Over the last week I have been living in an airport in Toronto and a hotel that is connected to an airport and working really long days. This situation is a very dangerous one for your health as it seems to take a lot of control out of your hands as far as healthy lifestyle choices are concerned.

Because of the hours and the proximity to the hotel I have no car or even a need for a car and have been handcuffed as far as food choices go so I wanted to give a few tips for travel and eating and exercise for those that have not a lot of these choices.

1. Finding fresh fruit and vegetables – First thing that I did when I got booked into the hotel was ask where the nearest market was to get some fruit and veggies. This is an automatic for me whenever I travel but I got a very vague “Its a long ca ride away” and “The restaurant can make you some vegetables” so I knew there would be no help there. Instead I prowled the airport and found a coffee bar that sells apples and oranges. I get an apple, bran muffin and coffee for breakfast every morning. Read the rest of this entry »

Looking to make a change and lose some weight? I have reviewed the top diet on the internet and you can go and read over 200 comments people have made about why this diet has worked well for them, as well as some of the problems.

Thanksgiving and Christmas are my favorite eating days of the year. Thanksgiving dinner is now only a couple of days away in Canada and the Turkeys and Hams have already been bought and are waiting to be eaten. This thanksgiving maybe you can be more careful about your eating and well being and I hope that looking at these tip will keep you feeling better the day after as you get to go on your post Thanksgiving day shopping spree.

1. Decide what you are going to eat each day in the morning before you start. Think about 3 meals and 3 snacks. No one says you can’t have a snack, then dinner a while later and then desert a while after that.

2. Get some exercise right after you get out of bed. This will help you focus on your fitness and make you aware of how your body feels that day.
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Tags: angel food cake, Canada, christmas, Cool Whip, drink water, energy outlet, food, heavy food, leftovers, thanksgiving, thanksgiving day, thanksgiving dinner, Turkey, turkey dinner, United States

I was just reading a great article on Zen and Fitness about portion control that really laid out to me about the size that meals should be and it got me to thinking about our own eating habits at home.

I eat a good meal in the morning of Oatmeal or a bagel with Nutella and then I just kind of eat all day. I will have a structured lunch but I have fruit and granola bars and stuff that I will eat until I run our of food in the afternoon. Then I do not eat until dinner.

Our family eats dinner at our dinner table every day and we tend to have our best family time at dinner talking about the day and having good protions. I would tend to eat really fast but my kids sometimes need help cutting food and my wife will nag me to slow down if I am eating too quickly. So I really enjoy my food at dinner and a well thought out portion of food at that time as well.

We have always eaten dinner as a family at our kitchen table. This was a decision that my wife and I made when our daughter was born. It was too easy in our teens and twenties to eat on the couch and watch TV but you miss so much about your life as a family and the individuals as we all grow up so we thought this would be a family time, and it is.

It does drive the rest of the family crazy. My mom and sister have not ever gotten used to the fact that we don’t answer the phone during dinner and after dinner cleanup.

Also because we are used to dinner at the kitchen table it also carrys over to weekends for breakfast and lunch if we are at home. My wife also has a strict policy for the kids that they eat breakfast at the table during the week. The real upside to this is that we do not eat haphazardly and have structured portions.

All is not lost on random eating though. We do have a pantry and a fridge that both get opened in the evening for snacks as we are watching TV. I love to eat fruit in the evening and when my wife is not looking I can sneak a few chocolate chips out of the container

There has been a diet floating around for many years called the 3 day diet. It is crap and promises a 10 pound weight loss but is in truth a lie. I have thought a bit about this and decided to come up with my own 3 day diet.

Have you ever thought of going on a 3 day diet? I was just surfing around and found that there are people looking for something of a short diet. If you were to do a three day diet I fear that you would not lose a lot of weight but you would have an opportunity to get in better shape by eating better and concentrating on some of those fundamentals of good eating and good metabolism tricks.

So here are some ideas that I have for how to do a 3 day diet.

First as you get up in the morning on the first day remember that you will be trying to do a couple of things. You will be looking to space out your eating and you will be looking to improve your water intake to help fill you up. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: energy, food, starvation, wrestling

It is Strawberry season and I love eating Strawberries a lot. I have just run across some great info on just how good strawberries are as a health food.

Strawberries are one of nature’s healthiest “packages” of power nutrients. There is strong evidence that strawberries are a heart-protective fruit, an anti-cancer fruit, and an anti-inflammatory fruit all rolled into one ripe treat.

A serving of strawberries will provide you with 210 mg of potassium, a mineral that will help regulate the electrolytes in your body, lowering your risk of heart attack and stroke. Strawberries are also high in folate, a key ingredient in the manufacture of red blood cells, and a possible aid in delaying the onset of Alzheimer’s disease.

Strawberries are Packed with Vitamins and Minerals

Rounding out the roster of beneficial vitamins and minerals of note are B2, B5, B6, vitamin K, copper, and magnesium. Strawberries also contain omega fatty acids. All of this goodness is available to you at a cost of 45 calories for about seven medium strawberries. And not only that, but the fiber in strawberries, about 12% of your RDA per serving, helps your body absorb nutrients, inhibits the production of cholesterol in your liver, and helps stabilize your blood glucose.

Do you want to learn more about all of these strawberry affects and more? Go to the Health Assist Blog.

Tags: Alzheimer's disease, cancer, health food, heart attack, stroke, Vitamin K

I have always pushed my kids to eat a better breakfast by having toast and natural peanut butter or cereal but there is anew study out today proving me right. It seems that cereal and milk are a great, easy to digest form of protein.

Exercise physiologist Lynne Kammer, from The University of Texas at Austin, led a group of researchers who investigated the post-exercise physiological effects of the foods. Kammer and her team studied 12 trained cyclists, 8 male and 4 female. In contrast to many sports nutrition studies, however, the exercise protocol was designed to reflect a typical exercise session. After a warm-up period, the subjects cycled for two hours at a comfortable work rate, rather than the more frequently seen test-to-exhaustion. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Exercise physiologist, exercise protocol, Lynne Kammer, sports drinks, sports nutrition studies, Texas, University of Texas at Austin

We have always heard, and I have written a few times about the difference between good an bad carbs. I have just run across an article on “Thats Fit” website by Liz Neporent on the difference between good and bad carbs. Here is an excerpt from the article

Good carbs are good for you because they tend to be broken down more slowly by the body. Whole grains, for instance, include the three parts of the grain: Bran, sperm and endosperm. The body needs more time to process them so they enter your blood stream in a steadier, more controlled way which keeps your blood sugar and energy level more consistent. They’re high in fiber too, so they’re more filling and help push things along the digestive tract. They also tend to be relatively low in calories and fat while high in vitamins and minerals. Studies show a diet that contains lots of good carbs can offer some protection against cancer and other “lifestyle” diseases.

Bad carbs typically deliver a megadose of calories without adding much in the way of nutrition to your diet. They tend to come in large portion sizes and, though they may taste good, typically aren’t very filling or satisfying. You usually wind up eating way more than you intended because your brain takes a moment to realize what’s happening down in the old stomach. Bottom line: Studies have linked diets that contain an excess of bad carbs to obesity, heart disease and a whole array of other major health headaches.

Tags: cancer, energy level, headaches, heart disease, Liz Neporent, obesity

Food cravings are every dieters nightmare. There are very few times that you will be on a diet and not be tempted at least a little bit by the foods that you see and memories of fatting foods that just drift into your mind from nowhere. I had a craving for greasy fish and chips from the beach after smelling the food in the office one day, the craving did not make any sense after I tracked down the food and found that it was actually fried ginger beef, your mind definitely plays tricks on you sometimes. Stopping food cravings will go a long way to controlling all of your eating.

Stopping Food Cravings

Eat at the same times everyday

It is important for you to set a stable eating cycle so that your body knows when to expect food. I know that I am very regimented during the week in my eating but on the weekend I get affected by food cravings because I am not eating according to schedule and my body does not trust that I will be eating when it expects food.

Eat small meals multiple times a day

One of the best things that you can do for your body is to keep your blood sugar even and the best way to keep a nice balanced blood sugar level is to eat smaller meals often.

Your blood sugar level is a big factor in food cravings because your brain notices the fluctuations in hormones and blood sugar even if you are not really in tune to it. Yo ucan imageinhow this one tip can stop your food cravings almost completely

Don’t starve yourself, don’t eat large

Again any time that you have the option to skip a meal or an option to go to a buffet don’t! These two actions are two ends of the spectrum. If you do not eat a meal then your body will crave foods until you eat and then when you do in fact eat you will tend to overeat.

If you have a giant meal, lets say for lunch then you will end up not eating dinner, maybe snack as a food craving fix in the evening or then not eat at all until breakfast the next day. This causes wide swings in your blood sugar and this is not only unhealthy but will also cause your body to start storing food as fat while thinking that it in danger of starvation.

Know your times of food cravings and take control of them

Most people have down times where they crave chocolate, pop, or chips and these times you should be able to identify. If you are going to a movie you may know that you are going to be craving popcorn, when you are sitting down to watch TV you know that you will be looking for a snack.

You can stop these food cravings by knowing ahead of time how you will deal with them or at least have a coping mechanism so that you do not succumb to bad binging in these time of food cravings.

Is this all you need to stop food cravings?

People pride themselves with using self control to fix their problems but in this case you have a plan of action to stop food cravings. Yes, by using these tips and lifestyle ideas you should help in stopping food cravings or at the very least reducing them and know exactly when they will hit and stop those cravings in their tracks.

Tags: cravings, food, food craving fix, food cravings, snack, starvation

I always love hearing the myths and lies about fitness and thinking about where they cme from. Here is a list of lies, or at least partial lies and why. Changing your mindset to reflect reality is  on  of the best things that you can do to make better eating and exercise decisions.

A lot of cardio is the most efficient way to lose body fat. FALSE!

Excessive cardio will strip muscle mass and body fat. This is definitely not the most efficient method for losing body fat. Once you begin stripping muscle mass, your body becomes less efficient at burning body fat. Muscle is metabolically active, which simply means it stimulates the metabolism.

For each pound of muscle you put on, you will burn up to 50 additional calories per day. If you strip muscle mass, all you accomplish is sabotaging your efforts to efficiently reduce body fat. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: chemicals, diabetes, food

Healthy eating is the first step to making sure that you are getting yourself more fit. There a a lot of great advantages to eating better and these include more energy, better concentration and less stomach and digestive problems. Currently, the typical American diet is low in fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, and high in saturated fat, salt, and sugar. As a result, more Americans than ever are overweight, obese, and at increased risk for chronic diseases such as heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, and certain cancers.

Older people are most likely to improve their eating habits, but nutrition is important for people of all ages, says Walter Willet, M.D., chairman of the nutrition department at the Harvard School of Public Health. “We know that when people have health problems or their friends become ill, these are strong motivators of change,” says Willet. “The more serious the health condition, the more serious the change. We’d rather people made changes early and prevent health problems in the first place.”

So what if you’re feeling trapped by a diet full of fast-food burgers and cookies? You can work your way out slowly but surely. Here are tips to move your eating habits in the right direction.
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