Archive | Nutrition RSS feed for this section

Benefits of yogurt for men

18 Apr

Yogurt is mostly marketed towards women, but what’s in it for men ?

The only reason yogurt is marketed towards women is that they are generally more conscious about their body image and more receptive to healthy eating. If it is good for one it is equally good for the other sex. And interestingly, now we are beginning to see advertisements for Greek yogurt targeting the male population.

IMG_0243

Yogurt, a fermented dairy product made from milk, provides complete, animal protein. It helps retain lean muscle mass and makes you feel fuller. Greek yogurt, particularly high in protein, is excellent for post workout recovery.

Probiotic yogurt and Greek yogurt contain friendly bacteria which can help your digestive system and boost your immune system.

A less known benefit of yogurt is that it improves hydration, as yogurt protein helps increase water absorption.

Yogurt may reduce the risk of high blood pressure.

Yogurt is also an excellent source of calcium, which plays a vital role in maintaining bone mass. Dietary intake of calcium through a yogurt product helps the body use its stored fat sources.

In a study released 10 years ago, the University of Tennessee found that people who added three servings of yogurt a day to a reduced calorie diet lost 81 percent more belly fat over 12 weeks than those who did not eat yogurt. This has also been reported in The Men ‘s Health Diet book by S. Perrine.

I love yogurt and I take between 2 and 3 servings a day. In the past year, this has become one of my favorite snacks. I go for the low fat version. I see yogurt as a treat, with frozen berries, sometimes with a little honey on top.

Raising kids with asthma and food allergies

4 Apr

Finding out your kids are severely allergic to peanuts and nuts is a shock. It requires adjustments in the menus at home and keeps you on alert 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. This happened to us and we have been living on alert for the past 8 years. But there is some positive in this: you start reading labels and you are much more conscious of what enters the home, what you feed your kids and by extension, what you eat yourself as well.

Looking back, I realize that my interest into healthier living dates back to this day when we found out we were raising kids with asthma and food allergies.

When we had our second child, we had him tested for several allergies and it confirmed he had very similar allergies to his brother. That somehow simplified our lives. Until we found out that our second child was also intolerant to milk products and gluten. Things can get complicated from there, since you cannot look into nuts for protein or almond milk as a substitute for milk. Fortunately that foray into gluten free and milk product substitutes lasted only about a year, until his intolerances went away. Still, there was some positive into this as we got more familiar with all this world of gluten free and lactose free products. We got to try many recipes which allowed us to discover and appreciate some of the best alternatives, often associated with healthier living.

In a previous post, I provided a detailed list of my typical daily food intake. I eat a lot of nuts – but only at the office, never at home. Nuts have been banned from home since the day we found out about our child allergies. To reduce the risk of contamination, I use chopsticks to eat my nuts in the office.

At home, I found some excellent peanut butter substitutes such as Wowbutter, a soy based spread which really tastes like peanut butter. We also found some excellent substitutes based on golden peas, such as NoNuts, produced in Canada.

OneFitGeek Tip Number 1 – Nutrition

30 Mar

The purpose of this blog is to share what I found during my journey from being an average geek to being a fit geek. Some of my findings are obvious, common knowledge. But I also found that although many things are obvious and make sense, they will not do any good if not applied.

It is within this mindset that I will post my tips. Here is a first tip, to be filed under the Nutrition category.

When drinking water, drink ice cold water.

When drinking a protein shake in the morning, make it ice cold.

And when adding fruits to your greek yogurt, add frozen berries.

Ice cold drinks and frozen berries require more energy to be brought to your body temperature, resulting in a greater calorie expense. This is one of the tricks I have been doing and which worked great for me.

It is alright to cheat on your diet … and why you must do it

26 Mar

I have read a lot of different views about cheating on your diet. Some people have a cheat day and then they try to compensate the next day by starving . That does not sound like a good plan to me.

I also noticed that the definition of cheating varies widely.

After losing over 40 pounds and keeping it off for one year, I can tell what works for me.

I make it a rule to eat whatever I want once a week, usually on Saturdays when visiting family.
This allows me to avoid comments such as “What happened to you?”, “Are you sick?” or “You are not eating enough!”.

Having a cheat day gives your metabolism a boost. Your body knows it usually has enough and it will process the excess food without storing fat. You see a spike in your weight and then it goes away in one or two days. If your diet is too strict or if you eat too little for too long, your metabolism slows down or worst, it falls into survival mode. This is counterproductive to the benefits of your diet as you will begin to store fat again.

The above is true whether you are currently losing weight or you are into the maintenance phase.

An added benefit I found is that if you crave something during the week and you manage to hold on and resist, once you let loose and eat a lot of it you conclude it is not so good after all.

The most important part is to make planned, conscious choices. Not to lose control, overeat and declare it a cheat day after the fact.

How to survive one week at Disney without gaining weight

22 Mar

Here is a simple tip on how we spent one week at Walt Disney World without gaining weight, even indulging in some ice cream and chocolate muffins.

Sharing. That’s it.

For every meal, we ordered one plate for the two of us. We did the same for the kids.

Do not get me wrong, the food is very good, they offer several healthy options but the portions are just way too big. By sharing every meal, we were satisfied and we had room for the occasional indulgences through the day.

We also brought in some snacks such as oatmeal cookies and granola / yogurt bars.

For one week, we did not care much about our ‘diet’. Since we were walking and standing from 8 AM to 8 PM, if not later, we ended the week off without gaining weight.

In fact this was our second visit at Disney. Last year, we followed the same plan and I ended up losing 5 pounds in a week. It should be noted that back then, I was already on my way from average to fit, while this year my weight is steady.

Breaking the snacking habit

20 Mar

Here are my best tips for breaking the habit of snacking.

Delay – hold on for a while by creating a diversion

At first, when I felt the urge to snack, I would get down and do 10 push-ups. Not being in top shape, this was demanding enough to fend off the snack urge for a while.

Going for a walk also works very well for me.

Drink – drink water to fill your stomach. Black coffee and tea also do the trick.

Eat better – This one sounds general but I will explain. When you make better food choices, eat more fiber and whole foods, digestion takes longer and you feel satisfied for longer.

Mind power – This can be the most difficult tip to implement. Understand that most of the time, the urge to snack comes from habit more than from actual hunger. You have this image of cookies with coffee or tea. If you can convince yourself that you are not really hungry, then good for you. However I can tell that this does not work very well with me.

Instead, the best way I found to avoid snacks was to not get them into the house in the first place. Same holds true for the workplace.

How small eating changes led to significant weight loss

18 Mar

We all know that our eating habits are related to our weight. What most people do not realize is just how important nutrition is a contributor to body weight. You can exercise for 2 hours every day but if you do not pay attention to what you are eating you will not get far towards your weight loss goal.

You need to monitor the quantity and the quality of your food as well.

I will show you how I changed my eating habits for the best. These are not general ideas, these are actual facts which allowed me to go from average Joe to fit in a matter of months.

One more fact before beginning: My new eating habits have been holding on for 18 months now and I do not feel hungry.

My typical day before:

BREAKFAST

  • one bowl of popular adult cereal such as Raisin Bran, Special K or Just Right, with 2% milk and one heaping spoonful of white sugar
  • croissant with strawberry jam or chocolate croissant
  • double cappuccino
  • one tall glass of orange juice, from concentrate
  • banana

MORNING SNACK

  • one chocolate chip cookie or occasional boxed chocolates
  • black coffee (make it two to go through the morning)

LUNCH

  • bagel, with peanut butter spread and one slice of processed cheese
  • one handful of crackers, either Wheat Thins or Golden Fishes
  • fruit juice, passion fruit or grape
  • yogurt cup, fruit at the bottom, 4% fat
  • 3 chocolate chip cookies, store bought

AFTERNOON SNACK

  • black tea
  • fundraising chocolate bar
  • apple

DINNER

  • complete dinner, home cooked, either meat, pasta or fish
  • occasional wine glass
  • dessert, either home made or store bought, could be nanaimo bar, cake, …
  • one glass of milk
  • occasional coffee, black or cappuccino

LATE NIGHT SNACK

  • half a pack of Premium Plus crakers
  • one tall glass of apple juice OR
  • occasional drink, hard liquor, with fruit juice – especially if I had more than 5 cups of coffee that day

My typical day NOW:

BREAKFAST

  • within 20 minutes of waking up, ice cold chocolate protein shake, 30g protein, 160 calories
  • one bowl of select cereal, rich in fiber and proteins such as Nature’s Path Optimum Power, General Mills Oatmeal Crisp Triple Berry or Kellogg’s Mini-Wheats centres, with 2% milk
  • two tablespoons of milled flax seeds on top of any of the above cereals, kept in the freezer

MORNING SNACK

  • one cup of black coffee

MORNING SNACK, closer to lunchtime

  • a handful of roasted almonds, plain (about 20)

MORNING SNACK, at typical lunchtime

  • banana

AFTERNOON SNACK

  • select crackers, rich in fiber and proteins, for 90 to 120 calories
  • vegetable juice, one shot, such as V8

AFTERNOON SNACK, 30 to 60 minutes after previous snack

  • pistachios, sunflower seeds, soy seeds
  • green tea

AFTERNOON SNACK, mid afternoon

  • fat free, 35 calories fruit yogurt
  • one home made cookie, either flax seed or chocolate coconut, about 100 calories
  • probiotic drinkable yogurt, such as DanActive
  • one apple

DINNER

  • complete dinner, home cooked, either meat, pasta or fish
  • on rare occasions, a glass of wine
  • about 5 pieces of chocolate covered coffee beans
  • one day out of 2 or 3, home made dessert, fruit / wheat flour based

LATE NIGHT SNACK, right before bed

  • generous portion of fat free, vanilla Greek yogurt with berries, fresh and frozen, plus one golden kiwi

Although it was not indicated in the above list, I also drink water all through the day. A little less before, more now.

This was a long post, but I wanted to give you a detailed breakdown of my eating habits so that you can see how you can make similar changes to your own habits.