The Healthy Side of My Food Addiction

With all of my food/cooking/eating posts, it may seem as if I’m a little “nutritionally-challenged” but it’s actually the opposite. I’m very much interested and involved in the health and fitness industry. I won’t lie that a lot of my love for the industry came from “The Biggest Loser”. One cold winter day about 5 years ago I was home sick and found a full season marathon of “The Biggest Loser” entice me into what is now a full-blown obsession with the show!  Everyone loves a good weight loss success show, but this one takes serious commitment, it’s not a complete transformation in one hour, oh no, this is 2 hours per week (1.5 hours if you DVR and FF, which is pretty much the only way to watch tv these days), for 6 months, kind of commitment! But it is so worth it! Yes, the show is a tad on the cheesy side, but you really can learn a lot about health, fitness and weight loss from tuning in, as well as be super inspired by the 48-year-old mom that goes from a size 22 to 2, yeah, that happened!

The combination of running my first half marathon, becoming a full blown “yogi” and the influence of “The Biggest Loser” I decided to devote my summer to becoming a certified personal trainer. I did a lot of research and decided to go with ACSM (American College of Sports Medicine), everyone said it was the hardest certification to obtain and I like a good challenge so I woke up every morning and studied throughout the summer. As I got more and more into it I realized how much science was involved and found myself really only interested in the chapter on nutrition. So today I will share with you all some of, what I thought, were the most interesting facts.  This may be a review for some of you but they’re important things to think about whether you are trying to lose weight or just want to maintain a balanced diet!

• The amount of energy in carbs, proteins and fats per gram are: 4,4,9
• Carbohydrates should be 55-65% of total daily caloric intake (at least 200-400 calories daily) and should be eaten every 3 hours to maintain blood sugar levels.
• When carbs are consumed in amounts greater than required for energy they are metabolized then stored as body fat (yuck!)
• Protein should be 15% of total daily caloric intake, app 1.5 grams per kilogram of body weight should be consumed daily.
• Too much protein can cause an increase in urine production and lead to dehydration.
• The most common mineral deficiency is iron and too little iron in your diet can lead to poor endurance and a lower ability to burn fat (obviously none of us want that!)
• Fats should consume no more than 35% of daily caloric intake, the ideal intake is 25%
• Good fats are monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fatty acids that can be found in olive and canola oils or vegetable and corn oils and lower blood cholesterol levels, while maintaining high-density lipoprotein (good) cholesterol (out with the bad, in with the good is the motto here!)
• After consuming these calories, 150-400 should be expended each day in physical activity, 2000 per week for weight loss.
• And my least favorite fact: at age 17 girls have twice as much body fat as boys… life is just not fair!!!