Nutrition, part 2

Food is one of the joys of life, in my opinion.  It’s also necessary!  Choosing foods that are both good for us and fun to eat helps us live a happy life.

So how do we do that?

 

In general, we want to choose foods that are close to how they occur in nature.  Eating an apple is going to be better for us than eating an apple pie.  And sour apple candy isn’t even food and may not have any actual relationship with apples.  This principle means that whole grains are better for us than processed grains, that fresh veggies are on the whole better than canned, that fresh fruit is better than jam, etc.

 

However, we also want to consider that food is more than just fuel for our bodies.  Food is part of our culture and our social interactions.  When we’re considering apple pie, we may need to remember that our grandpa baked it with love and we get to hear him tell stories while we eat it.  That feeds us, too.  If we get so hung up on eating the “right” things, we may skip going out with friends and that’s not good for us either.

 

Most of the time, we want to choose real food, minimally processed, and cooked in ways that are good for us.  Sometimes, not so much.

 

Or, as my personal guru, Cookie Monster, says:  “Healthy food makes me a healthy dude” and “Cookies are a sometimes food.”  

Nutrition, Part 1

A third pillar of wellness is nutrition.  We can’t be well without proper fuel.  Today I’m going to go over macronutrients and tomorrow I’m going to talk about actual food.

There are three macronutrients:  protein, carbohydrates, and fats.  When we eat food, we’re ingesting some combination of these three.

 

Protein is crucial for building and rebuilding our bodies.  If we don’t get enough protein in our diets, we have trouble healing from injury.  Those of us who would like to change our body compositions toward more lean tissue also need protein in order to do that.  Vegetarians and vegans need to be careful to ensure that they are getting good sources of protein because most non-animal proteins don’t have all the essential amino acids we need to get from our diets, but it’s not that complicated.

 

Carbohydrates get a bad rap these days and a lot of them don’t deserve it.  Unless we have celiac disease or a gluten sensitivity, there is no reason to avoid our friends the whole grains.  Carbohydrates are a good source of energy for us.  Also:  veggies!  We love veggies!  Quality matters in carbs, though.  There’s a big difference between getting carbs from vegetables and whole grains and from a box of donuts.  When in doubt, choose the carbs with more fiber.

 

Fat is also essential for our bodies to function.  It is a dense source of calories, which is important when we are doing lots of exercise.  Quality matters here, too.  In general, the best fats for us are the ones that are liquid at room temperature.  Those are the unsaturated fats.  Saturated fats are solid at room temperature.  Focusing on getting our fats from healthy whole food sources like nuts and seeds, oily fish, and the like is a good way to get what we need without overdoing it.

 

We don’t sit down to a nice plate of protein, carbs, and fat, though.  We eat food.  I’ll talk about that tomorrow.

More on water

A follow-up to yesterday’s reminder about drinking water:  here’s why.

Most of our bodies’ processes require water.  No water means no processing.

 

Even a slight amount of dehydration can make us crabby.  No one wants that.

 

We often mistake thirst for hunger.  While we can get some hydration from juicy foods like fruits, drinking water is better at hydrating us and also keeps us from blowing the calorie budget.  Further, water helps our digestion move along what we’ve already eaten.

 

Our brains work better when we’re hydrated.  Who doesn’t want to feel smarter?

 

Drink up, y’all.

Drink your water

Friendly reminder:  drink some water.  Most of us don’t drink enough.  How to tell?  If we aren’t going to the bathroom every hour or so, we’re not drinking enough.  Also, if what comes out is not very pale and clear, we’re also not drinking enough.

Different sources will tell us different things about whether our morning coffee and all those other things we drink count toward our water total.  I’m not going to weigh in on that particular issue except to suggest, strongly, that most of what we drink should be water.  We don’t need the calories and/or chemicals in all those other things (OK:  caffeine addiction is real and understandable, but eventually, we gotta clear that stuff out…).

 

If it is very hot or we are working out for more than a couple of hours, we might need to get some electrolytes as well as our water, but most people doing normal workouts do fine with water.

 

The best way to drink plenty of water is to carry it around all the time.  Yeah, we look silly, but we feel better.

 

Go drink!

Thursday List: April Produce

The Amazing Stickie is taking some much-needed time off, so we have the return of the Thursday List.

 

This week’s list is produce in season for April!  Hooray for spring!

 

• strawberries

• asparagus

• artichokes

• snap peas

• spring onions/garlic/leeks

• fennel

• rhubarb

• baby carrots

• radishes

 

Yummy! (Well, except for the carrots.  I hate carrots.  More for the rest of y’all.)

Best Advice

Today I’m going to share some of my very best advice on exercise and diet.  Here we go:  lie on the couch all day and eat cake.

 

April Fools!

 

(Seriously:  move a little and eat a vegetable.) 

Water!

Summer, as y’all may have noticed, is getting nearer all the time.  One thing this means is that we really need to be drinking enough water.

Water is the best choice, but other liquids also will work to keep us hydrated.  We want to be careful not to overdo the caffeinated beverages and the ones loaded with calories.  If we’re working out for two hours or more or if it is very hot, we might want to use a workout drink to replenish electrolytes lost through sweating, but that’s not necessary for the basic gym workout.  On the other hand, if drinking Gatorade or similar gets us to drink our fluids, we can go for it (try the sugarless or lower-sugar options to keep the calories down!).

 

In theory, we want about 64 ounces of water per day.  Those of us who like to measure can get a water bottle with ounces marked on it and track intake.  Those of us who don’t can get a sense of whether we’re drinking enough based on whether or not we have to use the bathroom every hour or so and (sorry to be gross) on how clear what comes out is.

 

How much we need will vary based on how hot it is and how active we are.  If it’s hotter, we need more.  If we sweat a lot, we need more.

 

Short version:  just keep drinking water.

Apple?

This post requires all my usual disclaimers:  I am not a doctor, therapist, nutritionist, or dietician.  Please check with any/all of those other kinds of folks for advice from people with more education and training than I have.  That said, the general comments below are within the scope of my practice.

What we eat affects how we feel.  (Thank you, Captain Obvious!)  Even if all that changes is that we don’t feel hungry anymore after we eat, we have changed our state of being.  Since we’re going to make a change anyway, it might as well be a good change.

 

It is both easy and hard to eat healthy food in our culture.  We have an incredible abundance of food and a boggling number of choices.  (Digression:  I used to worry that my kids didn’t eat a particularly varied diet.  Then one day they were discussing whether Ethiopian food or sushi was better.  I relaxed.)  Unfortunately, a lot of the choices we have are not ones that are particular good for us.  Food deserts exist.  Food insecurity is a big problem, exacerbated by all kinds of societal pressures right now.  We are stressed and it is way easier to get ice cream at the drive-through than it is to get a real, healthy meal cooked.

 

It's worth it, though.

 

We need to try to eat a non-potato vegetable fairly often.  We need to drink water.  We need to eat food that still looks more or less like it did when it started, not like a sad and pummeled version of itself pumped up with sugar, salt, and a bunch more chemicals.

 

Try an apple.  They’re in season.

Water

When it is hot, we get dehydrated more easily.  We want to avoid that, because it feels bad.  Our bodies work better and we are nicer humans when we are hydrated.  (Insert quote from The Breakfast Club here, if you are old enough.)

A lot of us are not hydrated enough under normal circumstances.  A quick way to know if we are drinking enough is this:  bathroom trips should occur at least every hour.

 

There has been a bunch of debate and argument and blah blah blah about what liquids count for hydration.  The short version is:  all of them, but some are better for us than others.  Most of what we drink should be water.  It has no calories, comes clean out of the tap, and doesn’t require shopping.

 

I am not here to take away anyone’s morning coffee.  I would not survive.  And the truth is that it is probably not bad for us, as long as we aren’t drinking it by the gallon.

 

Those fancy sports drinks can come in handy when it is very hot or when we work out very hard.  They have electrolytes in them that replace stuff we sweat out.  We don’t need them unless we’re working out for two hours or more (think marathon, century ride, etc.) or unless it is so hot that we’re sweating faster than we can drink.  They won’t hurt us, so if they taste good and we don’t have to watch our calories, we can drink them in place of some of our water.  It gets expensive, though!

 

One liquid we need to be careful about:  alcohol.  Obviously, we don’t want to drink to excess for lots of reasons, but we especially want to be careful when it is hot because we get extra dehydrated from alcohol.  We need to drink more water when we drink.

 

Go play.  And take the water bottle.

Think Fast!

If you know me at all, you know I am not into fads or weird eating programs.  I believe in food.  In general, my nutrition advice is this:  eat your veggies and drink lots of water.  The rest of it, for many of us, is a matter of experimentation while we figure out what kind of eating makes us feel good.  I know people who feel best eating vegan and people who feel fabulous with keto and people somewhere in between.

All that is about what we eat.  There is a certain amount of evidence that when we eat can affect how we feel as well.  Enter intermittent fasting.

 

The theory behind intermittent fasting is that back before agriculture and electricity, we ate when we could and we slept when it was dark because there was nothing to binge-watch.  We know, physically, how to thrive when we don’t eat all day every day.  At least that’s the idea.  Theories are, by nature, generalizations and we have to test stuff out to see how they apply in our own personal, particular, unique-snowflake lives.

 

The science suggests that intermittent fasting can have a positive effect on lean body mass, longevity, and brain function.  Check out this link: 

 

Anyone who wants to experiment can try the 16/8 method, in which we fast for 16 hours and eat during the other eight, or the 5/2 method, in which we eat normally five days a week and have only a single meal on the other two days.  If we feel good, great!  If we don’t, we can stop and return to our normal eating patterns.

 

Tell me what you think!

Water, even when it's icy

So it has been pretty darn cold this last while.  Personally, I’m over it.  I’m ready for warmer weather.  But, I am not in charge.  In the meantime, we still need to get our workouts in.

There are a variety of challenges to cold-weather workouts, starting with getting out of the nice warm bed, but one that sometimes gets forgotten is hydration.  When it’s hot out, we notice how thirsty we are and we don’t forget to drink our water.  In the cold, we are somehow not so motivated to keep drinking.

 

My solution?  Schedule it.  When we have the habit of drinking between sets, we keep on doing it.  The pickleball game finished and it’s time to switch up the teams?  Drink.  Got to the bottom of the ski slope and it’s time to wait in line?  Take some sips.

 

Hydrated people are nicer people.

Nutrition 101

This one comes with some disclaimers.  I am not a doctor or a nutritionist or a dietician.  I have a certification in fitness nutrition and opinions, but the scope of my practice does not extend to designing diets (in the sense of what people eat, not in the sense of what people avoid eating to reduce weight).  What follows is within the scope of my practice, which is general advice about macronutrients and micronutrients.  When I am giving my personal opinion, I will say so.

 

Nutrition can be complicated because we are each lovely individual snowflakes with our own bundles of food preferences, sensitivities, and metabolic propensities.  It is my opinion that we all have to do some experimenting to figure out, within the parameters of science, works best for our bodies.  It is also my opinion that there are no inherently “good” or “bad” foods, that no one should punish themselves for eating anything, and that health comes from happiness as well as other things.

 

However, there are some general guidelines that it is good to keep in mind.  Food is made up of what are called macronutrients (carbohydrates, proteins, and fats) with small amounts of micronutrients (our friends the vitamins and minerals).  While there are exceptions (looking at you, keto eating plans), most people seem to do best on eating plans that are sparing with fats, moderate with proteins, and heavy on the complex carbohydrates.

 

All macronutrients are not, however, the same.  Fats come in a range from fully saturated to fully unsaturated.  The easy way to tell a saturated fat is that it is solid at room temperature.  In general, the more unsaturated a fat is, the better it is for us.  Fats are tasty (mmm…. butter!) and give us a lot of calories in small doses.  They also can help us feel satisfied at the end of a meal.  People who want to reduce their calorie intake often find that cutting the fat content helps a lot.

 

Protein is the macronutrient we use to build our tissues.  Virtually no one in our culture needs to worry about protein intake.  We all get plenty.  Animal proteins often come packaged with a pretty high fat content, so we want to pay attention to that a little.  And, for those of us who have not been paying attention for a long time:  vegetarians have no problem getting enough protein and vegans just have to be a little conscious of getting a wide range of essential amino acids.

 

Carbohydrates are the current favorite target of bad press.  This is undeserved.  Our brains function on glucose, which is a simple carbohydrate.  Now, we are not hummingbirds, so just sucking down red syrup is not enough to make our brains and bodies function well.  Simple carbohydrates, like glucose and other sugars, join together into larger molecules to form starches.  In general, the more complex a carbohydrate is, the better it is for us.  Bulky starches and their friend fiber are our friends because they make us feel full and they keep our digestion moving along.  Mom was right:  we should eat our veggies.

 

The thing is, we don’t eat macronutrients; we eat foods.  Our best bet when choosing foods is to pick the least processed versions.  An apple is better than apple juice in terms of nutritional bang for calorie buck.  That said, we don’t chow down on a pile of wheat.  Choose foods that are less processed when possible.

 

Micronutrients are generally not a problem if we select a wide variety of foods.  I am not a super proponent of lots of supplements, but a multivitamin is a reasonable insurance policy against any gaps in our food plans.

 

Finally, drink water.  Most of us don’t drink enough water and we tend to drink too much other stuff that is full of calories.  Water makes us nicer, really.

 

To sum up:  eat veggies and drink water.  The rest is pretty optional.

Forget about it

We’re back from the holiday weekend.  Now we’re going to forget about it.  No, not the great memories we made or the valuable lessons we learned about what not to ask Uncle Jerome at the dinner table; we need to keep those things.

 

We’re going to forget what we ate, how much pie we put away, and how little exercise we got.

 

We are going to start again, today, with the workout in front of us.  We’re going to eat our normal healthy foods.

 

There will be no punitive workouts and no one is being restricted to just bread and water.  Fitness, in the form of healthy eating and movement, is a gift we give our bodies.  We do it because we want to take care of ourselves, not because we think we are horrible people who deserve to suffer.

 

Go play.

Feedback

I love food.  I also love movement.  This is good, because healthy people need to eat and exercise.

 

Like all loves, we need to avoid obsessive love of either food or exercise.  We can’t out-exercise poor eating habits and no amount of correct eating can make us fit without getting off the couch occasionally.

 

The good news is that our bodies like to give us feedback.  We do have to listen to them, though, to get the messages.  Sometimes the messages are obvious, like the day after we helped a friend move and our muscles hate us—we overdid it.  Similarly, the day after too much birthday cake, we know we have made a mistake. 

 

Other times, the messages are more subtle.  We’re a little crabby and it’s because our guts aren’t as fond of dairy as they used to be, or we’re kind of stiff and we realize it has been a few days since we remembered to stretch after our workouts.

 

Tune in.  Practice listening to the body and see what happens.

Stressing the Strategies

All of us face stressful times every once in a while.  (If stress gets chronic, that’s a whole different story for another day.)  It’s really easy to decide that we’re going to cope with the stress with a pint of ice cream on the couch, but if we can manage it, there are better options.

 

One of those options is making sure we get in some cardio.  Cardio improves mood, helps us sleep better, and makes our brains work more effectively.  We get bonus stress-busting points if we can take our cardio outside in the fresh air, so stressful times are a great time to go for a walk or a run or a swim.

 

Another important self-care option when we are under stress (or any time, really) is making sure we drink our water.  Dehydrated people are crabby people.  Or, to put it another way, we don’t need our bodies to be stressed while our minds are already trying to cope with stress.  Feeding ourselves healthy food on a regular basis helps, too.

 

Finally, stress is tiring.  We are allowed to rest.  In stressful times, it is all right to nap and to do what we can to ensure that we get our full nights of sleep.

 

Fitness pretty much comes down to this:  move, eat, drink, and rest.

Not a punishment.

Welcome to the day after the picnic or barbecue.  I hope it was fun and fabulous.  And now I hope that, whatever it is that happened yesterday, we forget it today.

 

But wait!  There was ice cream and pie and popsicles and beer and cheeseburgers and Grandma’s famous potato salad and and and.  I don’t care.  It was a holiday and maybe we made good choices and maybe we didn’t.  That was yesterday.

 

Today we are about treating our bodies with love.  We are not working out to “pay” for what we did yesterday.  Working out is good for our bodies.  It is not a punishment.

 

Let’s move and be happy today.

Hey, Sugar...

Let’s talk about sugar.  I love sugar.  It’s not just me, either.  Babies prefer sweets because hey! calories!  Brains prefer glucose as a source of energy and, like all those -ose words, glucose is a sugar.  (All right, otiose is not a sugar and it’s not sweet either, and I’m sure there are other exceptions, but otiose doesn’t usually turn up on food labels.)

 

However, the thing about sugar is that, aside from calories and some instinctual comfort, it doesn’t have a lot to offer us, all by itself.  This makes it tricky for those of us—ahem—all of us—who need to pay attention to avoiding too many calories.

 

While all sugars more or less process the same in the body, sugars that exist in whole foods already are better choices.  Which is to say a bowl of strawberries is better than a bowl of strawberry jam (processed with sugar) or strawberry ice cream (ditto).  The strawberries have vitamin C, manganese, B9 (folate), and potassium in them, so they’re more than just a pretty berry with a sweet aftertaste.

 

Sugar consumption, of course, is an issue for folks with diabetes (both kinds).  It seems to increase inflammation in tissues.  Some folks find that eating more sugar leads to more hot flashes in populations who experience them.  Also, sugar can be addictive and thus challenging to wean ourselves away from.

 

Please note:  I’m not saying to avoid all sugar everywhere all the time.  Just make good choices.

Healthy, all the way around

I am not a therapist.  It is beyond the scope of my practice to diagnose or treat illness, bodily or mental, of any kind.

 

I do, however, help people feel better, in body and mind.

 

Bodies like to move.  I help people move their bodies in ways that are healthy for them.  We push a little, but not too much.  Ideally, my clients end up good tired at the end.  I plan workouts that mix some cardio, some weight training, some balance work, and a bit of stretching, so we cover all the bases.  And I’m right there, the whole time, offering accountability, encouragement, or both.

 

The links between exercise and mental health are many.  Science has demonstrated that cardio exercise in particular lifts mood.  Just showing up for a workout and doing it can help people feel like they have accomplished at least one thing.  Then when clients begin to get physically stronger, somehow they also feel mentally stronger.

 

Bottom line is that working out is good for our whole selves.

 

Go play. 

Fighting the Power Is Good Exercise, Too

If the Personal Trainer Police exist, they’re probably going to come get me for saying this, but whatever:  I’m just not that into weight loss.  Sure, I know about it and I know how to help clients if that’s their goal, but I just don’t think it’s that important.  Hear me out about why.

 

A number on a scale doesn’t mean anything except what we attach to it.  Two bodies with the same scale number can look radically different, and, more importantly, feel radically different.  We have bought, as a society, the Kool-Aid that the lower the number the better.  This is not true.

 

Here is what I am excited about instead of weight loss.  I am excited when people get stronger.  I am excited when they change their body composition and shape by lifting weights and building lean body mass.  I am prone to celebrate when I hear that my clients were able to do something they never could before or weren’t able to do for a long time because of the hard work they’ve put in during their workouts.  I love it when my clients fall in love with what their bodies are capable of and how they look and feel as powerful humans.

 

I do care about health, but it turns out that exercise (cardio, weight lifting, and mindbody practices) impacts health even if weight loss doesn’t occur.  Another thing that has massive health impact?  Stress.  So stressing out about weight loss or lack of weight loss is not helpful.  I want my clients to find exercise that they enjoy (or at least don’t hate), to love themselves for being miraculous this very moment, and to live full, rich lives.

 

So, yeah, I can help people lower the number on the scale, but I’d rather amp up the joy in their lives by building strong, confident, and comfortable humans.

Don't succumb!

At this time of year, it’s easy to succumb to excess.  There are cookies everywhere.  Ads suggest that we buy 37 new kinds of gizmos.  We want to squeeze in just a bit more fun.  I’m not here to judge or to suck the joy out of the holidays.  I AM here to hint that maybe enough is enough.

 

The good news about that idea is that it works in multiple ways.  (I love efficiency!)  Deciding we have had enough cookies does mean that we have to stop snarfing them down (boo!), but deciding we’ve done enough cardio for today also means that we get to stop now and rest (yay!).

 

Of course, I have a couple of notes about this whole idea of enough.  There is no deprivation in enough.  We are not going to go hungry, or skip celebrating, or never have another treat again.  We are just going to stop when we are pleasantly satisfied.  Similarly, enough is not exhausting.  We work out until we are tired and then we go do something else.

 

It takes a while to train our brains to recognize enough, but it is so worth it.

 

Go play.