13 Jun Carbs, Portions and Strength Training – Don’t be a Yo-Yo
So much information! So much frustration. It gets confusing! A new named “diet” for eating healthy every year. Why do they keep giving it a NAME? It is simply eating real, quality FOOD.
YoYo’s: Fad Diets and Savvy Sales
Turn off your tv, put down the magazines and hide your credit card. Seriously, just stop. The savvy marketing team really knows how to push your buttons to get you to buy buy buy yet another product you don’t or won’t use once you get it, doesn’t work or you hurt yourself using.
Companies pay big bucks to use marketing, branding and psychology to get you to buy their stuff.
It’s really unhealthy for your body to go back and forth with weight gain then losing it too quickly, then back up again. Not only is it bad for your heart and body, but it puts you in a cycle of self-sabotage and defeat. Don’t be a yo-yo.
By eating to lose weight, boost metabolism and energy and balance hormones, strength training and doing cardio for your goals you will establish and maintain healthy weight loss. Doing it the right way will ultimately save you lots of money and great frustration, while ditching unhealthy habits and thinking patterns. Problem is – too many are doing it incorrectly for the results they want.
Carbs
Say this out loud with me: Vegetables are the Carbs NECESSARY for a healthy LIFE. Vegetables!
I know, I know, sigh… but just look how gorgeous this is:
I eat a salad a day with a deep greens mix along with dandelion leaves and cilantro or parsley mixed in. Back in the day you wouldn’t catch me eating salads! My tastebuds have gotten healthy again. I always top off with organic chicken or some other meat protein. All those vegetables that are so powerfully good for your body and health. I never ate like that when overweight and unhealthy. Your tastebuds will change when you stop feeding your body toxic chemical ‘foods.’
When people say they are “no carb” dieting, I always wince a bit. The thinking is incorrect. Our bodies need 45% of our daily intake of nutrients to come from carbs and that means a veggie at lunch, for a snack in the afternoon and at dinner!
Most people think of carbs as potatoes, pasta, rice or breads of any sort. Those are important to cut out. What is missing is then incorporating what feeds and nourishes the body correctly during this detox process. There are great healthy alternatives to pasta (spaghetti squash or zucchini zoodles). For rice you can use cauliflour! Here we go to the wonderful land of vegetables for our necessary, nutritional foundation – carbs!
Oh, and I would be terribly remiss if I didn’t mention my fave: Meat Protein! Both organic chicken and turkey give you about 25 grams of high-quality protein, along with B vitamins and selenium. Make sure you incorporate it! It’s 45-50% of your daily intake. And once in a while a juicy steak. I get all my meat from a grass fed/finished farm and it’s delivered to my door.
Portions
Oh. This one is a biggie. It’s where the rubber meets the road. Your body will acclimate to whatever you do to it, whether destructive or life enhancing.
Low caloric, high nutrient dense food is what quality food is. Not less frequent meals, larger portions, or poisonous processed foods, like too many do. More frequent meals times correctly and smaller portions! This keeps your blood sugar under control. No spiking or crashing of insulin and cortisol. Both are bad for your bod when pushed to extremes.
This chart is a great visual on how your body responds to incorrect eating:
Let’s be honest – most people eat too much at one sitting, and then do it over and over again. Look at your plate. Can you still see your plate? If not, scrape off half of everything on plate and then… eat. Eat slowly. It’s okay, you’ll be perfectly fine. Think being SATED rather than full.
The picture below shows normal dinner plate, and a smaller plate (hint: try the smaller one!)
Weight Training
You strength train with weights for so many important reasons. First of all it’s what holds your skeletal system erect! Over time, done correctly and safely, it changes your metabolic rate. Muscles help your body burn fat. Weights help change the shape of your body. But you can’t out-exercise the fork. It’s the kitchen and that nutrition part that must be focused on.
When you lose weight you will pull from muscles for fuel. That is why getting your protein in is key! Your muscles and body NEED those amino acids! Think organic brown eggs, organic chicken and turkey.
Lifting weights 3-4 times a week will also keep you maintain weight loss. Strong, lean, vibrant and healthy! Doesn’t that sound wonderful? Done correctly it is wonderful. No injuries, just results.
Once you learn how to correctly do strength training – don’t ever stop lifting. Weight training is the key to maintaining and keeping strong and healthy! Like I mentioned your muscular system “holds up” your skeletal system.
Have a bad back? Strength train your core correctly. Bad knees? Strength train your legs and other key stabilizers like hips and ankles! Want your butt lifted up to where it used to be? Yep, learn glutes and legs! Toned arms and shoulders… WEIGHTS. I hear so often from my clients that suddenly their low backs, knees, neck and all their pains went away… and that is within the first 10 days with me! Life changing!
An expert trainer will teach you the hows, the whys and what it feels like. My clients will confirm you can’t get that from a video.
I was asked during a radio interview what my advice was to someone listening in right now? My answer was if what you are doing is not working – STOP. Do some research and then get started on a better path. If you’re on your third or tenth try, start again, start now. Just be smart about it and research. Quality, high value, high success rates and awesome written reviews are key to helping you in this.
If it’s been done before by someone that means it’s been done! So you can do it too, no matter your age. I work with 26-76 year olds and they ALL get incredible, life changing health and results.
Stop the yoyo-ing, eat your veggies and proteins, keep portion sizes smaller and frequent, and lift some weights!
Hugs and Blue Skies,
Cindy 🙂
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