New Idea For Tracking Nutrition

Actually it's not a new idea at all. One time, quite a few years back, I went to an Overeaters Anonymous meeting with my sister. In OA they have you write down your food before you eat it. The standard method these days is to write down everything that you eat after you eat it. That does work for a lot of people but some people need more guidance then that. It does take more planning too.

What you need to do is start a notebook, not for tracking but for planning. Planning what your going to eat tackles the impulse eating that people can easily fall into. It's the same theory as shopping. If you want to stay on a budget you stick to your list. You don't buy anything that is not on your list. The cool part is nobody is telling you not to eat (or buy) whatever it is. It just means you can't eat it today. If you really want it later then write it on your menu for the next day. The likelihood is that you won't want it once you step away from the situation.

This is going to sound funny but make sure you plan to eat enough food. When you write it out it can look like an awful lot of food. I also suggest that you start with pretty strict portion control. I know that sounds tedious but one of things that has proven true is that people underestimate what they eat. Once you develop an eye for portion size you may be able to relax a little bit.

People who know me know that I do not write out diets for my clients. It has been proven that people won't stay on a 'diet'. In order to maintain weight loss you have to make a life-style change. If you hate broccoli and I tell you to eat broccoli not only will you be unhappy but eventually you will most likely give up.

Okay. So go find a nice notebook and start planning. It is best to do it the night before. Look through your fridge and write down what you are going to eat the next day. Write down the time of day as well that way you will be reassured that you won't go hungry for any length of time. In general I eat at 7am, 10am, around 1:30pm, 5pm and 8:30pm. Write down as many 'meals' as you want, only you know when you are most likely to get hungry.

W.O.W. March 1st, 2011

Workout Of the Day

Warm up on the treadmill for 5 minutes then increase your speed and run hard for 3 minutes. Drop your speed and increase the incline to 10% and run for 2 minutes.

Hold one dumbbell up in your RIGHT hand, so it's overhead with a straight arm. Lunge forward and back with the RIGHT leg. Repeat 10X on each side for 4 sets.

Run fast for 3 minutes, decrease your speed and increase your incline to 8% and run for 2 minutes.

On the cable machine. Adjust a single-grip pulley about waist height. Step back and lunge forward with your LEFT foot and hold the lunge. Make sure the lunge is deep and static so don't move. Grab the handle with the RIGHT hand and pull it back in a row to your waist. The weight should be heavy enough that you feel off-balance. Repeat 12X on each side for 4 sets. The illustration on the left shows a one arm cable row and the height that I want but her feet are not in the position I want. If she puts her left foot forward and right leg and bends both knees she will be in a static lunge position.

Run fast for 3 minutes, slow down, increase incline to 6% and run for 2 minutes.


Perform decline push ups (feet on a bench or a couple of stacked plates, depends on how easily you do push ups). 4 sets of 20 reps.

Jog easily on the treadmill for 5 minutes.

And yes, stretch. Again I know it is highly unlikely that you will stretch on your own but please, stretch at least your low back, hamstrings and chest (see illustrations below).

Hamstring Stretch

Chest Stretch on the left, low back stretches on the right.

Nutrition For February 25th, 2011

A lot of women ask me how to control bloat. Our weight can fluctuate 5 lbs either way, on a daily basis. It is discouraging to weigh yourself and see that you are up 3 lbs when you have been working out like crazy and eating a healthy diet.

The way to control bloat is to watch your refined carbs. One gram of starchy carbs holds four grams of water, which is one of the reasons I adhere to a lower carb diet. I mainly stay between 50-100 grams of carbs a day and I stay far away from anything starchy (rice, bread of any kind, potatoes, etc. Oh yeah and SUGAR!). I do eat Fiber One every morning but the amount of fiber in that cereal lowers the the amount of carbs that you count toward your daily total. I'm sure you have heard the phrase 'impact carbs'. The amount of impact carbs in any given food is grams of total carbs - grams of fiber. For example a serving on Fiber One is 1/2 cup. It contains 25 grams of carbs and 14 grams of fiber. 25 - 14 = 11 grams of impact carbs.

Here is my nutrition intake for 2/25/11:

On this particular day I took my kids out for lunch so it shows what you can do if you do the same thing.


Breakfast
Muscle Milk Protein Bar
Snack
100 calorie pack of almonds
2 ounces of cheddar cheese

Lunch
Triple stack hamburger
3 pieces of American cheese
1/2 a hamburger bun

Snack
2 chicken thighs (just the meat from a teriyaki place that I had left over from the day before)

Dinner
2 fried chicken wings
1/4 cup rice
1 Bourbon and soda

Total calories: 2,277
Total carbs : 57 grms
Total Protein: 176

I am not suggesting that you eat the way that I do. A couple people commented on the fact that I eat no fruit and almost no vegetables. That's true. I do try to get more leafy greens in my diet on a daily basis. I manage to do that about three times a week in the form of spinach, broccoli and lettuce. Yes, you should eat vegetables but I do suggest that you are careful with how much fruit you eat. Research shows that the body still recognizes fruit as sugar.

Workout Of The Week February 17th, 2011

W.O.W.

Warm up:
5 minutes of jogging

50 jacks
25 push ups
15 pull ups

Sprint on the treadmill for 3 minutes

50 burpees
25 renegade push ups - when you come up out of the push up reach out with one of your arms and lift the opposite leg (at the same time)
15 chin ups

Sprint on the treadmill for 3 minutes


50 fast feet and drop - do the fast feet with feet wide
25 decline push ups - put your feet on a high or low bench
15 tricep push ups (elbows stay close to your rib cage)



Sprint on treadmill for 3 minutes

Jog for 5 minutes

Stretch

Nutrition for January 24th, 2010

Here is a more typical day for me. I am going to post random days and you will notice some trends (Brie is one of them) and (some would say), crazy (hamburger with no bun, layered with a slice of ham, cheese and an egg - super protein, right?). My calories also fluctuate because I think it's good to have higher and lower days, it keeps your body from going into starvation mode.

Breakfast
3 scrambled eggs
3 pieces of Canadian bacon

Snack
1/2 slice of flat bread pizza (a pretty darn small piece)

Lunch
Sandwich thins
A very large portion of deli sliced pan-roasted turkey breast
About 1.5 ounces of Brie

Snack
About 2 ounces of cheddar cheese
A package of almonds (those 100 calorie packets that you can buy)

Dinner
1/2 cup of rice
6 ounces of lean beef

Total calories for the day: 1,708 Carb count: 77g Protein: 160g

Wonder what I eat?

Clients and class participants often ask me what I eat, especially when I am asking them to eat more protein (over and over again). So I have decided to occasionally (or maybe more) list what it is that I eat. So here it goes....

For Monday, January 17th, 2011

Breakfast
Sandwich thins with 2 slices of cheddar cheese

Snack
14 almonds (in snack packs) and 1 ounce of cheddar cheese

After workout
8 ounces of low fat chocolate milk

Snack
1 package almonds

Lunch
1 can of sardines in mustard sauce and 4 Milton Crispy Sea Salt crackers

Snack
1 ounce brie and 4 Milton crackers

Dinner
Small flour tortilla, 3 ounces of lean beef, 1/8 cup refried beans and 8 ounces of red wine

Total calories - 1,957
Carbs - 145g (high for me)
Protein - 115g (low for me)

I don't really care about how many grams of fat that I ingest, fat keeps you full longer, nor do I pay much attention to calorie intake. Also you'll notice that I graze all day long. There are rarely more then 3 hours between meals (or snacks). I normally would not eat crackers, sandwich thins and a tortilla all in the same day even though all of those items are fairly low in calories.

Tabata Interval

If you haven't tabata'd yet, you better!

Here's a great one:

Do each drill for 10 secs and repeat 8 times = 4 minutes.

#1 Wide squat hops with hands on head
#2 Squats (no hop)
#3 hold a deep squat

Your thighs will be on fire, I guarantee. I did it in my class tonight (and with several clients) and they totally hate me now. If your feeling brave you can follow it up with a 20 minute cycle interval workout - 20 secs hard, 10 secs recovery. I think you'll be sufficiently done. Literally.