenge is almost over!
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Healthy Fats!!!
Ok, so sorry I didn't get a post up last week, I really meant to, but it just didn't happen and I don't even have a good excuse.
So last time I promised I would talk about fats and why we need a whole 20% in our diets. I know you've all heard there is such a thing as good fats, but the question is "why are they good?"
Well, this is how it works..... there are four kinds of fats you should be looking for on your nutrition labels: Transfats, saturated fats, monounsaturated fats, and polyunsaturated fats (In order from worst to best).
Saturated fats come from animals. It is found in any animal product, especially red meat. It is solid at room temperature, and can be heated into liquid (like the grease from ground beef or yummy chorizo).
Transfats are man-made saturated fats used to preserve foods such as twinkies. I'm not going to look up the stats, but I remember something about transfats killing people 5 times as fast as saturated fats. Important Note: by law, food companies are not required to list transfats on the label as long as there is .5 grams per serving or less. Tricky tricky. So even if transfats are not listed, you can tell if there might be transfats in the food when you read the ingredients listed. It would say partially-hydrogenated......whatever.
Polyunsaturated fats and Monounsaturated fats come from vegetables and they are liquid at room temperature. They can be found in avocados, olives, peanuts, almonds, any kind of nut really, sunflower seeds, safflower seeds, soybeans, etc. Cooking oil is obviously made of these fats, because it is liquid at room temperature.
To answer the question, "why are they good?" It is because they do the opposite of bad fats. Just to review, bad fats are transfats and saturated fats, and good fats are polyunsaturated fats and monounsaturated fats. Bad fats increase your LDL cholesterol and clog your arteries, causing stokes and heart attacks later in life. Good fats increase your HDL cholesterol which helps to move out the LDL cholesterol to unclog your arteries and decrease the risk of stroke and heart attack. Combine good fats with a low sodium diet and exercise, and you can have a healthy heart for life.
In closing, we do need some fats in our diet to stay healthy, but remember to try to keep it around 20%.
So last time I promised I would talk about fats and why we need a whole 20% in our diets. I know you've all heard there is such a thing as good fats, but the question is "why are they good?"
Well, this is how it works..... there are four kinds of fats you should be looking for on your nutrition labels: Transfats, saturated fats, monounsaturated fats, and polyunsaturated fats (In order from worst to best).
Saturated fats come from animals. It is found in any animal product, especially red meat. It is solid at room temperature, and can be heated into liquid (like the grease from ground beef or yummy chorizo).
Transfats are man-made saturated fats used to preserve foods such as twinkies. I'm not going to look up the stats, but I remember something about transfats killing people 5 times as fast as saturated fats. Important Note: by law, food companies are not required to list transfats on the label as long as there is .5 grams per serving or less. Tricky tricky. So even if transfats are not listed, you can tell if there might be transfats in the food when you read the ingredients listed. It would say partially-hydrogenated......whatever.
Polyunsaturated fats and Monounsaturated fats come from vegetables and they are liquid at room temperature. They can be found in avocados, olives, peanuts, almonds, any kind of nut really, sunflower seeds, safflower seeds, soybeans, etc. Cooking oil is obviously made of these fats, because it is liquid at room temperature.
To answer the question, "why are they good?" It is because they do the opposite of bad fats. Just to review, bad fats are transfats and saturated fats, and good fats are polyunsaturated fats and monounsaturated fats. Bad fats increase your LDL cholesterol and clog your arteries, causing stokes and heart attacks later in life. Good fats increase your HDL cholesterol which helps to move out the LDL cholesterol to unclog your arteries and decrease the risk of stroke and heart attack. Combine good fats with a low sodium diet and exercise, and you can have a healthy heart for life.
In closing, we do need some fats in our diet to stay healthy, but remember to try to keep it around 20%.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Week #2 Simple Truths
The Word of Wisdom really does work!!!
This is for anyone who's tried every diet out there. If you have bad eating habits, you need to make a forever change, not just a temporary change. Let's review the basics, you'll be surprised at how much this sounds like the Word of Wisdom.
The average person should consume 60% of their diet as carbohydrates, 20% as protein and 20% as fats. (Next week I'll talk about fats and why you need them in your diet) Of course this can be modified to fit the needs of a body builder or an endurance athlete, but I'm pretty sure it will work for most of you. The Word of Wisdom encourages us to eat meat sparingly, and states that grain is the staff of life. Sounds a lot like the 60/20/20 rule to me. Here's to break it down even more.
In order to meet the body's nutrient needs, we should consume:
6-11 servings of grains each day
4-5 servings of vegetables each day (preferably 5)
2-4 servings of fruits each day
2-3 servings of dairy each day
2-3 servings of meat, beans, nuts each day
A serving is usually an extremely small portion. For instance, one serving of meat is a 2-3 oz steak, fish, or poultry(about the size of a deck of cards). Last I checked, the smallest portion you can order in a restaurant is 8 oz. Consider that more than enough for the day in the meat category.
1 serving of grain= 1 slice of bread, 1/2 cup of cooked pasta, rice, or cereal
1 serving of vegetables= 1/2 cup of cooked or chopped raw, 1 cup of leafy greens
1 serving of dairy= 1 cup of milk or yogurt, 1.5 oz of cheese (about the size of 1 dice)
You get the idea.
So the challenge this week is to keep track for at least one day, what you normally consume, and then to modify it the next day. I'm almost positive that no one gets all 5 of their vegetables everyday, so maybe we can all start with that one.
This is for anyone who's tried every diet out there. If you have bad eating habits, you need to make a forever change, not just a temporary change. Let's review the basics, you'll be surprised at how much this sounds like the Word of Wisdom.
The average person should consume 60% of their diet as carbohydrates, 20% as protein and 20% as fats. (Next week I'll talk about fats and why you need them in your diet) Of course this can be modified to fit the needs of a body builder or an endurance athlete, but I'm pretty sure it will work for most of you. The Word of Wisdom encourages us to eat meat sparingly, and states that grain is the staff of life. Sounds a lot like the 60/20/20 rule to me. Here's to break it down even more.
In order to meet the body's nutrient needs, we should consume:
6-11 servings of grains each day
4-5 servings of vegetables each day (preferably 5)
2-4 servings of fruits each day
2-3 servings of dairy each day
2-3 servings of meat, beans, nuts each day
A serving is usually an extremely small portion. For instance, one serving of meat is a 2-3 oz steak, fish, or poultry(about the size of a deck of cards). Last I checked, the smallest portion you can order in a restaurant is 8 oz. Consider that more than enough for the day in the meat category.
1 serving of grain= 1 slice of bread, 1/2 cup of cooked pasta, rice, or cereal
1 serving of vegetables= 1/2 cup of cooked or chopped raw, 1 cup of leafy greens
1 serving of dairy= 1 cup of milk or yogurt, 1.5 oz of cheese (about the size of 1 dice)
You get the idea.
So the challenge this week is to keep track for at least one day, what you normally consume, and then to modify it the next day. I'm almost positive that no one gets all 5 of their vegetables everyday, so maybe we can all start with that one.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
The Simple Truths to Healthy Living
As the official health and fitness specialist of this blog, my hope is to provide you with the simple facts of healthy living. I'll try my hardest to be creative and motivating, but if I can't do either, then just trust that my tips are truly just simple facts.
I want to start off with a profound statement that I thought of myself. Here it goes...
"Life isn't easy, and neither is loosing weight." The results that you see are a true reflection of the amount of work that you put into it. I'm not kidding!
I think that this week I will put in a couple of tips. Here's one:
There are 4 components to being healthy(in no particular order): 1) aerobic or cardiovascular exercise 2) strength training 3) nutrition 4) flexibility. Notice that I didn't say weight loss, I just said to be healthy. Even if you don't need to loose weight, you still need to have these components to maintain a healthy lifestyle. I hope that for the next 3 months, my tips will help you to stay focused on making these 4 components a part of your everyday life.
Here's two:
Calories IN vs. Calories OUT
The 1st Law of Thermodynamics states that energy is neither created nor destroyed.
Calories are energy, therefore, when you eat calories you must either burn them or store them. Lets face it, when you eat a chocolate muffin, it doesn't just disappear into one of your hallow legs. To put things into perspective a little bit, one pound of body weight is equal to 3500 calories. If you want to loose one pound, you have to burn that many calories. So in order to loose weight, you need to be burning more than you eat. Sounds simple enough, so why is it so hard? Well, on average, a 200 lb person only burns about 2.5 calories per minute if they are sitting around, 5.4 calories per minute if they're walking 3 mph, 17.1 calories per minute if they are running 7 mph. So it's going to take quite a bit of effort to shed that one pound.
I hope I didn't discourage anyone, but my point is that if you want to win this thing, you're going to have to work for it. If you want to get an idea of how much you burn at rest then make a request for it. It would take me a while to find the equation, so if I get enough requests for it, then next week I'll post the equation. Counting calories is a very good way to know how many calories you need to burn, but if you don't know how many you burn at rest, or during certain activities, then your just shooting in the dark.
Good Luck everyone, if you have questions just post it to the blog and I'll do my best to answer them. And if you have any suggestions for the weekly challenges, post those too. Be sure to log in every week and reply to the posts!!
I want to start off with a profound statement that I thought of myself. Here it goes...
"Life isn't easy, and neither is loosing weight." The results that you see are a true reflection of the amount of work that you put into it. I'm not kidding!
I think that this week I will put in a couple of tips. Here's one:
There are 4 components to being healthy(in no particular order): 1) aerobic or cardiovascular exercise 2) strength training 3) nutrition 4) flexibility. Notice that I didn't say weight loss, I just said to be healthy. Even if you don't need to loose weight, you still need to have these components to maintain a healthy lifestyle. I hope that for the next 3 months, my tips will help you to stay focused on making these 4 components a part of your everyday life.
Here's two:
Calories IN vs. Calories OUT
The 1st Law of Thermodynamics states that energy is neither created nor destroyed.
Calories are energy, therefore, when you eat calories you must either burn them or store them. Lets face it, when you eat a chocolate muffin, it doesn't just disappear into one of your hallow legs. To put things into perspective a little bit, one pound of body weight is equal to 3500 calories. If you want to loose one pound, you have to burn that many calories. So in order to loose weight, you need to be burning more than you eat. Sounds simple enough, so why is it so hard? Well, on average, a 200 lb person only burns about 2.5 calories per minute if they are sitting around, 5.4 calories per minute if they're walking 3 mph, 17.1 calories per minute if they are running 7 mph. So it's going to take quite a bit of effort to shed that one pound.
I hope I didn't discourage anyone, but my point is that if you want to win this thing, you're going to have to work for it. If you want to get an idea of how much you burn at rest then make a request for it. It would take me a while to find the equation, so if I get enough requests for it, then next week I'll post the equation. Counting calories is a very good way to know how many calories you need to burn, but if you don't know how many you burn at rest, or during certain activities, then your just shooting in the dark.
Good Luck everyone, if you have questions just post it to the blog and I'll do my best to answer them. And if you have any suggestions for the weekly challenges, post those too. Be sure to log in every week and reply to the posts!!
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Ready, Set, Lose!
It's time to get started with the contest. I am so excited and hope that this will give all of us some much neeed motivation (at least in my case) to get to the gym, eat healthier, and shed some pounds.
Rules:
1. Each member must log on each week to post weekly weight loss percentage, the number of days you worked out and what you did, and check trainer tips. The log in day is on Thursday. You can log in more than that if you'd like, but you must make your weekly weight loss post on Thursdays.
2. Each member must give Jenny their $10 by February 15 in order to be eligible to win the pot.
3. You must exercise at least 3 times per week for at least 30 minutes. Please post your actual number of days you work out on the blog.
4. No diet pills. Protein shakes or meal plans are o.k.
5. Contest ends on April 15th, at which point the member with the highest percentage weight loss will win the pot. Maybe we'll all go celebrate with some celery sticks or something.
Rules:
1. Each member must log on each week to post weekly weight loss percentage, the number of days you worked out and what you did, and check trainer tips. The log in day is on Thursday. You can log in more than that if you'd like, but you must make your weekly weight loss post on Thursdays.
2. Each member must give Jenny their $10 by February 15 in order to be eligible to win the pot.
3. You must exercise at least 3 times per week for at least 30 minutes. Please post your actual number of days you work out on the blog.
4. No diet pills. Protein shakes or meal plans are o.k.
5. Contest ends on April 15th, at which point the member with the highest percentage weight loss will win the pot. Maybe we'll all go celebrate with some celery sticks or something.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)