The Body Firm's personal fitness blog » Nutrition

Why You REALLY Aren’t Losing Weight

admin — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 20:09:08 +0000

According to a recent survey, only one in every eight adult Americans actually knows how many calories they should be eating in a day. This is odd, because almost 75% of adult Americans have reported recently changing their eating habits (the overwhelming majority of which did it in an effort to lose weight).

So 75% have changed their eating habits, but only 1 in 8 know the basic principal of how many calories to consume. This is the reason that most people who are trying to drop pounds are screaming “why isn’t the scale moving??”

The study also showed that over half of the respondents (57%) considered themselves overweight, while 8% said they were obese. In reality, 34% of people are obese and 33% of people are overweight.

Denial and lack of knowledge are the main reasons you aren’t dropping the weight.

You MUST be educated on nutrition and fitness and what it actually takes to get results. You can’t stab wildly in the dark and hope to get results. Set up an appointment, and speak with a professional. Call today.

Kelly Turner is a Seattle area ACE Certified Personal Trainer, health and fitness writer and editor of the fitness website, PhysiqueSpeak.com. To contact Kelly with any questions, you can email her at kellycturner@hotmail.com.

Make Healthy Eating Easier

admin — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 18:31:22 +0000

The easier something is to integrate into your everyday routine, the easier it is to stick with it. Exercise is one thing: you either do it or you don’t, and regardless of what you do, it’s better than doing nothing. Eating is different: a few hundred calories here and there can make a difference. Eating too much can stop your weight loss, but eating too little can stop your weight loss. There is an emotional attachment to food. Our society revolves around food for celebrating, entertainment, convenience, comfort- everything. Here are some ways to make healthy eating easier:

Plan your meals ahead of time. You know what you have to eat, and there’s no arguing. Take some time the night before, or on Sunday night to plan out your meals so there are no questions of what to eat.
Bring non-perishable, healthy snacks (like unsalted nuts, fruit leather or granola bars) with you everywhere, in case you get stuck and need something to eat. BUT…
If you have impulse control/over eating issues, ONLY pack foods that fit into your meal plan today so you aren’t tempted to eat anything extra.
If you have the money, buy pre-prepped foods like fruits and veggies that are peeled, cut, chopped and ready to go to cut down on meal prep.
If you are trying to save some money, prep your produce when you get home from the grocery store. Peel and cut your veggies, and portion them into little baggies. Wash what needs washed and put it away so all you have to do at meal time is grab and go.
Make big portions of easy to freeze foods like soups or stews so instead of hitting the drive thru when you are in a rush, you can microwave and enjoy a healthy meal in minutes.

What are your favorite strategies to make healthy eating easier?

Break Out of Your Snack Rut

admin — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 21:14:43 +0000

Snacks are an important part of a healthy diet. Eating in regular intervals will keep your metabolism up all day long, but eating too many calories will result in weight gain. Snacks are the perfect solution to get a kick of energy without going over your calorie requirements. The important thing is, however, getting the right mix of nutrients for optimum results in a small package.

Snacks, and all meals for that matter, should have a mix of carbs, protein and fat to give you energy and keep you satisfied. It’s easy to get in a snack rut, and miss out on benefits.

Here are some different snacks ideas that give you the nutrients you needfor just a few hundred calories.

1 medium whole grain tortilla, 2 tbsp hummus, 2 slices tomato, 4 cucumber slices, 1 oz tuna
1/2 cup whole grain couscous, 4 oz cubed tofu, 1/2 cup broccoli, 1 tsp olive oil, 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 cup vegetable soup, 3 small whole grain crackers, 1/2 cup unsweetened apple sauce
3 rye crisp crackers, 1/2 cup low-fat cottage cheese, 1 small piece of fruit
1/2 whole grain English muffin, 2 tbsp hummus, 1/2 cup fresh berries
1 small pita, 3 oz chicken breast, 1/2 cup cucumber slices, 1 slice tomato
1 slice whole grain bread, 1 tbsp natural peanut butter, 1 cup fat free milk
1 packet plain oatmeal made with 1 cup low-fat milk, 1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Happy snacking!

The Dangers of Aspartame

admin — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 19:26:53 +0000

Aspartame is usually thought of in combination with diet soda, but the artificial sweetener is found in more than 6,000 foods, including gum, table-top sweeteners, diet and diabetic foods, cereals, candy, vitamins, prescription and over-the-counter drugs. It is a zero calorie sweetener that takes the place of sugar and has quickly become the diet-food staple of choice.

Aspartame is also the most controversial food additive in history. It’s FDA approved, against many health officials protests, and was even listed by the Pentagon as a biochemical warfare agent. Aspartame has been in our food supply for 30 years, and has been doing damage to our health the whole time.

Because of it’s much deserved bad press, aspartame has been repeatedly re-branded into NutraSweet, Candereal and most recently, AminoSweet.

AminoSweet- doesn’t that sound healthy?

Aspartame producer Ajinomoto chose to re-brand the sweetenr under AminoSweet to “remind the industry that aspartame tastes just like sugar, and that it’s made from amino acids — the building blocks of protein that are abundant in our diet.”

Name it something to make people think it’s healthy. It’s hardly a new marketing ploy, and it’s doing damage.

There have been over 10,000 reports to the FDA for reaction to aspartame, more than all other food additives combined, and according to the FDA, less than 1 percent of those who experience a reaction even report it.

About two-thirds of aspartame reactions are classified as neurological and behavioral, including headaches, mood swings, and hallucinations, while the remaining third is mostly gastrointestinal symptoms.

Aspartame is most widely used in place of sugar in low- and no-calorie foods, but research shows most of these products can actually lead to weight gain by increasing your risk of metabolic syndrome, may double your risk of obesity, which is precisely the opposite desired effect of consuming diet drinks.

More seriously, phenylalanine in aspartame dissociates from the ester bond, and while these amino acids are completely safe, they are not designed to be ingested as singular amino acids, which will cause complications.

This will also increase dopamine levels in your brain, that can lead to depression, migraines and brain tumors. The aspartic acid in aspartame is a excitotoxin, which cause brain cells to become so excessively excited they die, which can also cause a loss of brain synapses and connecting fibers which leads to neurodegeneration.

Since aspartame is found in so many foods, it is important to read your labels. While real sugar does contain calories and carries risks when consumed in excess, always choose natural foods over chemicals.

In Good Health,

Kelly Turner

Low Calorie, Carb Rich Meals After Workouts Burn More Fat

admin — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 18:28:40 +0000

There are a lot of misconceptions about what and when to eat in relationship to your workouts. Do you eat before? How much? What should you eat afterward to reap the most benefits?

Sometimes, making a special effort to fuel or refuel after your workouts can lead to consuming too many calories and can actually be detrimental to all the hard work you are putting in.

What you specifically need to eat depends on you and your goals, but new research sheds a little light on how post workout meals help or hinder your efforts.

Exercise influences your health in a number of ways, including blood pressure, calorie usage, and insulin sensitivity, and your calorie intake, as well as the types of food you eat, affects fat usage and insulin metabolism for a few days after the workout occurs.

A team of researchers from the University of Michigan found that after exercise, fat use was greater following a low-calorie meal, but insulin sensitivity stayed the same- meaning a steady blood sugar that keeps cravings at bay and a steady supply of energy. The type of food you eat in the meal also made a difference. The researchers found that low carbohydrate meals after exercising increased insulin sensitivity, making carbohydrates an important part of refueling after a workout.

What this tells us is that in order to burn the most fat after your workouts and keep your energy steady, consume a low calorie meal rich in complex carbohydrates, such as brown rice, whole wheat bread, barley and oatmeal.

Don’t forget to keep your over all calories in check. This post workout meal should not be an addition to your daily intake, it should be included in it.

The effects of exercise don’t stop when you leave the gym. Next time you head to the kitchen after your workout, choose your meal based on what will keep your results rolling.

In Good Health,

Kelly Turner

KFC and Breast Cancer

admin — Tue, 18 May 2010 19:48:50 +0000

You may have seen the recent KFC commercials for their pink buckets to benefit Susan G. Komen For the Cure. In their “Buckets for the Cure” campaign, KFC will donate 50 cents for each pink bucket of chicken sold.

Who can get down on raising money for breast cancer research? Not me, and I won’t even try.

But when I first heard of the pairing, I did give pause, and I wasn’t the only one. Fried chicken to beat cancer. After a little more research into the fast food chain’s campaign, I became even more wary, and you should be, too.

Komen is announcing the partnership on its website, proclaiming “KFC and Susan G. Komen for the Cure are teaming up [to] spread educational messaging via a major national campaign which will reach thousands of communities served by nearly 5,000 KFC restaurants.”

Just what is the educational messaging? I wonder if they will discuss the importance of a healthy diet and maintaining a healthy weight to prevent diseases, like cancer itself? Will they mention the National Cancer Institute’s findings of “an increased risk of developing colorectal, pancreatic, and breast cancer is associated with high intakes of well-done, fried or barbecued meats”?

KFC recently released their infamous Double Down Sandwhich made of two slices of cheese and two slices of bacon sandwhiched between 2 fried chicken patties. This ’sandwich’ weighs in at 540 calories, has 32 grams of artery clogging fat and an astounding 1380 mg of sodium. The rest of their menu isn’t much better, which is hardly suprising when their claim to fame is fried chicken.

KFC is going to keep on selling their chicken just like they have for years, so tossing a bit of their profits from their regular chicken-loving consumers to benefit the leading breast cancer charity is a positive thing, no doubt. It would be ABSURD to expect that they could actually stop selling fried chicken for a period of time and offer healthier choices to buy, of which, they would donate a portion of the proceeds to Susan G. Komen. That would be absurd, right?

We can’t change KFC’s marketting strategies, but we can vote with our wallets. KFC knows that people who buy their fried chicken will continue to do so, and are hoping that non-regualr consumers will be enticed to buy their cancer risk raising chicken with the warm feeling of donating to a good cause.

You are smarter than that. You can donate to breast cancer research, but don’t do it while sacrificing your health.

Donate directly to Susan G. Komen for The Cure by clicking here.

In Good Health,

Kelly Turner

Kelly Turner is an ACE Certified Personal Trainer and health and fitness writer from Seattle, WA. To contact Kelly with any questions, you email her at kellycturner@hotmail.com.

Get Your Mind Right, Cheaters

admin — Thu, 13 May 2010 19:03:40 +0000

I’m a fan of cheat days. Well, more specifically, cheat meals (a lot of damage can be done in a full day of cheat meals.) I think that having a meal where you can eat whatever you want guilt free is a great way to build a healthy relationship with food, keep you motivated to continue to eat well the rest of the time, and keep you sane instead of feeling deprived.

The danger of cheat days, however, is if you give yourself permission to have cheat days too often, of course, or if you start to reward yourself with food.

Many people will eat healthy and balanced all day long, and then have an indulgent treat, usually at night, as a reward. This is OK every once in a while, but not everyday.

Generally, cheat meals and treats should be limited to one time a week. It should be something you look forward to, but not your motivation. If you are having a reward every day, or after every workout, it’s going to turn into a problem. Loosening the reigns once a week is a healthy and a sustainable lifestyle. If you fall into the habit of rewarding yourself frequently with indulgent meals or snacks, you run the danger of falling into the mind set of suffering through the healthy meals to get to the rewards.

This perpetuates the damaging idea that healthy food isn’t satisfying, and poor nutrition is a ‘reward’ instead of something that is detrimental to your health and goals.

Cheat meals are going to happen. You are going to be out at a restaurant or a party where you can’t control what you are served, and you should be able to participate without guilt. You can even plan them into your week to have some of your favorite foods that aren’t necessarily the best in terms of health, without effecting your goals. The only way this works is if your cheat meals are occasional, they are responsible and resonable in choice and portion, and they aren’t your sole purpose for eating healthy in the first place. To keep a healthy lifestyle indefinitly, you have to come to a place where you enjoy and respect it. A treat may be enough to keep you on track for a while, but to really get to a healthy place with food, you have to have your mind right.

In Good Health,

Kelly Turner

Kelly Turner is an ACE Certified Personal Trainer and health and fitness writer from Seattle, WA. To contact Kelly with any questions, you email her at kellycturner@hotmail.com.

Simple Rules for Eating Clean

admin — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 17:20:40 +0000

image via www.oxygenmag.com

I talk about ‘eating clean’ a lot and often forget that a lot of people don’t know what it really means. It’s not a diet, it’s not a gimmick, and it’s not some arbitrary set of do’s and don’t’s some crack pot expert came up with, unless you consider nature a crack pot expert. Eating clean is simply only eating foods that are whole, healthy, real, and have only positive effects on your body and health.

So how exactly does one eat clean? I often find it hard to explain without launching into the dangers of processed, fake, artificial and just plain junk foods on the market, which is when people’s eyes glaze over and nod accordingly. So imagine my pleasure when I read this month’s Oxygen magazine to find the perfect summary.

Oxygen is my bible. Women, if you are into fitness or what to learn how to workout and eat right to lose weight and get buff without having to wade through the crap gimmicks, and the pages and pages of beauty and fashion tips in most women’s magazines, pick up Oxygen. I mean it.

Anyway, in the article How To Eat Clean (10 Easy Ways) clean eating expert (and super fit 50+ year old) Tosca Reno explains just how to eat a clean diet in 10 simplified steps.

Reject refined sugar in all its forms immediately.
Season foods with herbs and spices.
Don’t skip meals.
Fill half your plate with vegetables.
Banish all processed goods.
Become a flexitarian (a term for fair weathered vegetarians, in this case, meaning get your protein from a variety of sources, not just meat.)
Eyeball your portions (to keep them in check)
Choose quality over quantity (meaning quit buying foods that are unhealthy because they are cheaper and you get more. The quality of your food is what is important.)
Make broth based soups a habit.
Eat a balanced breakfast.

No calorie restrictions, no eliminating food groups, and meal plans, yet everything you need to eat a clean diet, and maintain it, is all in there. A clean diet isn’t just about eating fewer calories to drop weight, it’s about eating the right types of food to keep your body strong and at it’s peak, which, yes, will melt those pounds.

In Good Health,

Kelly Turner

Kelly Turner is an ACE Certified Personal Trainer and health and fitness writer from Seattle, WA. Her writing has appeared in numerous magazines, and she currently blogs for Breathe Magazine, is the Health and Fitness Expert for Twirlit.com and feature fitness writer for FitPeeps.com. To contact Kelly with any questions, you email her at kellycturner@hotmail.com.

The Secret to Flat Abs is….

admin — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 12:11:16 +0000

..not crunches.

I know I’ve said there are no secrets to getting in shape, and you just have to work hard by exercising and eating right, but in this case, I use the word “secret” not because I discovered it, or it’s some unconventional method I’m going to charge you 4 easy payments of $39.99 for. I call it a secret because for some reason, no one seems to know about it- or remember.

I hear constantly, “I do crunches and I do cardio and I can’t lose the weight around my middle!”

Sure, we know the dangers of excessive fat around the midsection, but what about just trying to get those 6-pack abs you’ve done thousands of crunches to achieve? You don’t have a big gut to lose, you just want the definition you’ve been working for.

The secret is….

Food. Eating right.

Boring, I know.

Your midsection is where all your junk food goes to hang out and get to know each other. It settles around your middle, increasing your risk of heart disease, high blood pressure and stroke.

Cutting out the processed junk and eating foods that will blast any extra fat the is stopping your definition from shopping through and keep your metabolism running in high gear.

Avocados, walnuts, spinach, salmon, whole grains, fat free yogurt and milk and grapefruit are your best friends. Get to know them well.

Diet is key. It always has been and it always will be.

Did You Blow it? Not With These Tips, You Didn’t

admin — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 22:42:32 +0000

I love the line: “One cookie won’t make you gain weight. Even two cookies won’t make you gain weight. Eating two or more cookies everyday is what’s going to make you gain weight.” It’s so perfect, because it’s so true.

People seem to think that once they mess up, it’s a free for all until they find their motivation to get back on the healthy track again. This motivation usually pops up when the pan of brownies is gone or you are so full you feel like you may burst.

We all have slip ups, and slip ups are fine. “One cookie,” remember? The key is to be able to get back on track immediately after that slip up and keep the momentum in a forward motion. Where are you headed? Your goals, baby, that’s where.

Try these tips next time you find yourself with your hand in the cookie jar for a third time:

Acknowledge the act. Yes, you ate something you would have preferred not to, but it’s over now. Once you isolate the incident (sounds so serious) it will be harder to justify continuing the behavior.
Think to the future. If you continue to eat junk, how are you going to feel tomorrow? Physically? Mentally? Emotionally?
Revisit your goals. You should have them written down somewhere. Now what’s more important? Left-overs, or feeling confident in those jeans?
Drink water. Water is the perfect cure all- not only does it play an important part in keeping your body healthy, it flushes out toxins which have you feeling better, sooner, and it fills you up, cutting your cravings.
Eat a healthy snack. Getting some good, solid food into your body will remind you why eating nutritious foods can’t be beat: no bloat, no blahs, no regrets.
Go for a walk. Get out of the house and away from the temptation. Plus getting your heart thumping and blood pumping will burn some of those indulgence calories, clear your mind and leave you feeling great.
When you get home, and can trust yourself, toss the temptation. There’s no point having it in the house if you already know what it’s going to do to your motivation.

In Good Health,

Kelly Turner