
We all know exercise has a ton of benefits (including weight loss), but there are quite a few additional benefits you may not have known about.
Nutritious choices made simple®
If you are like most people, I’m sure at some point in your life you have “tried” to be on a diet. Take a second to think about and add it up. Most adults can list the many experiences they have had with one diet or another, while some are so deeply identified as “dieters” that they would do better to try to remember the few times they weren’t on a diet. Imagine how happy that makes the diet industry! Then consider how sad it is that a basic need like eating has become so tangled that we need a multi-million dollar company to “teach” us how to do it.
Kids are exposed to almost 8,000 food advertisements each year. That means that they are seeing about 21 ads for food every day. Most of these ads are for junk foods or those that are high in sugar, salt and fat and low in the nutrients that promote healthy growth and development. Studies show that the more time a child spends in front of the TV, the more likely that they will be overweight or obese. With 1 out of every 3 children in the U.S. being overweight or obese, reducing TV and screen time can help to improve the health of our children. What can be done to help our children with screen time?
As I hope we all know by now, there is no magic bullet when it comes to losing weight. The solution is simple, but certainly not easy to do. To lose weight we need to create an imbalance in the body’s caloric energy equation, or in plain English, we need to eat less (calories in) and move our bodies more (calories out). Many weight loss programs promise you won’t be hungry while you are eating less. From my point of view, I am not sure why feeling some amount of hunger is considered such a bad thing. Feeling hungry is a signal we can put to use to help us manage our weight.
I had a conversation with a client today that started with answering her question on how many grams of carbohydrates she was supposed to have in a day. It evolved into a discussion about how to figure out nutritional numbers (calories, grams, ratio of carbohydrates, protein, fat). I thought that some of you may benefit from that information as well.
It is April and North Dakota’s current temperature: 32 degrees F; snow still covers the ground. This seems like a picturesque scene perfect for curling up to a fire with a cup of hot cocoa… Wrong. We want spring and we want it NOW. We are so ready to transition to eating light meals with fresh vegetables and fruits that are not only good for you but finally in season.
Boot camps are certainly one of the hottest trends going on right now. Originally new recruit training for the military, boot camps were intense physical and psychological conditioning programs run with the intention of turning out a “lean, mean, fighting machine.” They were also meant to train recruits to obey orders without question, “When I say jump, you ask how high.”