Simple Nutrition and Healthy Weight Loss Advice.

Simple Nutrition and Healthy Weight Loss Advice.

Long time no blog I know, but I have been busy studying and doing work to prepare for my Nutrition and Weight Loss Specialist Certification exam. I thought I would take some time and share some things I have learned and tips that I will share with my clients.

This is 4 liters of water. Start drinking.

Water Is the Most Important Nutrient for Your Body.

Water will not only curb your appetite, but is required for every important task your body does. You will not be able to digest your food, get nutrients form your food or grow muscle without water. Depending on activity you could consume 3 to even 6 liters of water a day!  Also, I would suggest you don’t get on the bandwagon of using additives or sports drinks in water.  Ideally, you should replenish electrolytes and carbohydrates via food. Replenishing these is only critical after an hour of vigorous exercise and even then, will only benefit performance after 20 minutes. So save that for your half marathon or marathon. Drink water and have a balanced meal after your workout. One of the things I do is put elastic bands around my water bottle. Each time I empty the bottle I move an elastic band down. So my bottle holds 600 ml, 5 bands start at the top, at the end of the day I should have 5 elastic bands at the bottom for 3 liters.

Fat is not bad, in fact you need it.

Some of your nutrients are fat-soluble. So that means they can only be used in the presence of fat.  Omega 3, 6, and 9 are important. Saturated fats are not all evil, but look at lightly processed or unprocessed fats. Coconut oil, extra virgin olive oil, and fats from avocado and fish should be included in your pans and plates. If you would like to find out more about healthy dietary fat, check in next week. I will be writing all about the good, bad and ugly of fat.

Lastly, Unprocessed, Whole, Raw.

My training and my personal style encourage clients to enjoy raw, unprocessed and whole foods. It is very important to avoid things in cellophane bags, vending machines, laden with heavy preservatives. This is not as boring as you may think, and not dreadfully difficult. I am not asking you to cut out your treats, just re-think them. My process involves working with my clients and finding the negotiations and small changes in diet that have the biggest impact. Replace preprocessed candies and bars with dates and nuts with little bits of dark chocolate.  If you enjoy meat, eat the least processed as possible. Cut out sausage, hotdogs, even hamburgers and go for cuts of meat. Watch this space for more suggestions and tips on this to come.  

Don't like cooking. Try eating raw veggies with a little hummus. No cooking!

3 Things you can do to start losing weight right NOW.

Weight loss is a huge issue for most people and as a personal trainer, one of the top requests I get from clients. It is such a complicated issue that I will be taking a Nutrition & Weight Loss (NWL) Specialist certification class from CanFitPro in February.  Here are some simple steps you can take to get on the right track. I hate to be a downer or come across as a tough guy with this but really, just do this and no messing around! For some this will be the hardest task, but well worth it!

1.     Food Journal. 

Start a food journal RIGHT NOW. I would love to hear you started this as you were reading this sentence. Write down EVERYTHING that passes your lips for a week. Then a month. Water, gum, one potato chip EVERYTHING.  Here is a very short article that can give you instructions and even print out a template to record your findings. http://www.realsimple.com/health/nutrition-diet/healthy-eating/keep-food-journal-10000000965749/

I do this because when I ask about diet, most people say, “I eat pretty healthy.” Lets quantify that and evaluate!

What is a portion size? Use this to estimate it.

http://education.wichita.edu/caduceus/examples/servings/handy_reminders.htm

If your thumb is an ounce of cheese, just by looking at Canada’s food guide;

How many of you have sat down and eaten 8 servings of cheese in one sitting BEFORE a meal.

http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/fn-an/food-guide-aliment/basics-base/quantit-eng.php

A food journal makes you GET REAL AND HONEST about your relationship to food.

2.     10,000 Steps a day.

You may have seen this before. Easy way to start losing weight is to become physically active in your everyday activities. This web page has some great tips. http://www.thewalkingsite.com/10000steps.html

Can’t find a parking space close to the grocery store, good!  A pedometer is a great way to keep you honest and quantify your activity. Most people find that the fist time they wear a pedometer, they are less active than they think. Walking is a great way to become more active and can even lower stress.

3.     Stop drinking soda and reduce alcohol consumption.

Full stop. No diet soda, don’t think low carb beer is that much better.  Nothing can sabotage your weight loss like soda and alcohol. There is nothing of benefit for you in a can of soda. If you intend to get rid of weight and consume soda, your progress will be hampered. Sports drinks are mostly sugar. Real food and water are always better. Commercials telling you that you have to squirt things in water to make you be a professional athlete are just trying to sell you stuff. Need some more energy? Have some black coffee and a piece of fruit. Also look at evaluate that latté.  Liquid calories are mostly useless and do not fill you up. So you will ingest calories like a meal, but not get full. Liquid calories will sabotage you every time.

Hopefully, you have noticed that other than possibly buying a pedometer, all of these tips are free and might actually SAVE YOU MONEY!  You can use that money to hire a personal trainer… ok sorry, had to do that. I am not saying this is easy, but could possibly be the most important three steps to weight loss.

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