Whole Foods: the Only Way to Eat

Go open the door of your pantry. What do you see? Does it look like the bulk foods section of the grocery store or the cereal isle? Now go to the refrigerator. Does it look like the fresh produce section or does it contain Bologna, American cheese, tubes of blue yogurt, coffee creamer, etc? How about the freezer? Does it look like you have visited the local butcher lately or the heat-and-serve meal isle of the grocery store? If you answered that your pantry looks like the bulk foods isle, your fridge like the produce isle and your freezer like you have been to the butcher shop recently, you are definitely on the right track!

If you want to eat, feel and be healthy from the inside out, you have to eat whole foods. I really think that changing the way we eat in America will solve many of the health problems plaguing this nation. We need to eat real food not prepackaged, processed chemicals.

Fill your pantry with whole grains like rice, oats, quinoa, and millet and with fresh potatoes both sweet and white. Stock up on nuts, beans and seeds of all varieties and dried fruits. Pack your fridge with fresh fruits, lots of colorful vegetables, eggs and a little bit of full fat cheese, milk, and yogurt. Store some frozen fruits and vegetables and all kinds of meats like fish, chicken, pork, beef, bison and turkey in your freezer. Take some time to cook your meals and then sit down and enjoy them with your family. Not just once a week, but every day. I think that if we all did that, we would be in better shape and better health in no time! I know that it can be time consuming and requires planning and preparation, but isn't your health and the health of your children worth it?

Do me (really yourself) a favor and next time that you are grocery shopping, look at the food label on each of the products that you pick up and if it has more than five ingredients, put it back on the shelf. Just doing that will significantly cut down on the number of processed foods that you consume and drastically reduce the number of chemicals going into your body.

If you need recipe ideas, check out my recipe of the week posts and try doing internet searches for certain ingredients. I love to use allrecipes.com to find recipes that have already been reviewed and rated by hundreds of other people. Eating whole foods really doesn't have to be all that hard. There are plenty of foods that are whole and also ready to eat. Most fresh fruits are ready to eat. Pair an apple with a handful of almonds and you have yourself a whole foods snack. Need a quick lunch? Pick up some prewashed lettuce, top with some canned tuna, cherry tomatoes and a simple vinaigrette dressing. How about a banana to go with that salad? Dinner can be put together in about 10 minutes and then baked for an hour while you play with your kids if you throw some fresh green beans, chicken breasts and cut up white potatoes into a baking dish together, drizzle with some olive oil or top with a few pats of butter and season with (homemade) italian dressing mix.

It really can be simple. It just takes the will to change your current methods and the determination to stick with the planning and preparation for the sake of your health.

If you want more meal ideas and more insight into what I eat every day, stay tuned!

Nutrition for Weight Loss

It seems that most people are at a loss when it comes to knowing what to eat in order to lose weight and tone up. I get asked quite often "what and how much should I eat to start losing weight?" I want to take some time to talk about that topic.

First, I have to say that the current trend says that the numbers don't matter and you can eat however much you want without counting calories as long as you are eating the right foods. I do not agree with that. The numbers do matter and people seem to lose weight and keep it off consistently if they take time to track their daily intake until they are familiar enough with the foods they typically eat to instinctually know how much they can eat and continue to lose or maintain their weight. Is it fun? No. Is it time consuming? Yes. Does it aid in weight loss? Yes.

I believe that what and how much you eat play a part in your health, body weight and body fat percentage. Don't believe me? Take a look at this study done by a university professor that shows how he lost weight on a snack cake diet. Am I telling you to eat like he did to lose weight? NO!!! I'm just making the point that calories matter. But the nutritional value of the food also matters. Other studies show that high junk food (read high sugar, low nutrient, processed food) intake leads to many chronic diseases such as cancer, high blood pressure and diabetes.

So, in order to be healthy on the inside and the outside, we need to look at the amount that we eat and what we eat. Now let's dive into what that looks like. The following is part of an email that I sent to a client outlining my ideas:

The people that I have known to successfully lose weight and keep it off have had a mentality shift when it comes to food. They don't think of foods in terms of what they can or can't have, but rather, in terms of what will best fuel their body and help them stay healthy from the inside out. They don't diet. They change their eating habits forever. The biggest specific things that successful clients do is cut out added sugar and processed foods. That means eating whole foods, cooking almost every meal eaten, and not having much use for sugar, maple syrup, jelly, honey, agave, etc. even being in the house. They all typically eat very clean all week and then give themselves one meal a week where they splurge (eat out, have a glass or two of wine, eat dessert). The successful diets that I have seen first or second hand have been high in protein, moderate in carbohydrate and low to moderate in fat. They include lots of lean meat, vegetables and complex carbohydrates along with some fruits, nuts and other healthy fats. They are typically low in dairy other than cottage cheese and Greek yogurt.

The clients that I have seen lose and maintain their weight loss have been very strict with their new dietary plans and weight training workouts in the beginning and then have seen a major shift in their metabolism to where they actually need to start eating more calories again. Many of them actually have a hard time eating enough to keep up with their body's caloric needs at some point.

So what do I mean by high protein? I mean that about 20% of your total daily calories should come from protein. What about moderate carbohydrate and moderate fat? About 50% of your total calories should come from carbohydrate sources and 30% from fat. That means that if you are aiming for 1,600 calories a day, you would need to eat 80 grams of protein, 200 grams of carbs and 53 grams of fat. If you get a tracking app such as MyFitnessPal or LifeSum, it will make all of this so much more simple! If you need help figuring out how much you should eat to lose, maintain or even gain weight, you can easily look it up online, use a tracking app, or you can contact me and I can point you in the right direction. And if you really want more specifics, look out for my next few posts. I am going to go into more detail about healthy foods and diets. And I am also going to answer the next most popular question I get which is, "well, what do you eat?".

Quinoa Granola Bars →

After reading through several recipes for quinoa granola bars, I decided to try this one because it is so simple, uses cooked rather than raw quinoa and uses less sweetener than many of the others. My whole reason for looking them up in the first place was to find a way to get my three year old to eat quinoa. This is going to replace my old standard granola bar recipe. That's how much I and my kids love it! The first couple of times that I made it, I didn't add in any extras and it still tasted wonderful. However, this morning I added in dried cranberries and a few chocolate chips and they are absolutely delicious! They are very soft bars which is perfect for my one year old, but if you can't stand for your granola bars to fall apart some, then you may want to avoid this one or just try reducing the amount of liquid and/or increasing the amount of oat flour to get them to harden a little more.

Exercise: Do What you Love

If you want exercise to be a habit that sticks, you need to find something that you enjoy doing. If what you do for exercise is not enjoyable to you, you won't keep doing it for very long. So if you are just starting out and think that you don't like anything, try out lots of different things. There are so many choices out there! And don't give up after just one try. For example, if you try a Zumba class at the local gym and you don't like it, try again with a different instructor on a different day and see if you feel differently, but if you don't then move on to something else.

All of the people that I have worked with and been surrounded by in my life that have been successful at making exercise a daily part of their lives have enjoyed the exercise that they do. One of my former clients wasn't very active until she decided to try and train for a triathlon. Now she exercises six or seven days a week and sometimes multiple times a day and SHE LOVES IT! She can't get enough. She got hooked on triathlons. I have several friends that used to run a lot just because they thought that was the best way to keep their weight in check but they didn't really enjoy it. They started lifting weights instead and they discovered that their bodies changed dramatically, they liked the way they looked better than when they were just running and they really enjoyed lifting weights much more than spending hours on the treadmill each week.

I have other friends that I only see in the cycle room at the gym because that is their thing. They love to cycle. If the weather is warm they are outside riding and if they can't be out on their road or mountain bike, they are in the studio taking a spin class. I know still others that are completely addicted to Zumba classes. They take a Zumba class five or six days a week. What these people are doing isn't as important as the fact that they are moving their bodies every single day. So invest some time in discovering what type of movement you enjoy and then keep on enjoying it on a daily basis.

You can find all kinds of different classes at your local gym. These classes include kickboxing, weightlifting, ballet, yoga, pilates, hip hop dance, tai chi, cycling, running, plyometrics, and on and on. Even if you aren't into the gym scene and would rather get your movement in at home, you have plenty of options. Research workouts on YouTube and you will find tons of free videos to lead you through whatever types of exercise you are into.

The most important thing is that you are moving some every day. I have been reading a great book by Dan Buettner entitled The Blue Zones that gives evidence to the fact that some of the healthiest and longest lived people in the world spend a lot of time walking every day. Taking a long walk with your family or a friend after dinner in the evening just may be the healthiest thing you could do for yourself each day.

Make Ahead Mexican Breakfast Casserole →

I came across this recipe when searching for something to make on a Sunday and then eat for breakfasts the following week. I wanted something with protein, complex carbs and vegetables. This fit the bill and it is delicious! I have made it several times with varying ingredients and found that my favorite is with ground turkey sausage and sweet potatoes. Preparing it with ground beef and white potatoes tasted ok, but wasn't nearly as flavorful. My husband and one year old love this recipe as well. The three year old is a little more picky, but she will learn to like it eventually!

Three things I want my PT clients to know

There are three general things that I want all of my current and potential Personal Training clients to know and understand. Those three things are as follows:

1. Consistency is the key to reaching your goal, no matter what that goal is.

2. Without good nutrition, all of your efforts will get you nowhere.

3. You have to work hard to make visible changes.

Now, let me break those down for you just a little.

First, Consistency is key! If you are going to hire me to meet with you, get to know you and come up with a plan to help you achieve your goals then only exercise twice a week this week, once next week and three the following (when my plan for you is to hit the gym 4 times a week) you aren't going to meet those goals. Also, if you cancel our scheduled appointments every other time we meet, you aren't going to get anywhere and you might as well not hire me at all. If you can't use me as an accountability partner and meet with me consistently, you aren't going to be accountable to yourself and your training program. Even if you aren't wanting to hire a personal trainer, but you have fitness and health goals that you aspire to, if you aren't consistently eating well and working out, you won't see results, period. Weight loss and athlete level goals typically require you to be active every day and do formal exercise at least 5 days a week. Strength, toning and flexibility goals without a weight loss component are going to require at least 3 days a week and up to 6 days a week of consistent hard work.

Second, eat well to see your hard work in the gym pay off. Don't eat well and you will wonder why you are even bothering to go to the gym at all. You may have heard that health/fitness/weight loss is 20% working out and 80% nutrition. That isn't a hard fact, but I believe it! If you think about the amount of time that you spend in the gym each week in relation to the amount of time that you spend eating, which one is more? Most likely, eating. We eat (at least) three times a day and we exercise (at most) once maybe twice a day. If you are doing it right and preparing all of your meals at home, add in all those food preparation hours too. We spend (and should spend!) a lot more time thinking about food than exercise. Make that time count and eat lots of healthy foods including homecooked meals made from lots of vegetables, whole grains, lean meats, fruits and some dairy. If you put a little more time, effort and thought into what goes into your mouth, that one hour a day you spend in the gym will get you a whole lot further towards your goals than if you keep eating out of a box or bag or a wrapper or whatever you eat your convenience food out of.

Third, you have to work hard to see the results in your physique that you desire. If you aren't prepared to work hard then don't hire a personal trainer. I am not a magic pill and I can't do the work for you. I can guide, inspire, inform, educate and motivate you, but i can't put in the time and energy that is needed for you to make changes in your physique. Only you can do that. If you think that hiring a personal trainer will somehow make the workouts that you have already been doing on your own work for you, it won't. I will ask you to work harder, do more, put more time in. Hopefully I will inspire you to want to do those things. However, learning from and working with me once or twice a week for an hour each time in the gym isn't going to get you where you want to be unless where you want to be is where you are right now. I will give you homework to do and you need to do it. Don't come to the gym unprepared, do a few easy sets of a few random exercises and walk away wondering if you are making progress towards your goals. Walk into the gym with your head held high ready to work hard and do whatever it takes to reach your goals; walk out feeling tired, but on cloud nine because you KNOW you are on your way to reaching your goals.

Work hard consistently, eat well consistently, meet your goals consistently.