Health

We’ve all heard that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Well did you know that missing breakfast can lead to fat gain. The results of skipping breakfast are the following: Your levels of protein hormone leptin will change; The protein hormone leptin is what regulates your metabolism and what happens is it allows the body to hold on to more fat. If you skip breakfast your metabolism will slow down tremendously, this is called a catabolic muscle wasting state. The first thing you do when you wake up is make sure you are attaining proper protein and carbs by eating a healthy breakfast.

If yours is an “on the go” lifestyle, perhaps you’ve skipped the occasional meal or felt that you didn’t have time to eat. If your goal is to change your physique, increase your energy level, and maintain health, missing meals is not a good idea. To keep your metabolism running in high gear, eating 4-6 times per day is a must.

In this article, you will find some helpful tips on staying well nourished, metabolically efficient, and energized throughout the day. Begin incorporating the idea of cooking in bulk, preparing your food ahead of time, and having healthy snacks handy when you are “on the go”.

Cooking in Bulk

Cooking large quantities of food once or twice a week saves time and makes meal preparation easy.

1. Cook large amounts of lean animal protein to refrigerate or freeze. Use zip-lock freezer bags for storage.

2. Hard boil your eggs ahead of time and refrigerate them. This is a quick way to get your protein in.

3. Cut your veggies up, rinse and store in a crisper. When you’re ready for a salad, it is right there, ready to eat.

4. Use canned legumes (kidney beans, black beans, corn). Rinse and re-heat in the microwave vs. preparing them from scratch.

5. When using a cookbook like the "Lean for Life Cookbook", make enough for two, four, or even six meals. Many of these meals can be frozen and used later.

6. When preparing your food, begin cooking the items that take the most amount of time first and finish with the easiest items, last. (i.e.: I bake a large salmon filet in the oven for 40 minutes, set the rice cooker at 20 minutes next, and finish off with cutting up my veggies for either a salad or to be nuked).

We’ve all heard positive and negative things about coffee. Well I am here to tell you that coffee is a great catalyst to improve your performance while exercising. Just a few cups of coffee after a tough workout can help improve your muscles recover more quickly. A recent Australian study showed that for both recreational and advanced runners, those that took an eight ounce cup of coffee improved their 5K by an average of 10 to 12 seconds. The caffeine in the coffee causes an increase spike in blood glucose which results in an incredible spike in insulin that the drives the post-workout nutrients such as carbs, protein, and fats into those muscle cells.

Many of us believe that, if you want to follow a clean and healthy meal plan, going out to eat is not an option. Actually, this is not entirely true. You can go out to restaurants, eat at fast food establishments (on occasion), enjoy food with your partner, family or friends, and even go to parties or other social events!

Healthy meals are served almost anywhere. However, it is important to keep a few general guidelines in mind when you eat away from home.

1. Eat foods that you can see in nature. Potatoes grow in the ground and apples grow on trees but there is no such thing as a bagel bush or a pasta plant! Commercially prepared foods should be eaten in moderation.
2. Ask for your foods to be prepared without gravies, sauces, oils or butter. Ask the server to put dressings and sauces on the side.
3. Use the “2/3 plate rule” whenever possible. 1/3 of the plate should be covered with protein (chicken breast, fish, lean red meat), and the other 2/3 of the plate should be carbohydrates (1/3 starch/grain and the other 1/3 fruit/vegetable).
4. Eat slowly until you are comfortably satiated, not stuffed.
5. If the restaurant does not serve a “perfectly healthy plate”, eat a small amount to tide you over until you can get back on track with healthier choices. Avoid going longer than 4 hours without food. It is a set up for over-eating and making poor food choices.
6. Most of the restaurants that I’ve eaten at will accommodate most of these “healthy meal guidelines”. Fast food chains are even beginning to serve more healthy food options.

The term "nutrition" always, makes people think of vitamins, minerals, and one’s diet. If you’re health conscious, this is usually automatic but if you’re not so health conscious, you may say, "nah, I don't need them".

"Nah, I don't need them. I am too inconsistent anyway. I feel fine and my energy is good. I sleep well and my Doctor says if I eat good, there is no need."

Everyone and their brother’s, sister’s cousin pushes or sells vitamins. The plethora of vitamin houses and sales are enough to intimidate anyone from supplementing their diet with vitamins and minerals, even if they might have entertained the thought.

So do we need a vitamin or not? How much does one take and what kind? What are the better vitamins to take and how about manufacturers?

Get rid of it!

It seems we depend a lot on other practitioners to fix our aches and pains. Back pain - get an adjustment at the chiropractor, sore neck - go to the massage therapist, shoulder pain - go get acupuncture, knee pain - replace it! Although I believe those modalities are beneficial for some, I also know that oftentimes people ignore where the problem actually stems from.

For the last 3 years, I have studied Posture Alignment with The Egoscue Method and Yoga as Therapy with Doug Keller. Both believe that if you fix your posture, you will not have pain. From personal experience, I understand the importance of proper alignment. I suffered from SI joint pain for weeks before realizing that the pain was stemming from rotation in my torso and hips, not where my symptom was. After realigning my upper body there was an immediate effect on how my lower body felt and functioned.

I know many people who hate the gym environment and just as many who love it. In all honesty, I understand both points of views. I can recall my first experience in a health club at the age of eighteen. Shortly after high school graduation, I moved in with an aunt and uncle near the L.A. area where I was working full-time in a medical office doing clerical work. I had struggled with my weight since the fifth grade and had decided to finally do something about it, so I hired my first personal trainer.

Socializing in high school came somewhat easy for me. I loved being a cheerleader and for the most part I considered myself outgoing. But because my diet consisted of primarily junk food, my weight reflected that. My self image was basically the “chubby girl with the cute face.” After high school I longed to make some drastic changes in my life - losing weight and getting fit was one of them.

Duty calls to explain acid metabolism and alkalinity from the chemical prospectus. Yeast, fungus, mold, and viruses can only survive in an acid base; they cannot survive in an alkaline base. There must be a compatible ratio between alkaline and acid foods consumed in one’s diet. Attainment of proper PH results in stifling the aforementioned single cell antagonistic properties. The ideal ratio is four parts alkaline to one acid, which creates the alkaline environment in the body to maintain a healthy PH balance (homeostasis) and equals 7.365. "PH refers to the relative concentration of hydrogen ions in a solution and low PH values indicate higher concentrations of hydrogen ions or acids, and high PH values indicate low concentrations of hydrogen ions or alkaline" (Synderhealth, 2008). An example is 2.5 is acidic versus 9.5 which is alkaline.

So, what if the you learned that practically all water and hydration formulas measure a five on the PH scale? When you work out, did you know that you automatically become acidic due to the oxygen exchanges and protein catabolism? Drinking acidic hydration replacements and water both further your mild acidosis, resulting in problems with fatigue, weight loss, and create issues with vitamin and mineral absorption and exchange. What do you do?

Our lifestyles instigate a plethora of ailments and sicknesses in the workings of our bodies. The Environmental Protection Agency has stated that our water, soil, food and atmosphere have become contaminated with toxic chemicals due to the inability to dispose of them safely. The human body was created to handle levels of toxicity, but not at the rate Americans ingest daily.

The low-level toxicity produces acidic effects in cells and as a result, our immune system becomes taxed, and possibly intolerant to things that never bothered the metabolism before. Acid metabolism in turn affects the flora and fauna of our intestines and can “off-set” the microorganisms that are responsible for homeostasis or balance resulting in the proliferation of single cell bacteria. This can cause extraneous circumstances and syndromes autoimmune in diagnosis. These single cells love sugar (and what these single cells excrete when they eat sugar is toxic) and combined with too much protein in one’s diet, this can be the make or break of over acidification.

Have you ever felt as though you were insignificant, or as if you didn’t matter as much as someone who was better looking, smarter, richer, more popular, etc.? Our society sends us subliminal messages, everyday, that reinforce these insecurities. Every human being has the ability to touch someone else in a positive way, and consequently, could never be insignificant.

Recently, I was contacted by someone on my MySpace page, who told me I was the reason they decided to get healthy. This statement took me by surprise because I had never met the person, but they had kept up with me and my journey to health. I had a positive impact on this individual without even knowing it.