Nutrition and the Body
You Always Wanted

Nutrition is one of the most important things in our lives. It is amazing how little our culture knows about it. I guess the reason we know so little is because there are so many rumors about food.

It seems like every generation has it's own ideas of what is good and bad. In the 60's and 70's we blamed our weight gain on fatty foods. Now carbohydrates are the bad guys. The truth is we need a healthy combonation of fats, protein, and carbs.

Before we go any further let's clear something up. I want to briefly explain the difference between nutrition and diet. Diet is the foods we eat, nutrition is the value(carbs,protein,fats and calories)of the food.

When we are trying to lose weight the doctor says eat healthy and get plenty of exercise. They never really explain what they mean by eat healthy. This is your lucky day because I am going to take all the guess work out of eating healthy.

The first thing I want to tell you is before you exercise or change your eating habits check with your doctor.

One of the most common question I am asked is what should I eat? Here is an example of what I would eat. Lets say I was going to eat 1,000 calories a day. My menu would look something like this.

Breakfast
2 whole eggs = 130 cal
2 oz turkey breast = 63cal

Snack
1 cup yogurt=154cal

Lunch
3 ½ oz Chicken breast = 193 cal
1/4 cup brown rice = 75 cal

Snack
1 med apple= 80cal
1 tablespoon peanut butter = 94 cal

Dinner
4 oz tilapia = 145 cal
Salad (3 oz spinach 18 cal
2 oz tomatoes 12 cal
1 tablespoon Italian dressing 43 cal)

Total calories =1007
In order to count your calories you need to know whats in the the foods you are choosing. There are several places you can get the information. The two I suggest is

1)Buy a calorie counting book.

2) calorie king for nutrition facts

I usually give all my clients a menu to follow, that way I can make sure we get the results we are looking for.

If we want to burn fat we need to eat fat. Not the bad fat but the good fat. I know some of you are scratching your heads. Don't panic I am going to explain the differance between the good and the bad.

There are two basic types of fat, omegas which are good and saturated which are bad.

Lets start with the bad. Anything fried in grease is usually bad like fried chicken or pork chops. A lot of red meat is usually high in saturated fat. I'm not saying don't eat red meat what I am saying is make sure it is lean. Top sirloin or T-bone steaks are good. And 98% lean ground beef is ok also.

The good fats are usually found in things like fish, nuts, peanut butter, and avocado. Even though they are good fat we still need to be careful about how much we eat.

Another thing lacking in our diet is fiber. We can find fiber in some fruits and vegetables. Apples, peaches, pears and just some examples of fruit. Carrots, lettuce, Spinach are some vegetables. The more fruits and vegetables we eat the higher the carb count.

Yes we need carbs but we want to keep the number of grams of carbs moderate to low that is why I recommend supplements. Not all supplements are good and some of them can even hurt us so please read that section very carefuly before you start using them.