Wednesday, January 10, 2007

The Great 8 Healthy Eating Tips

Low Carb, Low Fat, More protein, Eat all the fat you
want..... These are the many things we hear as we are
bombarded with the latest and NOT always the greatest diet
and eating tips when trying to find the Silver Bullet for
permanent weight loss.

Well I thought that we would talk about common sense proven
tips that will ensure that along with a solid fitness
program, will help support your fitness and health goals
for life.

Eating Tip 1

Eat Slow- If you read about the French Paradox, which
discusses why the French eat a lot of fatty foods, but are
a leaner society than that of the United States. They
take their meals very seriously and it is one of the most
important times of the day. You will get multiple benefits
from this tip. Eating Slow will help your body absorb the
food at the right level allowing you to fill up much
quicker as it will not provide a tendency for you to
OVEREAT!!! The other awesome benefit is that you can spend
more time with your family so that you can share the
important things in life with each other!!!

Eating Tip 2

Eat 5-6 times per day. Do not allow your blood sugar
levels to drop, in between meals. By eating more often and
eating the right types of foods that are on the low end of
the glycemic index, you can keep your blood sugar levels
more even throughout the day, and ensure that you are not
getting those mid-afternoon yawns and also help keep the
excess weight off. Remember that when you spike your blood
sugar by eating simple sugars and refined carbohydrates,
this will potentially cause your body to store fat!!!

Eating Tip 3

Eat Your Breakfast... I was bad at this many years ago, but
I learned to fuel up early in the day. Eating a good solid
breakfast to start your day helps supply you with the fuel
you need to get started, especially if you are
incorporating a early morning fitness program in to your
day. You need the fuel to get your engine going in the
morning. Do not starve your body early, because you may
have the tendency to binge eat later, because your body
gets into the craving mode. Feed your body early!!

Eating Tip 4

Slow down as the sun goes down. What do I mean by this?
Well just as important as it is to eat a great breakfast to
start the day, it is also as equally important to reduce
your food consumption as the day goes on. So plan to eat a
good solid breakfast, a good lunch, and reduce your meal
portions at dinner time. Remember as you get closer to
bedtime your body starts to wind down and you will not have
the same opportunity at night to burn those consumed meal
calories as you did earlier in the day. So eat more early
and back down as you reach sun down.

Eating Tip 5

Give yourself 3 hours!!! Yes 3 hours before going to bed.
Do not consume anymore calories. As I mentioned before,
your body starts to slow down as the day goes on and gets
ready for sleep. You do not want to consume a lot of
calories right before you go to bed, because you will end
of potentially storing those calories as FAT!!! Your body
sometimes give you a false sense of being hungry as you
bedtime nears. You get those 9pm cravings... And a lot of
people end up hitting the Refrigerator and over-consuming
right before bed time... Not good for managing your weight
and body fat %. If you just can't resist the munchies,
then what I do is eat a few high good fat nuts. Like
unsalted Almonds skin-on (good for fiber) or a couple
spoonfuls of no sugar added all natural peanut butter.
Eating a good quality fat food will satisfy your craving
and will keep you from binging on something with lots of
bad carbohydrates or simple sugars, like ice cream, cake or
cookies.

Eating Tip 6

Stay focused on eating green in every meal. Always
incorporate a good high quality low glycemic index dark
green vegetable with each meal. I suggest things like
spinach or romaine lettuce in your lunch time salads.
Eating broccoli, asparagus, or steamed spinach as your
vegetable at dinner time. All of these dark green
vegetables supply your body with great vitamins and
nutrients as well as being great sources of fiber and are
naturally low on the glycemic index scale and will keep
your blood sugar levels from spiking after eating. So
think Dark green at meal time and challenge yourself to
keep it as part of each and every eating event.

Eating Tip 7

Blend your foods.. Blending your foods means making sure
that if you are eating a food item that does contain
carbohydrates make sure that you incorporate a good low fat
protein along with it. Eating a low carb tortilla wrap
where the first ingredient is whole wheat flour that is
unrefined. Add lean chicken breast as part of your filling
in the wrap, maybe with some thinly shredded romaine
lettuce and other veggies.

Eating Tip 8

Use splenda as your sweetener of choice, when looking for a
simple sugar replacement. I have tried many sugar subs
over the years an no other product has the taste of sugar
like splenda does. Not equal and surely not sweet and low.
Splenda is outstanding for sprinkling on low glycemic
fresh fruit like blueberries, raspberries and strawberries,
and I also use it to sweeten my drink of choice. Caffeine
Free Green Tea that I infuse with cinnamon stick and whole
cloves. What a refreshing cold beverage that keeps the
caffeine out of your diet, provides you a great antioxidant
and does not spike your blood sugar levels by using the no
calorie sweetner in splenda.

So I hope you enjoy my GREAT 8!!!

These eating tips will help keep you on the right track,
when it comes to living a healthy lifestyle.. All of these
tips are the tools that I live by every day....

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Robert Adams is a Nationally Recognized Personal Trainer as
well as the Head Fitness Expert at:
http://www.MyHomePersonalTrainer.com
Robert also provides outstanding resource content with his
Online Personal Trainer website:
http://www.body-perfect-fitness.com