Nutrition and Food Choices

It's only wednesday and the familiar struggle with the clients that I have trained so far is Nutrition. First, your body needs to eat to loose weight. Second, without fuel, the body will be unable to perform. Third, without adequate fuel sources, your body will be unable to recover from exercise and the stresses of our daily lives. Below is a handout I have put together to guide you through making smarter food choices. Please print this out and read. (I can also send this to you via attachment.) Let me know if you have any questions.

Also, check these websites out:
www.fitnessmagazine.com
www.oxygenmagazine.com
www.eatclean.com
www.bethenny.com

Nutrition and Food Choices:

Nutrition is the most important and fundamental key to fitness! Not only does it complement our hard work in the gym, but it also aids in the body's recovery from intense effort exertion and it enables the body to actually exert the effort. The body will function, react, change, and maintain when the tank is not only full but filled with high octane energy.

Basic Guidelines to keeping the tank filled with energy and power: Eat like an athlete
• Eat clean: Lean and whole food full of nutrients and power
• Properly hydrate: 10-12 glasses of water a day
• Eat 5-6 meals a day, every 2 to 3 hours. Avoid waiting till you are hungry or starving.
• Limit sugar, alcohol, white flour, salt and fat.
• Consume a variety of vegetables and 2-3 servings of fruit daily
• Combine protein, carbohydrates and healthy fat in each meal
• Protein builds muscle: .8-1.5 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight
• Keep a food journal, tracking daily calories as well as grams of protein, carbohydrates and fat. www.livestrong.com, The Daily Plate. Knowing your daily calorie consumption will enable you to understand where your calories are coming from and what you may be able to adjust and change to make each snack and meal complete. Remember, each meal is a fuel source. Consume full calories opposed to empty calories.
***Below is an average guideline:
• If you are doing 5-6 hard workouts a week= 1800-2000 calories a day=3 higher calorie meals and 1 pre-workout and 1 post-workout snack
• If you are doing 2-4 mild to hard workouts a week=1600-1700 calories a day=3 lower calorie meals and 1 pre-workout and post-workout snack
• Treat yourself: Include cheat days so you are never in a constant "craving" state.
***Use the Daily Plate to find your average daily calorie consumption to either maintain or lose weight. Then use this as a relative guideline. Remember your body runs on a proper and adequate fuel source. Without fuel your body will not perform at its optimal capacity.
Smart Food Choices: Food Group Examples
• Lean meat: Chicken, Turkey, Lean red meat, White Fish, Albacore Tuna Fish
• Low fat and skim dairy products
• Complex carbohydrates, whole grains, sweet potatoes, and beans
• Fresh Fruits and Vegetables- Dark leafy vegetables, broccoli, cauliflower, green beans, and squash, berries, apples, bananas
• Water
Breakfast
**Breakfast is the most important fuel source of the day. As a general rule, your body uses the last meal you ate for the energy you will need for your workout. When you first wake up in the morning, you have not consumed any fuel for at least seven to nine hours. Your body runs on two sources of energy, fat and/or muscle. Generally, the one that is used first is muscle. The purpose of breakfast is to consume fuel and give your body another source of energy other than muscle to complete a workout. Remember, the more lean muscle mass you have the faster your metabolism is and the more fat you will burn.
Complete breakfast = Protein, carbohydrates, fat= Choose one thing from three of the Smart Food Choice Groups
Examples:
• Oatmeal, berries and nuts
• Cream of wheat, berries, and nuts
• Cottage cheese or plain yogurt, berries and nuts
• Ezekiel Whole Grain bread, low-fat string cheese, tomato and ¼ avocado
• Ezekiel Whole Grain bread with egg whites or 1 yolk and 3 whites scrambled with ½ cup veggies
• Ezekiel Whole grain bread, 1tbsp of natural peanut butter, ½ banana
• Whole wheat tortilla, 1 scrambled egg, ¼ cup spinach and tomato
Quick food choices: Pack your meals!!!!! A cooler with an ice pack is a convenient way to assure that you will eat properly and adequately throughout the day. This will also ensure you that when you are hungry you will make choose good fuel sources.

Examples:
• Central Market Instant plain oatmeal with nuts and fruit
• Ezekiel Whole grain bread and wraps
• Hard boiled eggs
• Individual cottage cheese packs
• Individual plain yogurt packs
• Bulk nuts
• Rotisserie chicken
• Hormel and Purdue pre-cooked chicken packs: in lunch meet section
• Boars Head sliced turkey: in deli
• String cheese
• White chicken, brown rice, veggies, and sesame seeds
• Turkey lettuce wraps with tomato
• Peanut butter and almond butter
• Peanut butter and banana sandwiches
• Central Market whole grain waffles (add peanut butter and banana for a healthy sweet treat)
• Turkey and avocado and tomato sandwiches
• Sliced apples, string cheese, and almonds
• Carrots and Hummus: pre-made hummus is great (choose original or flavored)
• Celery, peanut butter and raisins
• Birds Eyes frozen brown rice, frozen vegetables, frozen pasta meals: all to be steamed in microwave for only 5 minutes - These save my life daily!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
• Canned beans: just rinse thoroughly to get salt off
• Skim milk "kids" cartons: Good source of calcium and energy before a workout
• Protein shakes: GNC can help you with proper choice. Choose a low fat and low carbohydrate version.
Pre-Workout Snack:
*Just like breakfast, a small complete meal before your workout will give you the adequate energy source needed to perform at your optimal capacity. Again, we want to burn fat rather than muscle. If you are hungry going into a workout you are using muscle as your energy source. This is counterproductive. Consume a small, nutritionally complete snack 1-2 hours before your workout consisting of no more than 300 calories, choosing foods that are high in carbohydrates and protein, and low in fat. Consuming fat 1-2 hours before your workout will make you feel sluggish and uncomfortable.
Examples:
• Low fat and low carbohydrate protein shake mixed only with water or half water and half skim milk. (Consuming fat 1-2 hours before your workout will slow you down.)
• Whole grain bread and peanut butter
• Whole grain bread with egg whites
• Sweet potato and egg whites
• 3 oz chicken breast on a whole wheat tortilla
• String cheese, apple and peanut butter or ½ handful of almonds
• Sliced turkey wrapped in lettuce or a whole wheat tortilla
Post-Workout Snack:
*Eating within 30-60 minutes of a workout will enable your body to replenish its fuel source and begin the repair process necessary to build lean muscle mass and burn fat. Recovery is the reason for calorie consumption after a meal. Why workout at a high intensity if you do not allow your body to recover properly? Again, if you do not provide your body with the necessary fuel source needed after a strenuous workout, it will be unable to recover; therefore the body will be in breakdown mode, thus contradicting your efforts in the gym. Consume a small, calorie dense meal (500 calories) 30-60 minutes after a workout, consisting of protein, complex carbohydrates, and low fat.

Examples:
• Protein shake, low in sugar
• Peanut butter and banana on rice cakes
• Hummus and Pita
• Yogurt, fresh berries, sliced almonds
• Tuna on whole wheat pita
• Turkey and cheese with apple slices


***When we work hard in the gym, building muscle and reducing fat, we need adequate energy, fuel, and power. If not properly nourished, our body will store any food consumed if it has gone into starved mode. Also, when pushed to its max and not properly nourished, the body will not use stored fat as fuel, it will go into the glucose in the muscle! This will contradict our efforts to build lean muscle mass. Fueling the body before and after a workout is very important. We need energy and power for a workout and our body will need it 30-60minutes after a workout. Again, if not properly nourished, the body will think that it's being starved, fight or flight response, and it will store consumed food if sugar levels are too low!

Train like an athlete. Eat like and athlete. Think like an athlete.