Posts Tagged ‘food’
Thursday, November 10th, 2011
Meals That Maximize Your Performance
Willpower is not enough. Food is what fuels your training and performance. Athletes make eating meals a conscious process, and they put knowledge of nutrition and planning into it.
I have found that performance outcomes can differ by seconds, which means the right muscle didn’t get the right fuel. Every bite that you eat counts. In working with athletes and their nutrition needs, I’ve found a few simple rules that help you keep food as fuel at the forefront of your mind and help ensure that you get the proteins, carbs, fats, vitamins, minerals and fluids.
Here we go:
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Tags: Conditioning, Diet, exercise, fitness, food, meals, nutrition, performance
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Tuesday, October 25th, 2011
A high protein gourmet Halloween recipe.
If you’re hosting a Halloween party this year, chances are, you’re serving your guests a few Halloween inspired treats. Typically, the quality of the appetizers gets sacrificed in the name of this fun filled holiday. Why not try something different this year, and opt for a healthier, more refined gourmet foods hors d’oeuvres table.
With domestic prices on gourmet goods at an all time low, you can achieve this without breaking the bank and with these tips, you won’t have to worry about having to skip on any the fun ghoul and goblin spooky flair. Instead of the endless amount of sugar cookies caked with sugar and frosting, why not invite your guests to partake in delicious puff pastries or blinis topped with crème fraîche and orange Salmon roe and black caviar to look like pumpkins. This way, your guests will feel guilt free because they are eating a high protein snack, rather than a fatty cookie.
Keeping with your Halloween gourmet theme, substitute your bagged chips for tasty Crescent Moon inspired toast topped with sour cream or a low fat aioli spread and then topped with black caviar. The caviar will give your moons just the right amount of that Halloween feel.
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Tags: Diet, food, foods, halloween, high-protein, nutrition, protein, recipe, Recipes
Posted in Recipes | 1 Comment »
Friday, September 16th, 2011
If you drink milk, and you’re not a hard-gainer trying to pack on muscle mass, your milk should be low fat – skim or 1%. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said recently that nearly 73% of kids and teenagers consume milk, which is good, but then only around 20% of them tend to consume the low-fat variety. In fact, about 45% of them choose reduced-fat milk (2 percent), while 32% claim to regularly consume whole-fat milk.
I’ve been complaining about this for years, and I’m glad someone is finally echoing my sentiments. For babies and toddlers I can see using whole or 2% milk, because they need a ton of good nutrition to grow up strong. However, I have always believed that kids in pre-k, k, and elementary school should switch to 1% or skim milk. There really is no need to add extra milk fat into a child’s diet, not when American kids are clearly, on average, the most obese children in the world.
Researchers and experts collectively agree that the low consumption of low-fat milk implies that most kids and teenagers don’t live by the recommendations of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans and the American Academy of Pediatrics, who state that kids ages 2 and older should drink low-fat milk. Recent efforts by both First Lady Michelle Obama, and the Surgeon General promote the consumption of low-fat milk and water over sweetened beverages. Adhering to these suggestions will help you and your child avoid dangerous conditions such as obesity and diabetes.
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Tags: children, dairy, Diet, food, Kids, Medical, milk, nutrition, obesity
Posted in Diet, Healthy Lifestyle, Kids, Research | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, September 13th, 2011
A lot has been made about the importance of protein in building muscle, but more could be said about the importance of fruits and vegetables in this regard. The fact of the matter is that fruits and vegetables contain a lot of important vitamins and minerals that facilitate muscle growth.
Vitamin C
One of these vitamins important to muscle growth which is often times overlooked is Vitamin C. Vitamin C is found in fresh fruits and vegetables such as oranges, pineapples, grapefruit, cabbage, broccoli, okra and spinach to name a few.
Vitamin C speeds up recovery of your muscles after an intense workout, and prevents injuries and inflammations that might keep one away from the gym.
During weightlifting your body is placed under a tremendous amount of stress, but Vitamin C present in fruits and vegetables help to boost your immune system to fight against possible infections and muscle damage.
Another great benefit from Vitamin C is the reduction of cortisol levels. Cortisol is a hormone produced when the body undergoes extreme stress like weightlifting, and is responsible for the breakdown of muscle tissue. Therefore, the less cortisol your body produces the better.
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Tags: bodybuilding, Diet, fitness, food, health, muscle, nutrition, vegetables
Posted in Diet, Guest Post, Nutrition Tip | 4 Comments »
Wednesday, August 10th, 2011
A couple days ago I posted the first 5 reasons you are not losing weight. Here are 5 more reasons you are not losing weight. Check out the first article if you missed it: 10 Reasons You Are Not Losing Weight Part 1
Peep these second 5 five items in my list of 10 possible ways you could be sabotaging your diet.
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Tags: build muscle, Diet, dieting, fat loss, food, gain muscle, lose fat, lose weight, meal planning, meals, muscle gain, nutrition, sabotage, weight loss
Posted in Diet, Healthy Lifestyle, Nutrition Tip | 3 Comments »
Monday, August 8th, 2011
A Simple Diet Reminder
Everyone likes a good diet post once in a while. Something to remind us about those small dietary habits that ultimately sabotage our efforts to look good naked. This is one of those posts.
You want to drop a couple dozen stubborn pounds of fat. You know what to do and how to do it. You figure in about 2 months you can complete your transformation by eating healthy foods but fewer calories, and adding an extra hour of exercise each week. On paper and in your brain it all makes sense. But how’s that working for you?
Typical Diet Progress
Let me guess. After two months of eating fruits and veggies, and hitting the treadmill with fierce dedication, you step on the scale and find that you’ve lost a whopping… 2 pounds. What could possibly have happened? Would could have gone wrong?
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Tags: Diet, dieting, fat loss, food, lose fat, lose weight, meal planning, meals, nutrition, sabotage, weight loss
Posted in Diet, Healthy Lifestyle, Nutrition Tip | 3 Comments »
Wednesday, August 3rd, 2011
Foods that claim to be gluten-free are not always gluten-free. Many of those foods actually have enough gluten to cause gastrointestinal distress in those who are intolerant to wheat protein, also known as celiac disease. Gluten is actually defined as the protein contained in wheat, barley, rye, and other similar grains.
How can food manufacturers get away with this? It’s actually not entirely their fault, as there has never been an established US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulation to define just how much gluten can be in gluten-free foods.
What is the Standard for Gluten-Free?
As of this writing, manufacturers can decide how much gluten they put in their gluten-free foods. However, the FDA is now planning to push through a standard for gluten-free food, that manufacturers will be required to meet before they can put gluten-free labels on their packaging.
The Feds are proposing that gluten-free food – usually wheat products like cookies, cakes, and breads – should contain no more than 20 parts per million of gluten. At those levels lab tests are unable to detect the presence of gluten, thus meeting the label claim of “gluten-free”.
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Tags: barley, celiac, Diet, disease, food, gluten, gluten-free, intestines, Medical, nutrition, Research, rye, wheat, wheat protein
Posted in Diet, Medical, News of the Day, Research | 1 Comment »
Thursday, July 14th, 2011
Why You Can’t Stay Lean When You Get Off Your Structured Diet
We have all heard of The Atkins diet, The Warrior Diet, The Paleo Diet and every other nutritional plan that promises to burn fat, build muscle, and allow you to achieve your physique related goals with minimal effort.
They make big promises, sound good in practice, but fail to deliver. Even if you do reach your goal, after you discontinue the diet, the fat piles right back on and you are back where you started.
What a waste of time.
Why does this happen?
It’s really simple. The proverb “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime” comes to mind…
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Tags: atkins, Diet, dieting, fat loss, food, lose fat, lose weight, meal planning, meals, tips, weight loss
Posted in Diet, Healthy Lifestyle | 4 Comments »
Thursday, June 30th, 2011
Should Bodybuilders Restrict Their Intake of Dietary Fat?
We all know sugar is bad. It is fun to eat but it is bad for your body. It belongs on the bodybuilding blacklist, I’ve got no qualms there. We all know protein is good for bodybuilding. That is a simple and obvious discussion. But what about fat?
Possibly left over from the 1980′s war on fat, a common myth is that fat calories have no place in a healthy diet, let alone a bodybuilding diet. Around that time fat was demonized and carbohydrates were praised. The myth still lingers, but isn’t it time to let that battle go?
The Myth
A bodybuilding diet consists of lean meats like turkey, chicken, fish, egg whites, and fat free dairy products. Bodybuilding newbies learn this practice almost immediately. We must keep calories low, so we must keep fat consumption low.
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Tags: bodybuilding, build muscle, Diet, dieting, fat, fat loss, food, gain muscle, lose fat, lose weight, meal planning, meals, muscle gain, myth, myths, saturated fat, weight loss
Posted in Bodybuilding Myths | 1 Comment »
Monday, June 27th, 2011
Can Bodybuilders Build Muscle and Lose Fat at the Same Time?
There are the hard-gainers, the obese slackers, the off-season bodybuilders, the weekend warriors, the overweight housewives, and a million other kinds of aspiring athletes. Everyone has a goal. Some goals are simply to lose weight, while others are mainly to build muscle, but for most people fat loss goes along with muscle gain for a variety of reasons – everything from general health, building a beach body, sports performance, competition prep, and even to combat aging.
The most popular fitness newbie belief is that you can gain muscle and lose fat at the same time. Every personal trainer in the world then tries to convince the newbie that he or she simply can’t try to accomplish both goals at the same time. Why? Because gaining muscle and losing fat seem to be mutually exclusive.
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Tags: bodybuilding, build muscle, Diet, dieting, fat loss, food, gain muscle, lose fat, lose weight, meal planning, meals, muscle gain, myth, myths, weight loss
Posted in Bodybuilding Myths | 2 Comments »