Nutrition and Exercise: Part 3

Continuing from the last blog post...

As you gather your baseline information, you can start to make some changes.

1. Figure out your goals, and find a role model. What do you want to look like? Find a picture of a an athlete, celebrity, or fitness star that you would like to look like, or take one of someone you know that you want to look like and put it in the front of your book. Refer to it at least daily, and visualize yourself in equivalent shape. When tempted to eat for entertainment rather than sustenance, pull that picture out or your goal list and ask yourself if that person would eat that or if the food you are contemplating will help you reach your goal. When tempted to skip that workout, pull out that picture and ask yourself if that person would skip it.

2. Start “eating clean.” Increase the proportion of fresh whole foods, especially green vegetables and fruits, in your diet. Eat a variety of different colors and kinds of these fresh whole foods. Cooked food is OK, and may actually increase the nutritive value of some foods, like tomatoes, but you should know the original. Get rid of all the synthetic food or food-like substances, things made with those synthetics, and most of the processed foods. This means shopping on the perimeter of the grocery, reading labels, planning what you will eat the night or week before, and eliminating fast food, added sugar (use honey), and white flour (use whole grain) or things made with them.

3. Drink more water, and stop drinking calories. Yes, this includes alcoholic beverages. I know that organic apple berry smoothie looks and tastes great and may even contain stuff that is good for you, but you are much better off eating the berries and the yogurt and the apples it contains as whole foods. The smoothie and the whole foods in it are not the same. Before you reach for that diet soda, drink a glass of water, then have the soda if you must. Substitute low calorie natural sweeteners like stevia or xylitol for the synthetics like saccharine and aspartame.

4. Plan what you are going to eat tomorrow, write it down, and make it happen. Avoid circumstantial, default, or unplanned eating. This may mean bringing a small cooler to work, avoiding the break room, or going to the grocery store instead of McDonalds during lunch.

5. Eat frequent small meals instead of three big ones. Six is ideal, but you should be able to do at least four small meals a day. Every one of those meals should contain at least one fresh, whole food.

6. Take a multivitamin and mineral supplement daily, preferably one derived from natural sources.

7. Buy some raw whole flaxseed and a little coffee grinder. Grind up 2-3 tablespoons of flaxseed daily and sprinkle it onto your food or add it to your food. Try to get some in each meal that you are not carbohydrate -restricting. Add it after cooking, as heat breaks down many of the great things in this food.