Coppell Personal Trainer Health and Fitness Tip of the Week
Losing weight is always going to be a challenge as many of us are on the go, too busy and just find it tough to eat healthy while living a fast paces lifestyle. If you have kids, have a demanding job that keeps you non-stop busy, or just seem to always be on the go, planning ahead will be the key to achieving any health and fitness goals. As all the statistics point to our growing health epidemic, it is important to see the correlation between eating out on the run and this country’s ever growing health problems.
So how do we fix this problem? Research has suggested that eating smaller, more frequent meals throughout the day helps in the aid of weight management and our health as it helps to raise our metabolism. Many of the problems or excuses that come with eating healthier and more frequently is that we just don’t have the time to cook and eat healthy meals and snacks throughout the day. I like to use the example of the typical everyday worker in the American workplace. They rush to get out of the house by 7:30am. Drop by Starbucks or another quick and convenient place to grab coffee and if they are lucky some type of high carbohydrate food. This is typically a pastry, doughnut, or banana. If this sounds like your day, you are not alone. After getting to work you don’t put anything in your body until you head out to lunch with some co-workers. Since you hardly had anything for breakfast, you are most likely starving and choose something unhealthy and over eating. Lunch usually take at least an hour to get to the restaurant, eat, and get back to the office. If you are like some people, you just work through lunch and go into dinner without having anything since breakfast. By this time you body is ready to eat anything and everything. The rest of the night is getting caught up on all the calories you missed out on during the day because your body is craving food. Because your body is the starvation stat, you body then stores all the unhealthy foods you eat as fat because it does not know when the next time it’s going to eat.
Eating smaller meals and snacks frequently throughout the day has been shown to help raise your metabolism. The faster your metabolism, the more calories your body can burn throughout that particular day. Think of your body as a small camp fire that needs to stay running throughout the day. The fire is your metabolism. When you get up after a night at the camp, the fire is either on ashes or has no more juice. It is very cold outside and so you are going to need to get that fire started again to that it can burn all day. We first need to start the fire up again putting a few small branches on it and then putting some logs. Most of us just put a few small branches like coffee and pastries. By not putting on some logs, the fire will never stay going for an extended period of time. In regards to your metabolism, by not eating breakfast or eating something small will slow down your metabolism, which is not good if your goal is to lose weight or maintain your weight. To keep your fire going throughout the day, you will need to put new logs on the fire every few hours. When thinking in terms of your metabolism, eating every two or three hours will allow your keep that metabolism going.
Now that you have an understanding on how your metabolism works and how it is important to eat throughout the day and not 3 square meals, it is important to have a game plan to start eating healthier and how to plan ahead. You want to eat a well-balanced breakfast, a mid-morning snack, a health lunch, a mid-afternoon snack and a healthy dinner. You may also want to add another healthy snack in the evening.
Here are some easy tips on how to plan and the benefits of planning ahead:
1. Shop once a week for all the foods you need for the week.
Once you begin doing this, you will only spend 30 minutes in the grocery store once a week. Get all the foods you need and want to eat that week. Here are the basics: Lean proteins (fish, chicken, eggs, lean steaks, turkey, tofu, etc), low glycemic carbohydrates (mostly vegetables, some fruits, some grains) , and health fats (nuts, avocado, olives, olive oil). Shopping and picking up all the necessary foods will allow you to save time from going picking up foods throughout the week. I also recommend getting a few healthy bars and also having some Advocare Meal Replacement Shakes handy.
2. Prepare your foods all at one time for the week. Make sure you have plenty of plastic bins to hold the foods in the refrigerator after cutting and preparing. A few tips that will help are cooking 8-10 pieces of chicken while you are cutting up all the vegetables and fruits. You can also make some hard boiled eggs as they are great for putting in salads and eating as snacks. Cutting up broccoli, cauliflower, mushrooms, peppers and other vegetables will only take 10-15 minutes but will allow you to just throw them in the cooler in the mornings before leaving. Having your foods already prepared will help you be ready each day as you then just pick out the small meals and snacks you want to eat throughout each day in the morning before leaving.
3. Preparing your foods will save you time – Taking an hour or two once a week to cook and prepare your foods will help you save time. Think about how much time it takes to stop in that convenience store or Starbucks each morning. Most likely it would be longer than putting a few things in a portable cooler. If you take your lunch to work, you would save about 30 minutes right there as it does not take you an hour to eat.
4. Having everything prepares will also help you make healthier choices – Many people would rather just eat when they hungry. Having healthy options available will allow you to choose those options. Having healthy foods and eating more frequently throughout the day actually will help your cravings so you make smarter choices. If you skip a meal or snack, your cravings will be high and you will more than likely overeat. If you have some healthy foods ready and prepared when you go looking in your refrigerator, you will at least have that option. If not, those chips will be calling your name. Many people say going through fast food places are faster than preparing your foods. Just think about the time it takes for you to drive to the fast food place or restaurant, the time it takes to prepare it, and the time it takes for you to eat. It would most likely add up to more time than already having prepared your foods.
5. Being prepared also saves you money – One of the big excuses people give why they do not eat healthy is “Eating healthy is too expensive.” Buying your own foods at the grocery store not only will help you eat cleaner and healthier foods but it will also help you save more money over time. If you are not sure, do the math and test this theory out on your own. Eating out can range anywhere from six to fifteen dollars per meal. Although healthier foods can be a little more expensive, they will save you time and money over the course of time. Many Get You In Shape clients have personally emailed and called letting us know that they saved over a hundred dollars a month by changing to preparing their foods rather than eating out all the time.
Losing weight and maintaining your weight is always going to be a process. Preparing your foods yourself by buying the cleaner and healthier foods will allow you to better understand what you are putting into your body. Being consistent and eating smaller meals and snacks a day will allow you to keep your metabolism high every day.
Written by: Brad Linder. Linder is on the www.GetYouInShape.com team of personal trainers. Get You In Shape has is a Fitness Company in the Dallas, TX area. Coppell boot camps, Dallas boot camps, private personal training, 24 Day Challenge, weight loss, sports performance and nutrition are the main services of Get You In Shape.
www.GetYouInShape.com
If you live or work in Dallas, Uptown, Lakewood, Downtown Dallas, Highland Park, University Park, Lake Highlands, White Rock Lake, Richardson, Mesquite, Arlington, Grand Prairie and other Dallas cities, the Dallas Boot Camp is minutes away from you. If you live or work in Coppell, Valley Ranch, Irving, Lewisville, Las Colinas, Carrollton, Flower Mound, Grapevine, Addison, Corinth, Highland Village, Dallas, and Famers Branch, the Coppell Boot Camps are just minutes away from you. Get You In Shape Boot Camp.
Get You In Shape’s programs include the Get You In Shape Boot Camp (Dallas and Coppell), 24 and 40 Day Challenge, sports specific training, weight loss programs, Corporate wellness plans, nutrition plans, core fitness training, strength training, toning and more. Clients include athletes (golf, basketball, tennis, football, track, baseball, baseball, volleyball, and softball) corporate executives, professionals, weekend warriors, cheerleaders, dancers, models, stay at home moms, and anyone looking for results.
Owner Brad Linder, has been featured in numerous newspapers and even as the fitness expert on the news 8 (ABC). He continues to use the gifts that he has been given to help serve the needs others have when it come to being healthy, losing weight, sports, toning up, and overall fitness.
More information about Get You In Shape at www.getyouinshape.com
