Eat Simple
So many of my clients in San Antonio, Texas, have actually thanked me for helping them to eat healthier. It’s for a couple of reasons. The first and the most important is that they feel so much better and are losing weight without extra effort or feeling deprived. The second is that preparation time for a meal is often cut in half, since eating healthy means you eat simple and normally don’t spend hours slaving over a hot stove. That’s actually the first key to eating healthy, simple is best.
Read the labels on most processed foods.
You’ll find that they often have a laundry list of ingredients, some of which you can’t pronounce. It’s even worse when you’re discussing fast food. Some of the burgers aren’t hamburger, but a pink gooey slime that they make into a patty. It’s almost scary. How much healthier it is to simply buy lean ground beef, make a patty and put it on the grill. Simple is far better than complicated, especially in this case.
Chopping and assembling fresh vegetables is the easiest route to take.
You can have a delicious meal that’s also healthy with very little effort. In fact, you can actually make a week’s worth of meals in one day. Just get out the grill and put on the veggies, some salmon, shrimp, chicken and/or steak. Use some those ingredients to top a mixed green salad that has loads of other vegetables. Grilled cold asparagus is delicious, especially if the dressing has a touch of lemon to accent their flavor. It’s good with both shrimp and beef. Think of it, with a little chopping and one day at the grill, you can have a whole week’s worth of simple, clean and healthy meals.
Eating simple shouldn’t require a flow chart!
You should know what foods are proteins, which are healthy complex carbs and which are healthy fats, but after that, just remembering to eat more vegetables and include a palm size of protein and some healthy fat is all you need to know. You probably already realize that tossing that grilled shrimp on the salad provided the protein. Toss in a handful of nuts or add some avocado and you have healthy fat. There’s no need to measure each food with precision, unless you have health issues that require that. Making it as simple as possible makes it more likely you’ll stick with healthy eating.
- Chop up that grilled chicken breast, add some celery, onion and other veggies that sound interesting and then top with Greek yogurt and a bit of balsamic dressing for a salad to remember. Experiment with ingredients.
- Don’t expect every combination to taste frightfully delicious. You’ll make some boo-boos and some will just taste frightful. Get creative with your meals by adding grapes, craisins, pears and other types of fruit for extra flavor.
- If you want to get more creative, buy some herbs at the store or grow them yourself. Basil is exceptionally good in salads, just as fresh cilantro or fennel is. Find an herb you like and taste test it over part of your serving. If you like it, add it to the rest.
- Drink more water and leave the cola behind. Water is my magic elixir that clears my head, quenches my thirst and makes my body healthy. You’ll lose weight and feel better leaving soft drinks behind.
I hate diets and so do most of my clients in San Antonio, Texas. That’s why healthy eating is so popular. It’s not about depriving yourself, but more about making small changes and smarter food choices. It’s about making substitutions that you don’t notice in taste or satisfaction, but increase the nutrition and lower calories. Here are some tricks to cut calories that save a few calories. It may not seem like much, but add all those small changes together and you’ll notice weight loss is easy.
Sure it’s cute. Your special someone calls your donut roll/muffin tops, love handles, but it doesn’t make you any less self-conscious or embarrassed, no matter what your gender. Love handles are those rolls of excess fat at the side around your waist. They lap over the top of your jeans and make clothing fit uncomfortably tight around the middle. Getting rid of them can help restore your confidence, while you tone the rest of your body at the same time. Here are some workouts to get rid of love handles and some other helpful tips.
Yes, there’s no doubt that you can lose weight without exercising, but why would you. Exercise makes the process of weight loss go much faster, plus it has other health benefits. Losing weight without exercising is like bailing water out of a boat with a teaspoon. It’s doable, but a whole lot tougher. Exercise does more than just burn calories, but if it only did that, it would be worth the time to add it to your schedule. Even if you only burn 200 extra calories every time, that translates to losing two extra pounds lost 35 days.
If you talk to the people who workout in our San Antonio, Texas gym, you know that they’ve already started to get swimsuit ready or they’re ready year around for more revealing clothing. If you haven’t already started, it’s not too late to get your body ready for summer. Even though it’s June, you still have three months of summer and you could look fabulous with time to spare for swimsuit weather and more revealing clothing that’s part of the season.
Eating healthy means consuming food that is closest to its natural state without processing. One of the favorite foods of many is the apple. The old saying that an apple a day can keep the doctor away has merit. Just eating one apple a day and the balance of your diet junk food, won’t put you on the road to good health, but it’s a start. There are many health benefits from apples that will add to your good health, especially when combined with other healthy food options.
Any plan for healthy eating and getting fit should include healthy snacks. Snacking has become an important part of a daily meal plan. When you have mid morning and mid afternoon snacks available, not only are you less likely to stop and grab a candy bar at the gas station, you’re also less likely to eat too much at normal meal time. Planning for healthy snacks means making sure they provide all the necessary nutrients to add to your daily diet, but also are lower in calories. Some snacks also need to be prepackaged in single serving sizes so you aren’t tempted to eat too much.
Do you have healthy microbiome? In case you’re wondering, I’m referring to the collection of microscopic bacteria, fungi, viruses archaea and eukaryotas that live in the body, mainly in the gut. These are actually now under consideration as a separate organ that promotes immune activity and digestion. You hear about these “belly bugs” everywhere. There are advertisements or yogurt as a probiotic, foods that provide prebiotic benefits to feed the probiotic bacteria and even more information on how healthy microbes can affect what might seem unrelated parts of the body. Microbiome even play a role in your mental health.
If you’ve never heard the term angiogenesis you’re lucky. It’s a term commonly used when discussing cancer treatment. Angiogenesis is a natural process that when running at its best, creates new blood vessels by splitting or growing new ones. It’s necessary to help heal wounds and part of normal growth, by which new blood vessels form, allowing the delivery of oxygen and nutrients to the body’s tissues. It is a vital function, required for growth and development as well as the healing of wounds. In fact, it’s also important to help heart disease, growing new vessels when others are clogged. However, when it’s not working correctly, it can boost the potential for cancer, diabetes and weight gain. I work with clients in San Antonio, Texas who fear the process, because they’ve only heard of it in association with these diseases.
There’s a lot of great changes that take place in your body when working out is part of your weekly routine. You might not see the changes immediately, but they definitely are occurring. I’ve seen clients attend their first workout and check out their reflection in the glass on their way out. I’ll be the first to say, you definitely won’t look thinner or fitter after just one session, but you might look a little healthier. There will be a glow to your skin with a hint of pink indicating increased circulation. You may even be smiling, since exercise boosts the happy hormones and decreases the stress hormones.