Have you found it difficult to balance a healthy diet with increased exercise or training?
Midtown Chicago’s Registered Dietitian, Jenny Maloney, is back to tell you how.
Spring is training season for many members. If you have a marathon, triathlon, 5K, or other athletic competition on the calendar, you’re likely exercising more and getting hungrier as well.
There is a fine line between fueling for your exercise or sport and overeating, which can result in weight gain despite an increased caloric burn.
The tendency after a hard workout is to eat twice as much as you normally would, and this can get you into trouble, so ensure that you are eating an overall healthy and balanced diet. Are you consuming enough fruits and vegetables? Are you choosing whole grain versions of foods and lean protein?
Once you are eating a variety of healthy foods, then you can start to think about fueling for exercise. Instead of eating two desserts after a hard workout, add an extra serving of fruit, vegetables, or protein, or add an extra healthy snack. For example, if your dinner is a chicken stir fry, add another ½ cup of brown rice and an extra ounce of chicken. If you are still hungry after dinner, you can always have a snack.
Make sure to eat before and after exercise so you are not starving when you are done. During the off-season or taper periods, cut down your portions but continue to eat healthfully. When you are in training or exercising more, you can eat more but make sure the food is still healthy.
What race(s) are you training for this spring?
As the obesity epidemic grows in scope, so too does the “blame game.” Lack of exercise, over-consumption of food, sedentary work environments, lifestyle choices, biological predispositions, genes…the list of possible culprits for America’s fatness goes on.
Fast food is a common target. Earlier this month, an advocacy group launched a campaign petitioning 26 hospitals across the country to remove a major fast food restaurant from their cafeterias with the aim of sending a “better message” to consumers.
Some of the reasoning behind the group’s initiative comes from a 2006 study published in the journal Pediatrics that concluded that allowing fast food centers to operate in hospitals not only affects guests’ consumption of fast food on the day of their visit, but also unintentionally boosts the perception of the “healthfulness” of fast food in general. Here’s more research that supports the initiative:
Courtesy of wagnerfpa.wordpress.com.
So being near to fast food increases the likelihood of obesity, but will removing fast food from hospitals (and other institutions and neighborhoods) help solve the problem?
Consider this:
Blaming fast food restaurants for obesity can place us on a slippery slope. Should we remove buses from our streets to force people to choose the less convenient, but “healthier” walking or biking options? After all, sitting for long periods of time is correlated with obesity, and most adults do not get the recommended level of exercise.
Similarly, while we should limit consumption of fast food, we can’t eliminate it from the American diet as long as there is a demand for convenient, inexpensive, and (arguably) tasty food. We need to improve health through education and develop incentives that encourage healthy lifestyle decisions, proper nutrition, and exercise.
Perhaps a partnership between hospitals and Weight Watchers (or other proven commercial weight loss programs), or the establishment of walking groups or active events within hospital walls, could promote lasting change.
We won’t make any progress in the fight against obesity by playing the blame game at the expense of taking responsibility for our health into our own hands.
Courtesy of www.topnews.in.
What do you think? Will restricting fast food lead to a decrease in obesity? How can we as individuals, families, and institutions promote a healthier America?
Courtesy of eatright.org.
March is National Nutrition Month, and this year, the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics is urging Americans to “Get Your Plate In Shape.” With the help of the “My Plate” model, which replaced the Food Pyramid in June 2011, the experts are giving us a reminder of the healthy nutrition goals we have heard before:
February is here and with its arrival comes the opportunity to evaluate the success of health-related resolutions. If you’ve resolved to lose weight in 2012, and find yourself struggling, here are three tips to set you back on track.
Start a Food Diary
One of the tips you hear most often to help you change your nutritional lifestyle is to start a food diary. But what does that mean really? And why is it helpful? Won’t it be depressing to see everything you’ve eaten?
Allow me to de-mystify it for you. Here’s why you need to keep one:
1. You become accountable for what you are putting in your mouth. I don’t ask my clients to write a food diary just to yell at them about everything “bad” they ate. It’s not about “bad” and “good.” It’s being honest about what you’re eating and seeing where you can make small changes in your everyday nutrition that will add up big at the end of the month and year.
2. You recognize emotional triggers or habits that you’ve created. I like to see why my clients are eating what they are eating. This may sound silly but we don’t always eat for energy. Maybe we snack in front of the TV at night or always order dessert when we have lunch with our mom. These are habits and triggers that affect our better judgment when it comes to nutrition.
3. You realize why you are starving before dinner and snack on chips while you cook. It’s important to note what time you wake, eat, and go to bed. How soon you eat breakfast, how often you eat, and when your last meal is before you snooze are important. If you wait too long to eat your next meal you’ll be starving and end up snacking on an entire meal before you sit down for dinner. Or you’ll stop at a fast food drive thru. Both habits are not good.
Here’s an example of a thorough food diary:
7:30 a.m. – Woke up
8 a.m. – 1 apple, 2 tbsp. peanut butter, 1 glass water, 1 cup coffee w/1 tbsp. cream (breakfast, hungry)
10 a.m. – 1 Kashi bar and water (140 calories) (a little hungry before workout)
12 p.m. – sandwich w/2 slices of 35 cal bread, low-fat mayo and reduced sodium turkey lunchmeat (3oz.), 1 serving fat-free pretzels and ¼ cup hummus, water (lunch, hungry)
12:30 p.m. – 8 Hershey kisses, water (needed chocolate 
)
2 p.m. – 1 cup grapes, 2 slices provolone cheese, water (snack, hungry)
3 p.m. – 1 apple, small bottle Coke Zero (hungry)
5 p.m. – spinach salad w/craisins, blue cheese, mushrooms, candied walnuts & balsamic dressing, water (starving, had to go to Whole Foods)
8 p.m. – one glass red wine, one small 96% lean hamburger w/o bun, one handful M&M’s (wanted wine and chocolate, hubby made dinner)
10 p.m. – bed
This was my food diary for a day and I was totally honest! Times, exactly what I ate, why I ate what I did, and when I went to bed. So try one for a week, even better two weeks, and see how you do.
Include a Fruit or Vegetable in Every Meal and Snack
These pure and clean foods add more vitamins and minerals with the least amount of calories than any other food. With all of the fiber, water and nutrients that occur naturally in fruits and veggies, you’ll feel fuller longer and will have better health overall. Pair them with lean protein for a well rounded meal or snack. Apples and peanut butter, pears and walnuts, broccoli and low-fat cheese, or baked potatoes and salsa all add up to feeling satisfied without a ton of fat and calories.
Pay Attention to the
Calories You Drink
The calories in fancy coffees, pop, juice, protein shakes, smoothies, and alcohol are all included in your calorie total at the end of the day. You can eat great, sticking within your calorie limit, but a Starbucks frappucino and two glasses of wine can add over 350 calories to your total. Over a week’s time, that’s ¾ of a pound. In a month’s time you have almost three pounds! Yikes!
So stick with water, black coffee and tea, and diet drinks, and count those special drinks as a meal to stay on track.
Which of these tips has worked best for you?
The New Year is approaching and along with it comes the hope of new beginnings, new promises, and new possibilities. Included in this sometimes very personal and lengthy list are the new and exciting things that are coming to Midtown.
One of the first things you might have noticed is the big green flag hanging outside the Group Exercise studio that says “Group Core.” Group Core is the newest addition to our Body Training Systems class line-up. It’s a 30-minute class that focuses exclusively on your mid-section (abdominals and back).
Since they work as a unit, it’s important to work them together and that’s exactly what this class helps you do. The class launches the week of January 9, 2012.
Another new program coming soon is ViPR. ViPR enables full-body movement so you are entirely unified as you move. Whole-body integrated exercises are tailored to your body and fitness level. Members of our Atlanta club have been enjoying this workout for months. Here’s a sneak peek.
The personal trainer training class will be held January 14, 2012, and sessions for members are soon to follow so be on the look out!
We also have a few cool events planned to get you on the right track to health and fitness in 2012.
Nutrition 101: New Year, New You! takes place on January 9, from 6-7 p.m
During this hour I’ll talk about some nutritional basics you can incorporate into your every day life, the benefits of a food diary, and we’ll answer any questions you may have about how to make small changes in your eating habits.
F.I.T.-Functional Interval Training on January 16, from 6-7 p.m
F.I.T. teaches the muscles to work together rather than independently, using your core to hold your body, and not relying on a machine to do it for you. Guy Petruzzelli will help you incorporate this into your workouts and show you how it can benefit you more than traditional weight training.
Raw Food Demos on January 19, at 6:30 p.m. and January 23, at 9:30 a.m
Guest instructor Heidi Geiger will speak to the advantages of a raw food diet and will have a few dishes for you to try. Raw food is a great way to eat a more pure and natural diet.
Want more? Here is the entire event list for January so mark your calendars today!
Remember, there is always a newer and better version of yourself just waiting to be discovered.
Happy New Year from Midtown!
