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If you’ve heard that you need vitamin D to help boost your immune system, you heard right. Not only do you need vitamin D, studies show about half of Americans are deficient in Vitamin D. The body produces its own vitamin D when the skin is exposed to the sun. In areas like Louisville, it’s impossible to get adequate sun to produce vitamin D in the winter. That means you have to find alternatives get vitamin D another way,

What is vitamin D?

While vitamin D is essential to a healthy body, it’s not really structured like a vitamin and isn’t an essential nutrient. The nutritional definition of essential means the body needs it, but can’t produce it so it must come from food. Our bodies actually make it from sunlight reacting with cholesterol. Unlike vitamins, its chemical structure is more like a steroid hormone—-such as sex or adrenal hormones. Like hormones, it affects the functions of the body and binds to receptors, which triggers specific reactions. Hormones are messengers. All cells of the body react from vitamin D.

Start with the easiest method of boosting your vitamin D, safe sunning.

Safe sunning means getting about 12 minutes of body exposure to the sun at midday in the summer, when the sun is highest in the sky. Do this three times a week if you’re at a latitude above 33 degrees (the same latitude as Atlanta, GA). The further north you are, the more sun you need. If you’re fair skinned, start with less time and for those darker skinned do more, since melanin blocks the sun. The further north you are, the more sun time you need.

Consume food with vitamin D.

Organ meat like liver, contain higher amounts of vitamin D. If you have the opportunity to choose between farmed and wild salmon or other fatty fish, choose wild for it’s higher vitamin D content. The same is true of choosing meat from grass-fed or free-range over factory farm meat and animal products. They also contain higher sources of other nutrients, such as vitamin A, CLA and omega-3 fatty acids. Fortified products like milk, cereal and orange juice are good sources of vitamin D, as are fish roe, eel, cod liver oil and eggs.

• Vitamin D not only boosts your immune system, it protects the brain, helps maintain a healthy insulin level and is necessary to absorb calcium properly. It’s important for healthy lungs and heart.
• A study of 216 covid patients showed that 80% were vitamin D deficient. Another study showed that people who had dark skin and those who were obese had the largest population deficient in vitamin D. They were also more susceptible to complications of covid.
• Safe sunning does not mean completely eliminating sunscreen. It simply means exposing as much skin as possible to the sun for a short time before applying it. The color of your skin and location determines the amount of exposure time.
• As you age, your need for vitamin D increases. If you’re under 70, you need 600 IU a day. For those over 70 the amount increases to 800 IU a day.

For more information, contact us today at Body Sculptors Personal Training

Whether your goal is just to build your immunity to stay fit or ward exposure to an exposure to a virus or bacterial infection, clients at Body Sculptors in Louisville, KY, ask for help finding foods that build immunity.

It takes more than just exercise to be healthy, you need to eat healthy, too. It’s why we offer nutritional advice and help at Body Sculptors in Louisville, KY. If you want to provide the nutrients you need for immunity, you need to eat the foods that provide it. Whether you’re worried about catching the latest variant of Covid-19 or simply want to boost your immunity to stay healthier and avoid the common cold, eating healthier and focusing on immune building foods can help.

Food that contain vitamin D can be a big benefit to your overall immunity.

Studies on patients hospitalized with covid deduced a large percentage had vitamin D deficiencies. Safe sunning is one suggestion, but you can also eat food higher in vitamin D. Milk products and juices are often fortified. Egg yolk, salmon, red meat and organ meat like liver are also higher in vitamin D. Since Louisville is above the 33 degree latitude line, you can’t get adequate vitamin D from the sun year around. Older people, the obese and those with darker skin can also have a problem getting it from the sun.

Fresh fruits and vegetables can provide most the phytonutrients, vitamins and minerals you need.

Eating citrus fruit can provide vitamin C, which is an immune booster. If citrus fruit upsets your stomach, red bell peppers are also high in vitamin C. Foods with bioflavonoids, like anthocyanin, the substance that make purple and deep red fruits and vegetables that color, like blueberries, grapes, blue/purple corn and eggplant are examples. Other foods that help boost immunity provide vitamin A and include cantaloupe, Brussels sprouts, carrots and strawberries.

Sometimes, what you don’t eat is just as important.

Start by cutting out highly processed food and sugary treats. Not only are they absent of nutrients, they contain ingredients that can cause inflammation. Inflammation is the cause of many serious conditions and have few or no antioxidants that can fight free radicals, which can lower your immunity. Conditions caused by chronic inflammation include Alzheimer’s, cancer and heart disease. Sugar and highly processed foods also can destroy your body’s microbiome. Having adequate beneficial microbes actually boosts your immunity.

• Add soluble fiber to your diet to increase the healthy microbes that aid in digestion and boost your immunity. Apples, black beans, avocados, broccoli and pears are high in soluble fiber.
• Zinc can boost your immune system. Foods that contain zinc include crab, whole grain foods, lobster, red meat, dairy and oysters.
• Spicing up your diet with herbs and spices like cinnamon, garlic, cayenne pepper, black pepper, saffron, turmeric and ginger. Turmeric, for instance, contains curcumin to boost immunity and garlic contains allicin.
• You can improve your gut bacteria with probiotic foods like kefir, yogurt, sauerkraut and kim chi. Be careful when you choose yogurt. Make sure it doesn’t contain added sugar.

For more information, contact us today at Body Sculptors Personal Training

Is raw food healthier than its cooked counterpart? There is no yes or no answer. Things are a bit more complicated. Let’s start with raw fish and meat. Why do you cook them? It kills parasites and bacteria that can make you sick. However, with some raw meat, egg and fish dishes, like sushi and steak tartare, using only the best meat or fish and preparing it in a highly sanitized area can remove the risk. Some recipes for tartare may contain some vodka, which also can cut the amount bacteria. Raw fish can contain more nutrition, like omega-3 fatty acids.

Some vegetables are toxic if eaten raw in large amounts.

With some vegetables, like eggplant or green beans, eating them raw can be dangerous. Eggplant contains solanine that’s bitter and toxic if you eat too much, but cooking destroys it. Green beans contain lectins that are anti-nutrients and destroyed by cooking. Raw red kidney beans are toxic, so are Lima beans and the green part on raw potatoes.

Some vegetable taste better cooked and have more nutrition, while others are delicious raw.

Raw veggies are definitely healthy, but so are many cooked ones. Some taste better cooked, such as eggplant. Some cooked vegetables actually contain more of certain nutrients than their raw counterparts do. Tomatoes, for instance, increase in the amount of lycopene per spoonful as it cooks down, but the cooking also destroys the vitamin C. Most people love raw celery with dip, but don’t love eating a bowl of celery, while cooked asparagus is yummy, raw asparagus isn’t and may even be hazardous.

It also is a matter of absorption of nutrients.

You can consume all the vitamins you want in food, but absorbing and using them is another matter. In a large study of women that contained three groups, one group ate the average American diet, the second ate one on dietary recommendations including both raw and cooked vegetables and the third ate a raw food diet. While those that ate the raw food diet consumed more nutrients, such as vitamin C or beta-carotene, the group that ate the healthy diet of both cooked and raw vegetables absorbed more nutrients. Cooking the veggies made the nutrients more bioavailable.

• Eating raw fish may expose you to parasites, food poisoning and higher amounts of mercury, PCBs or other contaminants. Most studies find that raw meat or fish provide no nutritional benefit.
• If you love to snack on fresh veggies and dip, try a boiled and chilled asparagus with seasoned lemon vinaigrette. Boil for 2-3 minutes, chill on ice, drain and dry. Toss with vinaigrette and keep in the refrigerator for snacks.
• How you cook the food makes a huge difference. Fried food is not healthy and shouldn’t be used, especially deep fried. Steaming, grilling, broiling and boiling are good cooking options.
• You can eat crucifers like kale, broccoli, cauliflower and Brussels sprouts both cooked and raw. If you choose raw, introduce them slowly into your diet or you may suffer from gas or upset stomach.

For more information, contact us today at Body Sculptors Personal Training

When people come to Body Sculptors in Louisville, KY, they often feel they simply can’t lose weight and that their body isn’t capable of it. That’s simply not true. While there are conditions that make weight loss more difficult, there are also ways to improve the condition and help you on the road to normalcy. Hormonal imbalance, chronic stress, inflammation and many other conditions respond favorably to a change of diet and a program of regular exercise. No two people are exactly alike, which is why we focus on your needs and problems.

Change your diet and reduce inflammation, calories and additives.

Diet makes the biggest difference in weight loss. Most people who want to lose weight first try dieting. Actually, diets don’t work, at least not in the long run. What does work is healthy eating. Eliminating processed foods, cutting out foods with added sugar and processed flour goes a long way to aiding in weight loss. Those types of food often trigger inflammation, which interferes with the normal weight loss process. More whole foods and fewer processed foods often results in lower calories and a reduction of insulin resistance, which also helps weight loss.

Of course, exercise should be part of the program.

While you can’t out exercise a bad diet, you still need to get more active if you want to lose weight. Exercise helps burn more calories. It also helps burn off the hormones of stress. One of those hormones is cortisol, which is linked to belly fat. Stress can cause weight gain and make it harder to lose weight. Exercise and a healthy diet can help get your hormones back on track and aid in normal weight loss. Not only will you lose weight, you’ll feel fabulous.

Are you eating more than you realize or emotionally eating.

Sometimes people eat a snack on the go. Maybe it’s grabbing a quick candy from the candy bowl as you pass a cohort’s desk, or you “clean the bowl” after dinner, eating those last few spoonfuls rather than store them. Emotional eating is also a problem. Do you crave crunchy things when you’re angry or sugary treats when you’re sad? Keep a food journal and log in everything you ate. If you had an emotional experience right before eating, list that as well. You’ll learn a lot about yourself and your eating habits.

Do you understand portion control? Too often we overestimate what one serving looks like and consume several portions at once. Snacks are particularly notorious for this, since their serving size is often far smaller and you eat more.

Depression can actually cause weight gain. Luckily, a healthy diet and regular exercise are good for both weight loss and depression

Maybe you don’t get enough sleep. Lack of sleep can cause an imbalance of the ghrelin—hunger—hormones and leptin—satiety—hormones. Get more sleep and you’ll feel less hungry naturally.

Are you drinking enough water. Studies show that people who increase their water intake to at least eight glasses a day can increase their ability to lose weight.

If you thought healthy eating was simply too hard to do, there are ways to make it far easier. It may start by simply cutting out food with added sugar. While that sounds easy and makes sense, people often struggle because they’re addicted to sugar. It triggers the same receptors as opioids and creates a bit of a withdrawal. It’s also in most the processed products on the grocery shelves. To complicate the matter, manufacturers use several names for sugar. If you see high fructose corn syrup on the list, put down the product and quickly walk away.

If reading labels is more than you can tolerate after a long day at work, choose a different option.

Switch to more whole foods. These are foods that are less processed and have no additives. Spend your time at the produce section and shop for lean cuts of meat and poultry. Include fresh fish in your diet once a week, but don’t fry it. If you choose peanut butter, find one that has only peanuts in it and nothing else. When choosing fresh fruits and vegetables, include a rainbow of colors. Each phytochemical that creates the color provides a different benefit for the body.

Focus on what you drink, too.

You may be drinking tons of calories and artificial additives that make your body less healthy, plus pack on the pounds. Don’t be fooled by zero calorie or diet drinks, either. Studies show that people who drink diet drinks often have a larger mid-section circumference. Stick with drinks naturally low in calories, such as herbal or green tea and especially water.

Make it super easy.

Choose one of our nutrition plans and use the menus and shopping list provided. You can even save money, since the recipes are designed to use ingredients several ways throughout the week. Cook all the food on the weekend and then just heat and serve throughout the week. It takes the guesswork out of menus and what to eat, while teaching you new recipes and techniques to eat healthier.

• Always have healthy snacks available. Cube a melon and have it ready in the refrigerator or slice up the celery and have dip ready. When you have healthy snacks ready, you’ll be more likely to eat them.
• Don’t be fooled by products labeled low fat. It doesn’t mean it’s necessarily healthy. Manufacturers often add sugar to make low fat products more palatable. You also need to eat healthy fat to burn fat.
• Learning to eat healthier is all about making smarter decisions. For instance, you can substitute brown rice for white rice and save calories. Using Greek yogurt instead of sour cream for potatoes is another calorie savings.
• Focus on how you cook, too. Steaming, broiling and grilling food is far healthier than frying it. Wipe out all deep-fried foods from your diet. Not only do they pack on the pounds, they’re unhealthy.

For more information, contact us today at Body Sculptors Personal Training