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Smart Holiday Snacking

Smart Holiday Snacking

Person Serving a Food for Christmas Dinner

Lights on the tree, and Christmas music playing on the radio…Yes, the holidays are in full swing! In the coming weeks you will be faced with multiple social gatherings and parties, all in celebration of this wonderful time of year! So, we thought it would be helpful to send a little holiday party survival guide to help with your waist-line during this festive season.

The reason you are at a party is to celebrate with friends, family and co-workers. Keep that, and these rules in mind to help you better navigate the party platters and open bar at your upcoming holiday gatherings.

Rule 1: Don’t show up to the party hungry! Try to eat a well-balanced meal or snack before heading to a party where there will be food and drinks. Arriving to a party on an empty stomach will most likely lead to reaching for, and gobbling down the first thing you see. Eating too quickly doesn’t allow enough time for your brain to recognize there is food in the stomach and may lead to second and third ( and maybe more) servings, leading to a VERY high caloric intake.

Rule 2: Allow yourself a couple food items. Don’t deprive yourself of yummy holiday treats. Instead, choose one or two food items to enjoy, eat slowly and savor each bite.

Rule 3: Survey the spread before choosing your food. If you don’t love it, don’t eat it. Look for the food items you LOVE and ones that you don’t come across often. Remember, it is not your job to sample all of the food on the buffet :)

Rule 4: Limit calories from beverages. Most alcoholic drinks are loaded with calories and sugar. Try alternating alcohol with non alcoholic drinks to avoid extra calories. Also, if drinking liquor, use water or seltzer water as a mixer rather than fruit juice or soda.

Other strategies to help avoid over eating:

– Pop gum in your mouth if you feel like eating.

– Wear tight fitting clothing. This will make you more aware of your body and less likely to over eat.

– Keep one hand busy. Keep a cup of water in your hand to avoid reaching for more snacks.

Fueling Your Fitness

Fueling Your Fitness

Fueling Your Fitness

You’ve no doubt see some of these “pre-workout” concoctions floating around on supplement store shelves. What’s that about? Do you really need to mix a drink BEFORE your workout too? Well … no. But, you DO want to enter your workout in an optimal state. Now the sports nutrition sellers would have you believe that the optimum state is cracked out on enough caffeine, vein dilators, and blood thinners to bleed to death if you dropped a dumbbell on your toe. That’s not optimal. Rather, a stable flow of glucose through blood to well rested and thoroughly hydrated muscle cells is optimum. Much of that is accomplished the day (and night) before the workout.

However, to make sure you have enough “attack” energy, try eating a light snack of starch with a touch of protein or 15-20 minutes before hitting your workout. This will ensure your blood sugar is “topped off.” Just avoid too much fiber or fat, as too much of these could make you feel full and sluggish. The timing and amount here are important. Too much food too early (a full meal an hour before the workout, for example) will have the opposite effect, making you want to nap instead of train.

You’ve heard the advice to eat protein immediately following a workout. Ever wonder why? Intense exercise stresses and breaks down muscle protein. Yes, even aerobic exercise does this. In response, the hormones that aid protein synthesis become immediately primed and ready to start the repair and rebuild process. Now think about it this way. If you had a ton of ready, willing, and able workers show up to begin building your dream house … would you want them to be short of materials? What a waste! So get that post-workout protein in – ideally within 30 minutes following your training. Additionally, include a little carbs with that protein to help replenish muscle glycogen and muscle water while stimulating insulin to drive the protein into the cell. So if you didn’t, now you know that you should get protein post-workout.

But did you know there is another key time that the body is primed for rebuilding and repair? You can probably guess it – sleep! Growth hormone elevates during deep sleep, and protein synthesis picks up the pace. With the lack of external movement energy needed, the body can focus on internal fixes. Muscle repair becomes a primary project. So be sure to consume pre-bed protein. That may be as simple as a quality dinner that includes some lean meat, if you go to sleep soon afterward. For many people though, a post-dinner snack is in order. The perfect combination is a slower-absorbing protein like casein (milk protein) with a fruit like banana (which can also aid more restful sleep). But if you are staying away from dairy, mixing some whey protein in a little almond milk works as well, since the fat in the nut milk will slow the absorption of the protein, helping to last the night.

Demystifying Net Carbs

Demystifying Net Carbs

Nutrition Label for Apple next to Net Carb Calculation

Ever see a protein bar or shake with a “Net Carb” count listed on the front? Perhaps you already understand this, but it remains a mystery to many people. I’d like to break down for you to make sure you are never in the dark.

The idea of a separate net carb count vs total carb count stems from the attempt to separate carbohydrates that actually impact your blood sugar levels from those that don’t.

Now you may be thinking – don’t all carbs affect your blood sugar? After all, even complex starches eventually become simple sugars in the blood.

Well, there are a few compounds that fall under the umbrella of carbohydrate, even though they have minimal or no affect on blood sugar.

The first is fiber. It enters and leaves your body in the same form. It never breaks down to sugar. In fact, it attracts water and the viscous solution is forms works much like a sponge, actually slowing the entry of sugar to your bloodstream. The more fiber you consume in a given meal, the lower the glycemic impact of any of the starches and sugars you consume in the same meal. So you could actually say that fiber DOES impact your blood sugar – but it does so in a POSITIVE way!

The second category of compounds with minimal affect on blood sugar is sugar alcohols. Some popular examples include glycerol, sorbitol, mannitol, and xylitol. Now it’s a misconception that these never turn to sugar. That conversion can indeed happen, through gluconeogenesis, the same process that makes sugar from protein. But just like sourcing sugar from protein, however, the body doesn’t like to do it. The bigger fear is what too much of these substances can do your stomach and bowels. (not the way you want weight loss) A little bit here and there is non-issue for most people, but try to keep their use to a minimum, especially if you have a sensitive stomach.

So in summary, does the idea of “net carbs” have any value? Yes. When building a healthy meal, or picking a meal replacement bar or shake, it’s always a good idea to balance your carbohydrates with protein. For example, perhaps you find a meal replacement with 25 gram of protein but 37g of carbs. At first glance, you might be inclined to skip this option and look for something a little lower in carbs. But upon further investigation, you find that it has 11g of fiber and 1g of sugar alcohol. So it actually fits your needs, with a net carb count equal to the 25g of protein, while upping your day’s fiber total too!

Maybe you’ll get real lucky and find some “wonder” bread with no starch or sugar at all! (“wonder” how that tastes :)

Awareness: The Vital First Step of Change

Awareness: The Vital First Step of Change

As a nutrition coach, one of the first questions I’ll ask people is: “what did you eat yesterday?” Eighty percent of folks really struggle to recall everything.

They can sit there and draw nothing but blanks for minutes … until it finally starts to come to them. Can you guess how they eventually remember?

Association. The key to remembering what they ate want to remember:

group gathered around table eating

1) Where they were

2) Who they were with

3) What they were doing

Only after considering one of all of the above do they recall what they consumed.

There is a big lesson here. We remember what we eat by association … because we often simply eat by association.

So we can talk about this food being healthy and that food being unhealthy, and it’s good to know, but often times we know enough to make drastic improvements in our nutrition and hence quality of life, but we just don’t do it. Why?

I believe it’s because we fail to spend enough time becoming very aware of the circumstances, people, events, situations, and many times feelings … that are associated with our dietary choices.

Furthermore, how are we going to deliberately change unhealthy routines if we don’t recognize exactly when the routine is cue’d?

The short answer is – we aren’t. It’s just not going to happen – which is why awareness is SO important to the process of change.

Try this exercise for a few weeks and see what you learn about yourself: Start a new note on your smartphone and call it “Becoming Aware.” Every time you find yourself in an obviously unhealthy nutrition routine, label it as such and write down:

1) where you are

2) who you are with

3) what you are doing

4) how you are feeling

In the same manner, every time you find yourself in an obviously healthy routine, write down the same.

In just a few weeks, you will start to gain much clarity on your associated triggers.

When you figure out the where, who, what, and how … you can quite literally put yourself in the best possible positions to succeed.

But even more importantly, you can begin solve the game-changing question of whywhich can eventually help you win wherever you are, whoever you are with, whatever you are doing, and however you may be feeling.

Want to Be Stronger? Start Drinking.

Want to Be Stronger? Start Drinking.

water filling a glass cup

Slight dehydration, just 1.5% of your total body mass, can inhibit max strength by 6%.

Did you know that water can make you stronger? A whopping 70% of your muscle tissue is water. If that isn’t a dead giveaway of water’s importance on strength, I’ll share a few more insights.

One study that looked at the effects of water on strength output found that, in a slightly dehydrated state, a shortage of only 1.5% of your total body mass, you can only lift 94% of your maximum.

Now, that may not seem like a huge decrease at first, but let’s explore what that means. In an intense 45-minute workout, the amount of reps you can do with any given weight is directly proportional to your 1-rep max in the movement.

Everyone is a little different, but for example, if one’s dumbbell military press 1-rep max is 60 lbs in each hand, then they can likely do 15 reps with 40 lb dumbbells. If the 1-rep max (120 total pounds) is reduced by 6% to 112.5 lbs due to slight dehydration, they have to reduce the weight to 32 lbs per hand to get the reps. That’s a reduced work output of 16 total pounds per set.

Over 3 working sets, that’s 48 fewer pounds hoisted. Now that’s just one exercise. Over a 12-exercise full body workout, for example, with that being the average weight (not unreasonable considering the demands of squats/deadlifts/chest press, rows etc), that’s 576 pounds NOT lifted!

That makes a big different in total work output, a big difference in total calories burned, a big difference maximum strength gained, and a big difference in excess post-exercise oxygen consumption (or EPOC – the “after-burn” effect that can continue for 24-48 hours).

So stay hydrated, maximize your exercise sessions, get leaner, get stronger, and get it all faster.

Consistency Trumps Content

Consistency Trumps Content

healthy food journaling

Do you want to get to your goals without time-robbing detours? Don’t drive blind.

It’s Saturday. There is a party. There is pizza. There is cake. There is ice cream. Or rather, there WAS. It’s gone now. You ate it. You ate a LOT of it. That was dinner. And you had pancakes for breakfast. And hit a fast food drive-through for lunch. You look at your phone, and notice the nutrition journaling app. The seemingly logical thought follows: “Yeah, I think we’ll skip this today.”

Oh what a mistake that would be! Here’s 5 reasons that’s a VITAL day to record in your journal:

1) Those are the kind of days we need to fully understand, to help better navigate them and mitigate damages

2) Those days have a big influence on your average daily nutrition. You may not need to make as drastic changes as you once thought

3) This flawed thinking gives yourself a giant hole in the foundation of your success, through which you will repeatedly fall

4) The easiest habit to maintain is a daily habit. Every day you skip on purpose increases the chances of you skipping another by accident

5) Self respect breeds better self care. You’ll respect yourself more for honoring your commitment to consistency and transparency, and in turn will naturally take better care of the thing for which you have much respect. (you!)

Remember, the studies show that the very act of journaling itself improved results. (they didn’t separate the groups based on what they actually ate.) So what you record in that journal is, believe it or not, less important than the act of journaling. So don’t be afraid to journal on the days when you slip up. It’s just one more step on the journey to your goals.