Getting Started With Nutrition
May 6, 2007 9:08 PM | Diet | Comments (0)
 | As I’ve said before, you can drastically improve your fitness results when you improve your eating habits. If you make a permanent lifestyle change, your results will be long term. Your body is a reflection of the way you eat most of the time. Trust me- if you eat better, you will look and feel better. You want to change, but maybe you’re not sure where to start. Here is some general information you can use to familiarize yourself with the basics of nutrition. |
- If you consume too much fat, don’t be surprised when your body stores the excess.
- If you don’t make the effort to change bad habits, make peace with your body staying the same.
- If you improve your eating habits, you can completely change your body composition!
Some basic tips for a healthy individual are as follows:
- Start with what you already know. Just about everyone knows to avoid fast foods, junk foods and processed foods.
- Do not fry foods. Broil, grill, or bake them instead.
- Limit refined sugar. This includes sodas and punch.
- Keep a food diary. You may be eating more fat/sugar than you think.
- Learn to read nutrition labels.
- Increase water consumption. Have water with every meal, before, during and after workouts.
- Eat breakfast EVERY DAY. If you’re not a breakfast person, become one. You don’t have to eat “breakfast foods”, just eat a nutritious meal within 1 hour of waking up.
- Eat 4-7 meals per day. Listen to your body, everyone is different.
- Never skip meals.
- Eat plenty of vegetables.
- Eat low fat protein foods.
Tips on creating meals:
Make sure each meal consists of protein, carbohydrates, and a fruit or vegetable. When choosing foods, try to stay as close to nature as possible. This means choose fresh fruit over canned fruit, chicken breast over the local sub shop’s processed meat, fruit juice over fruit punch, baked potato over mashed potatoes from the box.
Some examples of protein are: egg whites, chicken breasts, salmon, tuna, lean beef, and turkey. As you can see, protein generally comes from meat, eggs, and beans.
Some examples of carbohydrates are: sweet potatoes, brown rice, basmati rice, oatmeal, Cream of Wheat, grits, wheat or rye bread, and shredded wheat. As you can see, carbohydrates generally come from grains.
Using what you’ve just learned, a healthy breakfast would look like this:
Oatmeal (carbohydrates) + blueberries (fruit) + scrambled Egg Beaters (protein). Have a glass of milk or orange juice if you’d like. Note: The instant oatmeal in the packets has sugar added. Check the nutrition label.
A healthy lunch or dinner would look like this:
Grilled chicken breast (protein) + baked sweet potato (carbohydrates) + steamed broccoli.
Please keep in mind these are just examples to work from. Once you become more familiar with checking nutrition labels, you will be able to put meals together more easily. If you have special dietary needs, speak with your doctor.
Copyright © 2009 by A.M. Birmingham, ISSA CFT
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