Top Strategies for Eating Healthy

Strategies for eating healthier


Source is here

*** Focus on low-glycemic foods***

1. Eat breakfast
2. Eat the bulk of your carbohydrates at breakfast and lunch
3. Take those vitamins with a glass of cranberry juice
4. Take a multivitamin daily - and be sure it has have 800 units of vitamin D; add in 1 gram of fish oil as a capsule and also magnesium supplements
5. Eliminate as much as reasonable all white flour, white rice, and potatoes - use brown rice and whole grain breads.
6. Eat a cooked whole grain cereal or steel rolled oats when possible for breakfast (cold cereals are not comparable, even granolas).
7. Use only low fat milk
8. Peanut butter on a piece of 100% whole grain toast is a quick breakfast
9. A couple of cups of coffee a day can be a good thing - even three or four (there are studies that show the benefits of coffee - but do not consume in large amounts)
10. A snack during the day might be a handful of almonds (raw or at least not roasted in transfats)
11. Use olive oil whenever feasible (canola is second)
12. The more vegetables the better.
13. Sweets only for special occasions - grab the dark chocolate if you have it handy
14. Have fish as often as possible (see below)
15. Blue cheese and other aged cheeses are better than processed cheeses
16. Fat Calories are not necessarily bad - even if you want to loose weight - and may be better than an equivalent number of CHO calories

Six Tips for Better Health and Performance

I thought this this would be a pertinent topic to write a post on as most people are either striving to achieve healthier lifestyles or striving to achieve optimal performance in their sporting pursuits.

I have put together some tips which I believe that will help you kick-start your healthier lifestyle. You may already know a few of these tips, but hopefully there will be one or two that you can come away with.

• Eat a well-balanced low-glycemic diet. The key here is to eat foods that do not spike your blood-sugar levels. White bread, for example, actually spikes your sugar-level faster than a spoonful of white sugar! You can check here for the low-glycemic information and tips provided by USANA.
• For non-athletes - Exercise regularly, at least three times a week and 30 mins each time
• Athletes - Follow a well-structured training program that incorporates adequate recovery sessions and rest days. If you currently do not have a structured training program or need motivation to follow-one, you can check out Training Peaks or contact me directly and I can help with some specific tips.
• Introduce Multivitamins to your diet - expecially the intake of vitamin D. See the What's Up Usana site for important info on the Vitamin D in-take.  Also consider taking Grapeseed extract (Proflavonal 90), fish-oils (Biomega 3) and extra Active Calcium if you are looking to achieve optimal health and performance. The USANA Essentials is the recommended Multivitamin brand and the information about their content can be found here. 
• Drink at least 2-3 litres of water daily
• Lastly, not least important, is SLEEP. It is extremely important that you are getting adequate sleep in each night. A minimum eight hours per day. Sleep enhances your recovery. Check this interesting online article about sleep as the "Best Budgeting You Can Do".  Pure Rest is a new dietary supplement that was launched by USANA recently and it contains 2.0mg of Melatonin which is a key in helping to provide restorative sleep. For detailed information on Pure Rest click here

The above six tips I provided, are by no means exhaustive but they do cover the basics of achieving your desired healthy lifestyle and performance in sport. You are welcome to leave some comments regarding your own view-points.

Athletic Performance Linked to Vitamin In-take

Inadequate Vitamin Levels May Result in Poor Athletic Performance

Interesting research points to the importance of maintaining adequate vitamin levels to achieve your peak athletic performance.

At a Glance Active individuals with inadequate B-vitamin intakes may perform worse in high-intensity exercise, in part because of a decreased ability to build and repair muscle. National B-vitamin recommendations may be too low, so athletes with poor or restricted diets should consider use of a multivitamin supplement. Read more about this research below. Active individuals lacking in B-vitamins may perform worse during high-intensity exercise and have less ability to repair and build muscle than individuals with nutrient-rich diets.

The B vitamins, which include thiamin, riboflavin, vitamin B6, vitamin B12, and folate (folic acid), are necessary for the body to convert proteins and sugars into energy. They are also used during the production and repair of cells, including red blood cells.

A team of researchers analyzed the diet and athletic performance of several elite athletes, collegiate athletes, and less competitive individuals. Even a marginal deficiency in B-vitamins negatively impacted markers related to cellular repair, efficiency, and immune function.

Exercise-induced stress, increased loss of nutrients (in sweat, urine and feces), and the additional nutrients needed to repair and maintain higher levels of lean tissue mass can all increase an athleteís B-vitamin requirements.

The researchers noted that current national B-vitamin recommendations for active individuals may be inadequate, and that chronic deficiencies could jeopardize athleteís abilities and long-term health. Athletes and individuals with poor and restricted diets should consider supplementation to ensure adequacy.

Source: Kathleen Woolf; Melinda M. Manore. Int J Sport Nutr Exerc Metab 2006(16)5.

USANA on Fox 29 News

According to the Fox 29 reporter, People are raving on about USANA products and Jill Mills(who is the World's Strongest Woman), uses USANA and was interviewed during the news piece. It is a short 3 minute clip on youtube. You can play it directly below:

Should we take Vitamin Supplements?

This is an on-going debate by numerous people about the legitimacy of taking vitamin supplements to boost your health and help improve your chances of not falling victim to many degenerative diseases.

As I have mentioned in my blogs previously, vitamin supplements is an integral component in your lifestyle. However, it is just one of the components that help shape your health. It is equally important to ensure you have adequate in-take of fruits/vegetables and to maintain a regular exercise routine. Below is an article written by USANA:

USANA has an Answer (source: Jesse Akre)

For over 50 years we've been led to believe that RDA levels are adequate...

...but adequate for what? Adequate to prevent clinically obvious nutritional deficiencies like scurvy, beriberi, rickets, and pellagra?

According to the Food and Nutrition Board (under the umbrella of the National Institutes of Health): "The Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) is the average daily dietary intake level that is sufficient to meet the requirement of nearly all apparently healthy individuals in a particular life stage and gender group." The Food and Nutrition Board further defines "requirement" as: "the lowest continuing intake level of a nutrient that, for a specified indicator of adequacy, will maintain a defined level of nutriture in an individual."

Basically, the RDA is - by their own definition - the lowest level of nutrient intakes that will prevent deficiencies in apparently healthy individuals. And, while RDA levels may have helped us to avoid acute deficiency diseases, they do not address any issues of optimal nutrition.

The RDAs have certainly played an important role in public health. Most assuredly, they provide amounts that will prevent you from getting scurvy, pellagra, rickets or beriberi. However, in the general population, these vitamin-related diseases are of little concern. Products based solely on RDA amounts are fine for their intended purpose (i.e. providing minimal amounts of important vitamins and minerals), but the RDA of vitamins and minerals is not always enough to help prevent certain degenerative diseases or to provide protection from oxidative damage.

In other words, there are more benefits of nutritional supplementation than just preventing rare deficiencies. Really, the RDA should only be considered the "minimum wage" of nutrition.

USANA's products are formulated with the most up-to-date nutritional research in mind, which may or may not have relevance to the RDAs. Rather than just trying to prevent total vitamin deficiencies, we are concerned with the vast majority of people who are "apparently" healthy. Many degenerative diseases and chronic illnesses develop over a lifetime, striking otherwise healthy individuals when they least expect it.

The bottom line is that for the millions of "apparently" healthy individuals in the world, minimal nutrient intakes and the RDAsare not always adequate - or even designed - to address our most common health challenges.

According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), much of the illness, disability, and death associated with chronic disease is avoidable through known prevention measures. Furthermore, a recent study examining the potential economic benefits of vitamin supplementation concluded that there are substantiated cost reductions associated with the use of vitamin supplements, based on preventative nutrition.

What does this mean for you? Basically, that there can be substantial cost reductions associated with vitamin supplements based on the principle of preventative nutrition.

A question we are commonly asked is, "if I am eating healthy, do I still need to take supplements?" A healthy diet is a necessary foundation for any program of optimal nutrition, and there is really no substitute for eating well. In this context, USANA's nutritional supplements are designed to complement a healthy diet - not replace it. Our supplements are designed to provide advanced levels of vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants that are difficult to obtain from diet alone; levels that we could all use, everyday, to promote a lifetime of good health.

More importantly, we are not the only ones who are convinced of the health benefits of nutritional supplements. In June 2002, the Journal of the American Medical Association published two articles by health researchers at Harvard University. Their articles were entitled "Vitamins for Chronic Disease Prevention in Adults". Through their research, these authors concluded that "suboptimal intake of some vitamins, above levels causing classic vitamin deficiency, is a risk factor for chronic diseases and common in the general population, especially the elderly. Suboptimal folic acid levels, along with suboptimal levels of vitamins B6 and B12, are a risk factor for cardiovascular disease, neural tube defects, and colon and breast cancer; low levels of vitamin D contribute to osteopenia and fractures; and low levels of the antioxidant vitamins (vitamins A, E and C) may increase risk for several chronic diseases."

The scientific evidence supporting the health benefits of nutritional supplements is solid and growing daily, and more health care professionals than ever before are now siding with the conclusions drawn from these two review articles published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The professionals at USANA believe there has never been a better time to put the science of nutrition to work in promoting your health.

Top Tips for Training to Run 5km

If you are looking for motivation to gain fitness and lose weight, a goal of competing in your first 5km event would be a great carrot to stick to your workouts. However, to comfortably run the distance does require fitness and don't feel sore for the week after the event, you need to take into consideration the following top tips:

• You can aim for a time from anywhere between 20-40minutes. My first 5km event (it was a duathlon) was 23minutes straight after a 20km bike leg.
• Take the step of actually registering for your first 5km event, this will give you alot more incentive to train and commit to the event. 1-3 months will be sufficient time to train for the event.
• You will want to train at least 3-4 times per week. Starting with short 15min runs (combined with walking for 2minutes every 5mins or so), increasing to 20mins by the end of the week. Your body will be in shock in the first week, but you need to be consistent and keep adding 1 min to your run time each day. Make sure you do a good 15 mins of stretching afterwards.
• After your first week, you can start increasing your tempo by running slightly faster than your normal pace for 2mins and then dropping back to your normal speed. Try to run 10mins before walking for 2-3mins. By the end of the second and third weeks you should be able to run 30mins comfortably.
  
• After 2-3 weeks of 30 min runs, you should be able to build up your mileage so that you can run 6-8kms quite comfortably. No more than 8kms. This should take no longer than 45mins. After the first week, continue to add 1min per day till you reach 45mins. This is where I find it is the optimal amount of training for 5km or even eventually trying out the 10km events.
• Introduce one "long session" a week, which will be 45mins (8km or so) done at a slow-moderate pace. Two run sessions should be faster, one being interval focused where you will run out of your comfort zone for 5mins, then slowing down to a jog for 10min recovery before repeating the 5min effort. Aim to do this 3 times during your 40-45min run. The other "fast" session should be to hold your maximum sustainable pace for 25mins, finishing with a 5 min slow run.
• Because running is hard on the joints, it will be a good idea to do some bike riding as well for 30-60mins each week. This will improve your cardiovascular fitness while giving your running muscles a break.
• Stretching after each running session is of vital importance and 15-20minutes of your time invested in 4-5 good stretches will help with your flexibility and recovery from your workouts.
  
• Consider taking high quality vitamin supplements to aid your recovery and improve your immune and energy levels. Introducing a multivitamin supplement to your diet will help introduce more much needed anti-oxidants to your system to fight the increased number of free-radicals that are being produced as a result of your increased physical activity.
  
• Race day - warm up for 5 mins of easy jogging will get the blood flowing through your legs and prime you for a faster time if you are seeking respectable a time. Eat minimally before your race, focus on eating easily digested food such as bananas and dried fruit. A good energy drink will also help with your performance. I drink REV 3 surge with my water (www.drinkrev3.com) prior my race events and during (although you won't need to consume fluids during a 5k).
• Relax and have a good time. If you have trained consistently for the past couple of months prior the race, you can unleash it and achieve your personal best 5k time. If you have done limited training, then I would focus on going at a speed that is comfortable for you and increase your intensity as the end approaches.
  

How much Vitamin D is optimal for you?

Do you feel that you can obtain your optimal level of vitamin D from diet alone? Many people have the misconception that you can in fact get all the vitamins you need for optimal functioning of your body. However, what they fail to realize is that people's lifestyles have changed over the last few decades; people's eating habits have evolved towards more fast food eating; pollution levels are higher; toxins in tap water; soil quality has eroded; food processing is dubious. This combined has proven to lower the food quality and thus the vitamins retained have been lost. The ideal scenario for a healthy lifestyle in today's modern environment is three-fold:

1. Eat a healthy well-balanced diet that is low glycemic
2. Exercise regularly - at least 3 times a week for 30 minutes a time
3. Supplement with high quality vitamins

Dr Ray Strand talks about Vitamin D intake below:

When you get your 25-Hydroxy Vitamin D blood level, the normal range is usually reported as 32 to 100 ng/ml. However, researchers are now beginning to believe that desired level of vitamin D should be over 50 ng/ml and some are recommending that it should be greater than 60 ng/ml. Depending on your level of vitamin D you will need to first get your level into the desired range. However, I would at least recommend that you try to achieve a blood level above 50 ng/ml.

Your personal physician should actually prescribe the amount of increased vitamin D that you will need to bring your vitamin D up to the proper level. It should then be rechecked to be sure that this goal has been accomplished. Once you have achieved this goal, you then should supplement with 1,000 to 1,200 IU of vitamin D3 daily.