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Showing posts from January 29, 2012

A Quick Sport Nutrition Tip

Nutrient timing is important to seeing gains in performance, positive changes in body composition and improvements in overall health. Don't sabatoge a training session by working out without a balanced pre-training snack. You may not think you need one so consider your mood, cravings and eating habits (ex. overeating) and fatigue level later in the day. More often than not, a pre training snack will keep blood sugar levels consistent throughout the workout, may elevate energy expenditure after the workout, will help get you in the mood to train, will help you feel energized throughout the entire workout and will keep you from dreaming of food during your workout. The snack and timing will likely vary depending on the person, workout (intensity/duration) and environmental conditions/terrain. Keep it simple and work your way up in calories as well as macronutrient distribution (carb + pro/fat) in order to find the perfect pre-training snack for your most intense and/or longest workou

Super bowl creations -thinking outside the pizza box

Through out my nutrition and endurance athlete journey, I have kept a common saying.....if you eat well most of the time, you don't have to worry about the rest of the time. I think it would be semi pointless for me to tell you about the statistics of super bowl and food consumption. But, I'll share just a few facts that I found on Delish.com : "In a survey conducted by the National Restaurant Association of more than 1,000 people, 31 percent said that they will be ordering delivery or take-out, while an additional 12 million people — mostly West Coasters due to the earlier kick-off time — are expected to watch the big game at a restaurant or bar." On the website, the top 5 must-have food items were listed in order as: 1) Salsa, dips and spreads 2) Chicken Wings 3) Pizza 4) Desserts 5) Subs/Sandwiches "...The National Chicken Council predicts Americans will consume 1.25 billion wings on game day. That's over 100 million pounds of bird. According to the counci

Powerful Spaghetti squash

Within my journey of learning how to appreciate the food that I put into my body, I have discovered many new tastes and ways to be more creative in the kitchen. Although 18-years of being a vegetarian has allowed me to broaden my horizons when it comes to mourishing my body and fueling for endurance sports, I can't say that I was always so adventurous when it came to learning to appreciate new foods. Thankfully, Karel loves all food. And, I love to cook. Put those two together and I have no excuses when it comes to variety in our diet. As athletes and fitness enthusiasts, I think it is necessary that you prioritize variety with your food choices. The easiest suggestion I can make is to think of the colors of the rainbow when planning your meals and snacks. Each meal and snack can build off one another so that by the end of the day, you feel satisfied with your choices...and in your belly. By learning how to add new wholesome foods into the diet, the body is also able to metabolize

Three-ways for Tempeh

As athletes or fitness enthusiasts, we all understand the importance of eating for fuel. It's important that we are setting ourselves up for quality training sessions so that we are moving ourselves closer and closer to reaching our performance goals. Having said that, we all know how important it is to eat for health and to not sabotoge our performance and health gains, by not appreciating the "fuel" that we put into our body on a daily basis. If you can take away anything from this blog today, I ask that you think about your current exercise or training routine and see if you can address a few strengths and weaknesses in your current lifestyle routine that may be affecting how you fuel for, recover from and perform during your daily choice of activity. There isn't a right or wrong response and for each person it will vary. For some people, you may decide to address hunger, never feeling satisfied, always feeling stuffed, experiencing extreme cravings, experiencing l

What is your lifestyle routine doing for you?

Decades ago, nutrition wasn't a major topic of conversation. Now a day, it's all about good food/bad food, diets, supplements, body image and food. Fast forward to 2012, endurance sports (especially running and triathlons) have become more main stream and people are constantly searching for ways to get out of their comfort zone and to prove that anything is possible. Thanks to the media and social-networking "gone wild", there's an overwhelming amount of information as to the "latest" in health and fitness. What works and what doesn't work is only a television, I-pad app, facebook status, blog post and tweet away from your fingertips. Without a doubt, it's hard to seperate fact from fiction and to keep in mind that there is no magic bullet (aka quick fix) to improving health and fitness. When it comes to change.....change is hard. Whether you are trying to de-emphasize processed food, embrace a more positive attitude, remove a bit of stress from