Nutrition Facts Label – How to Read
December 8, 2009
Nutrition Facts Label – How to Read
Turn over any packaged product and you are faced with a Nutrition Facts Label. But how do you read it, and what do you look out for? After reading this article you will be able to take 5 seconds and look at the Nutrition Facts Label and determine if this is the right product to keep your fat-reducing muscle-producing nutrition plan in place or not.
Nutrition Facts: Serving Size
The serving size is the first thing you’ll want to look at. Is the portion size indicated a real life amount that you would be consuming? A lot of times I see this number is a little off especially with cereals. Some manufacturers indicate that half a cup of cereal is a regular serving size when a lot of times it is actually a full cup (250ml size). So if that is the case remember to double everything listed below.
Pre Workout Energy Foods
November 27, 2009
Pre Workout Energy Foods
Earlier this week I wrote about Post Workout Nutrition and got quite a bit of feedback from many who realized how important it is to have something even as simple as fruit within 60 minutes after their workouts. Now in this article I’d like to share with you my knowledge gained from studying advanced exercise nutrition for athletes.
How many times have you gone to do some exercise and have felt either tired or even nauseous just a few minutes into your workout? I think this is something experienced by everyone and although there are several factors which tie in to your energy (obviously sleep is a big one!), we’re going to look specifically at your nutrition pre-workout and even when to eat to get best results.
Healthy Meal Plan: Day 1
November 19, 2009
Healthy Meal Plan: Day 1
I get asked quite a bit about healthy meal plan ideas, so you many of you will enjoy this article, and to be honest it’s quite fun for me too because it gets me to think about healthy meal plans that actually taste good and are satisfying. It’s no fun going through life eating cardboard-like food because you think it’ll make you look good, right?
Ok so, obviously it takes me a lot of time to sit down with a client and go over their needs and goals and help them develop healthy meal plans that they can stick to, but I thought I’d write articles of example days. You can try them out and see how they work for you and then hopefully mix and match from all the future articles on this topic..and by that I mean I will be writing many more healthy meal plans!
Fruit Smoothie Recipe – Ultimate Parfait
November 3, 2009
Fruit Smoothie Recipe – Ultimate Parfait
One of the best ways to get on track with eating healthy is to introduce protein fruit smoothies into your diet. The benefits are simply exponential…
- Great way to introduce antioxidant rich fruit into your diet to boost immune system
- Adding whey protein boosts your amino acid intake which helps with muscle recovery & strength gains
- Can easily curb appetite for unhealthy junk food
- Boosts your metabolism if you combine one or two protein smoothies with three small meals throughout the day
- Taste great, no actually they taste fantastic! Mix your favorite fruits and yogurts
So what’s my ultimate fruit smoothie parfait recipe?
Read more…
Healthy Snacks at Night
September 10, 2009
Healthy Snacks at Night
I had an interesting observation when thinking about the psyche of eating healthy during the day. Most of us do our best to be very health-conscious during the day and then at night we break down and think “I’ve been good all day, so it won’t kill me if I have…” substitute your junk food of choice here! It might be ice cream, popcorn, chips or even something high in carbs like cereal (by the way, why do a lot of women like to eat cereal at night?).
Something ringing a warning bell here? I hope this article exposes this problem, but first let’s look at why this thinking is what is causing all our hard work to go to waist…I mean waste!
Let me take a few steps back and state that I can’t think how many times I’ve heard of people saying to me that they’ve heard that they should not eat anything after 7pm, as if that’s the secret that all fitness models use to stay fit and lean. I can’t stress how wrong this thinking is. Let’s look at why…
Healthy Salad Dressing Recipes
August 24, 2009
How Healthy is Your Salad?
Salads are a great way to add tons of healthy vegetables full of essential vitamins and minerals to your diet. Unfortunately, the salad dressing and other toppings can also add a large amount of fat and unwanted sugars. Some things to watch out for include: added sugars (such as high fructose corn syrup), ‘bad’ oils (such as soybean and canola oil), and serving sizes. With this in mind if you look at the ingredient listing of almost any salad dressing today you’ll notice they contain a large amount of these bad-for-your-tummy additives. So why not create our own salad dressings with healthy fresh ingredients?
Try the following tasty and quick to make salad dressings which can actually be a positive addition to your diet. ‘Good’ oils such as olive oil not only add flavour, but can actually help make the nutrients in your greens more accessible to your body. These delicious dressings will add extra zing to your salads while helping you keep up with your healthy lifestyle.
The Fat Loss Diet
July 2, 2009
The Fat Loss Diet
This article is written for those who are strictly looking to lose fat with their diet. It must be warned that you may also see a little loss of muscle size, however in the long run, the fat loss will also mean more definition. So the result may be that your muscles look bigger because there is no fat covering them!
This diet looks at restricting high Glycemic carbs to the morning only. If you are wondering why high Glycemic carbs are considered at all, the reason is because they help fuel your muscles and allow you to maximize the intensity of your workouts.
The other part of this diet looks at eliminating processed foods with the exception of instant oatmeal (although not as processed as most cereals), as the oats are a great source of fiber and carbohydrates which provide your muscles with the energy bursts they need to burn fat.
Healthy Lunch Ideas
June 15, 2009
Healthy Lunch Ideas
Probably the easiest time to fall of our healthy eating plan is lunch time. We’re usually running around and busy with work or errands so our body starts craving energy in the form of food and it’s not uncommon that we crave the worst of foods (deep fried, high carb, high sugar foods). Therefore it’s really important that we plan out our meals the night before or morning of to helps us get past this obstacle.
Let’s take a look at 3 healthy recipes that I’ve collected which will keep your metabolism high and your stomach flat…
Healthy Lunch Recipes
Peanut Butter Benefits
January 6, 2009
It’s a new year and many of us have wanted to make healthier and wise choices when it comes to our eating, but we’ve found that these healthy foods can be quite bland. So I want to bring back some fun into our diets.
Remember when we were kids and we’d have peanut butter and jam sandwiches for lunch? We didn’t know it but those were probably the unhealthiest lunches are parents were packing for us. But they didn’t know better.
Let’s look at why the sandwiches they made were unhealthy for us and what we can do to turn it upside down and make it not only healthy but also just as yummy! Read more…
Broccoli Recipes – Healthy Edition
December 12, 2008
Broccoli Recipes – Healthy Edition
Well now that you know all the amazing health benefits of broccoli let’s get into some yummy ways to prepare broccoli.
Maintaining Highest Source of Nutrients:
Steaming Broccoli for a short period of time (about 5 minutes) is the best way to prepare broccoli hands down. Not only does steaming keep the nutrients within the vegetable (boiling is the worst as it leeches out the nutrients – see my video health tip) but steaming also makes the nutrients and minerals more absorbable by your body. Read more…
