Archive for the “Fitness Nutrition” Category

I have found a program that should save you quite a bit of money on Vitamins, Minerals and supplements. The company is called E-Vitamin and they have been in business for a few years so you can bet that they are reputable and that you will get good service from them.

E Vitamins has all the Top Brands Vitamins, Supplements, Herbs
At least 20% OFF retail! Why Pay More?
Visit eVitamins Now
This is a good kick off as I am going to be spending the week posting as much as I can about the “smaller” parts of nutrition, vitamins and minerals and how what they can do for you.

I hope that the info in this weblog has been good as I was just going back through the articles and see that I have not been posting as much in the last couple weeks as I am used to. This should be a big week with lots of nutritional info.

Technorati Tags vitamins, minerals, supplements

Article from Living Magazine on the power of Soy which as we all know is high in protein although it’s amino acid profile is a little weak:

When even doctors start singing paeans to soya, it is time to take this lesser-known legume seriously

Yes, this isn’t the sexiest-looking ingredient on your table. Your mouth hardly waters thinking of the yellow seed and its varied forms. Yet, it’s equally difficult to put this aside, especially if you’re a fitness and diet freak. Soya’s magical qualities may sound incredible, but you have got to believe it when doctors swear by it!

Veggie option
In the last few years, soya has become the vegetarian’s answer for protein-rich food, the nutritionist’s antidote for diabetes management and the oncologist’s prescribed diet for cancer patients. Benefits of eating soya vary from improved memory, height-weight of children, prevention of heart diseases, reduction in menopausal symptoms to stoppage of bone deterioration.
Read the rest of this entry »

Glucosamine with Chondroitin is an excellent supplement for joint health. Its function is to draw fluid into the joint and lubricate it. Please check with your doctor if you are currently on any medications before taking it.
Read the rest of this entry »

I found the following weblog article that is a must read before you next go to the grocery store:

Some Healthier Choices at Your Grocery Store

Some Healthier Choices at Your Grocery Store
Here are a few changes you can make the next time you go grocery shopping, to improve your health.

Think Fresh

Buy fresh fruits and vegetables as much as possible. If you cannot find them fresh, chose frozen fruits and vegetables. If you buy canned fruit, make sure you get it packed in it’s own juice without added sugar or corn syrup.

Juices

Look for juices that are 100% juice. Many bottled and frozen juices contain more sugar than fruit juice. If you use a juicer, be sure to retain some of the healthful pulp. If possible, eat whole fruits for optimum nutrition.

Oils

Chose extra virgin olive oil or canola oil. Try an olive oil cooking spray instead of butter for cooking. Avoid margarine and lard.

Milk

If you drink milk, chose milk with a lower fat content. If you are already drinking 2%, switch to 1%, and eventually use non-fat milk.

Breads

Select whole grain breads rather than white.

Miscellaneous

Much of the food found in the grocery store contains hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated oils, high fructose corn syrup, MSG and artificial colors, flavors or preservatives. All of these ingredients are poor choices, and should be avoided whenever possible.

Many breads, cereals, soups, and boxed side dishes contain one or more of these ingredients. Take a little extra time to read the label, to find brands without these undesirable additives. For Example, Farmhouse brand makes rice and noodle side dishes without MSG or other additives, and Healthy Choice foods are generally free of unnecessary additives.

Discover healthier choices at your local grocery store. If your grocery store doesn’t have the brands or foods you want, ask the manager to consider stocking them. [Copyright © 2005 World Image Naturals, Inc. www.worldimage.com ]

People try to lose weight at McDonald’s - Boston.com.

Here is an article that is a great example of how it does not matter where you eat but what you eat. In the opposite spirit of Super Size Me the documentary where the filmaker ate nothing but McDonalds food for 30 days here are some people that ate and lost weight by choosing the right foods from McDonalds.

Here is the Nutritional Values of McDonalds food menu

Breads and Vegetables? What do these have in common? Not much. The reason that we want to consider these two staples of a diet is for opposite reasons.

Breads are a nightmare for many people trying to cut down on the carbs in their diet. There is good reason to cut the carbs as most people are taking in to many carbs in the first place. In saying that cutting down carbs is good I am not writing about a zero carb policy like with the Atkins diet but instead just talking about cutting a quarter or half of your carbs out and not replacing them and thus you will have cut your calorie intake quite substantially. Bread as any diabetic can tell you is a very addictive food. To most people the cutting of bread from their diet is one of the biggest sacrifices they can make and once it is out of your diet for a week or two you will feel better and will not have those cravings anymore. I know this from experience as I have a bagel every morning (equivalent to 5 slices of bread) and for a week I went without and felt badly in the morning but by the next week I was not missing it at all.

Vegetables are also carbs but are much better for you and in the typical North American diet most of us would be very short of the six or so servings that we should have. The advantages to increasing your vegetables are threefold. First vegetables are fairly high in Water and fiber which helps your body to keep everything running smooth. Secondly vegetables are a great source for most of your vitamins and minerals and thirdly vegetables are filling and will keep you from getting up after your mealto grab something sweet.

Fats are always looked at as a negative in a diet…well in almost all diets anyway, as Atkins tends to think that they are OK. The reason that most people try to avoid fats is that they tend to be less of a priority for your body to metabolize; the body would rather metabolize the carbohydrates and then Fat or Protein. Another issue with fat is the number of calories per gram, a gram of fat has 9 calories as opposed to Protein and carbohydrates which have 4 calories per gram. So your body is going to more than likely store any extra fat taken in as, well, fat.

So you should watch out for the fat in most cases. Still it is important to take in some fats, you body can not exist without any fats and in fact stores vitamins A, D, E and K in fat. These vitamins are needed to maintain good health. One thing to be aware of is that these vitamins because they are stored in fat can build up and be toxic…how toxic? Well I have not heard of anyone getting sick from them but without them you would surely get sick.

Research has shown, because that people who consume a high-sugar diet tend to consume lower amounts of fat and vice versa. If you think about this it means that your mind will look at a sugary or a fatty food in the same way and will crave both in the same way.

Most people’s questions about fasts are what kind they can eat to be eating healthy. There are three types of fat that comes from food. Saturated Fats, Polyunsaturated Fats, and Monounsaturated Fats. All three are found in foods that come from animals or plants, but the amount varies. As a rule, more saturated fat is found in animal than vegetable foods, where more polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats are found in vegetables than animal foods. Cholesterol is also found in foods from animals.

Saturated fat is mainly found in foods of animal origin, but some vegetables also have large amounts. These are called saturated vegetable fats and are often found in processed bakery goods and nondairy milk or cream substitutes. These are: Beef, Brazil Nuts, Butter, Cheese, Chocolate, Coconut, Coconut Oil, and Lard

As a rule of thumb when shopping, saturated fats are solid at room temperature. When you have a lot of saturated fat in your diet, your liver responds by making more cholesterol. This raises your blood cholesterol level. It is the most harmful type of fat you can eat.

Polyunsaturated fats come mainly from plants. They are liquid at room temperature. Eating polyunsaturated fat can reduce blood cholesterol levels. Examples are Almonds, Corn Oil, Cottonseed Oil, Filberts, Fish, Margarine, Mayonnaise, and Pecans

Monounsaturated fats are mainly found in foods that come from plants. They are liquid at room temperature and can reduce blood cholesterol levels, but less than polyunsaturated fats do. They can, however, raise HDL cholesterol (the “good” kind of cholesterol) levels. Examples are Avocado, Canola Oil, Cashews, Olives, Olive Oil, Peanuts, and Peanut Butter.

Trans fats are what make vegetable margarines have a butter-like texture, and prolong the shelf life of packaged foods. The effects of trans fats are still not known, but it is believed that they, like saturated fats, cause blood cholesterol levels to increase. As we have learned over the last couple years trans fats can not be metabolized by our body so they are poisonous and very unhealthy

Vitamins are a little controversial as there are two sides to an argument as to whether our diets in North America have enough nutrients or not.

I eat what I think is a full diet of the good food that I need but still am not sure as to weather I eat all the vitamins and minerals necessary to stay healthy and to allow myself to rebuild my body from the environment and my daily exercise so I take some Vitamins.

Here is what I take:
2 multivitamin pills per day one in the morning and one in the evening
1 calcium pill in the evening with dinner
1 omega 3-6-9 in the evening with dinner

This may seem to some as overkill but I know that I have always felt better day in and day our when I am remembering to take multivitamins.

There are a few things to look for in a multivitamin that I always look for myself. The first thing is looking for B vitamins; B vitamins are good for combating stress to the body so I find they are important. In a multi you will find that the B vitamins are usually 2-3 milligrams as they are more expensive to produce and most companies minimize their costs by keeping the amount of this essential vitamin down. Look through all of the multi vitamins in the stores nearby for B vitamins in the 40-50 milligram range instead but still be aware of the price that you are paying.

I try also to stay away from the health food and nutrition stores as the vitamins that they sell are a lot more expensive and I am not sure that they are worth it, so I usually just go to the local grocery store or pharmacy and look there.

Among the other vitamins that I take Calcium I take as I am not sure that I am taking in enough and my wife worries about osteoporosis and who would really want brittle bones anyway. I take the Omega vitamins as they are good for your heart. Also be aware of antioxidants, these are vitamins Beta Carotene (Vitamin A), C, and E are thought to slow down the aging process by removing free radicals from your body.

Although I may be a little aggressive with my vitamin intake compared to some people it seems to me good prevention to at least take a multivitamin once a day and to try to keep up with nutritional info as you see it in the news.

Protein is one of the basic building blocks of the body so it is an essential part of your diet and can influence your strength but probably not your energy. Your muscles are built with protein and in fact protein is made up of 20 amino acids. Amino acids are the building blocks of protein and 9 are essential, they cannot be created and must be eaten meaning the other 11 amino acids can be created by our body.

Many times we hear that you need to eat steak for energy but in actual fact as we learned earlier carbohydrates are the body’s favored energy source. I always think of muscles as being made out of protein but really muscles are mostly water and protein so if you think about how people tend to diet they will cut out things like steak and carbohydrates so the body is not getting as much protein and carbohydrates as it needs to burn for energy so it will tend to burn protein and fat in equal parts to get energy. This is great for losing weight and good for losing fat but it is really bad to lose muscle. One of the ways to stop your body from burning muscle for energy is to do a fair amount of exercise, especially weight training to increase your muscle mass on a consistent basis.

So what kind of foods contain protein and how much do we need? Full proteins are found in steak chicken and fish and non-full proteins (those without all of the essential amino acids) are contained in lentils, beans, corn, peanuts. A can of Tuna has 20-25 grams of protein and if you look around you can probably get about 80 grams of protein a day comfortably.

One critical thing to look out for is the amount of protein that you eat at each meal. Your body can only metabolize about 25-30 grams of protein at a meal which is only about 4 ounces of steak or chicken. In the past I had taken digestive enzymes with my main meals to help to metabolize more but I now think that this may be a bit of shaky science behind it.

Some bodybuilders will eat 250-500 grams of protein a day but realistically if you have protein in a couple or three of your meals you are doing pretty good. One of the things to concentrate on is drinking a lot more water when you are eating a lot of protein, a lot of water is needed for your body to break down protein so if you are increasing your protein intake drink more water to help take the load off of your kidneys.

There are essentially three types of diets these days. There is the Atkins diet which stresses low to zero carbs. There is the low fat diet which stresses no fats and there is a vegetarian diet which stresses low fat and low protein but allows higher carbohydrates. Today I would like to demystify the need for carbs. And then in the future we can deal with fats and protein as well as what diet is best.

Carbohydrates are the main component of grains, rice, fruits and vegetables. You essentially need carbohydrates for energy and fibre. When your body is looking for a source of energy it tends to use the simplest form available. The very simplest form of energy is glucose and although this is pure table sugar its next closest form is found in fruits as sucrose. These carbohydrates are called simple carbs because they are easy for your body to break down into energy. If your body can not find one of these sources of sugar for energy it will move down the food chain and try one of the next most easily available carbs next would be grain based or what we look at as “white” carbohydrates such as bread, potatoes, or rice. (Chocolate bars although not an official food group are closer to sugar than veggies or other carbs). Your body will use any of the complex carbs as well as vegetables for fuel before moving to fats or proteins.

Now that we can see where our carbs site in the energy chain it is a good idea to see what happens when we eat one and what happens to our energy from them. When you eat a sugar it immediately increases your blood sugar otherwise known as your insulin level. When you blood sugar spikes from sugar, chocolate, or pop you will get a bit of a euphoric feeling from this extra unneeded energy but because it is quick pickup it is also a quick drop for energy and thus you will get a sugar crash 30-45 minutes after the initial energy peak, this is very bad and bad for your body. If on the other hand you only had potatoes or bread or rice for your carbs you would have no nice spikes but no crashes either and would feel after a couple days on a very more even keel, you would feel like you energy is pretty good all the time but never to low or to high. This is the key that we are looking for.

Tomorrow I will write more about bad foods just for a nice way to start minimizing them not to scare people away from them. But now you know energy wise why you would rather get you energy from more complex carbs than simple carbs.