In the previous part of this article series, we gave you actionable tips on how to integrate training into a busy schedule. Keep in mind that setting up your training regimen is just half the battle and if it is not supported by a proper nutrition plan, then all your hard work will be in vain.
Which is why in this article, we’re going to tell you exactly how you can create sustainable nutrition habits. What is Meal Prep & Why and How You Should Do It Meal prepping is without a doubt one of the most efficient ways to ensure you’ll get all your nutrients in. This method will save you time and money and will also give your body everything needed to sustain healthy functioning, as well as any daily physical and mental activities. At its very core, meal prepping implies cooking for a couple of days ahead, all at once. This is a very flexible approach, as it allows you to prepare certain foods in bulk, which you can then use to create a variety of recipes. Step #1 - Choose your Protein & Fat sources As you should know by now, protein & fats are essential to the body, as they regulate a variety of vital processes, including but not limited to recovery, healthy functioning of all bodily systems and tissues, regulating hormonal function, etc. If any of the 2 is in a deficit, you may experience unpleasant side effects, such as premature exhaustion, constant tiredness, brain fogs and disrupted sleep cycles. Essential aminos acids are called essential because they are nutrients the body needs for optimal health but that it does not create on its own. Good sources of essential amino acids can be found in foods such as chicken, beef, eggs, fish, prawns, cheese, and other dairy products. If you are a vegetarian or a vegan, you are best off combining different grains, beans, and other legumes, to get the full essential amino acid profile. Step #2 - Choose Your Carbohydrate Sources The best sources of carbohydrates which you have probably heard time and time again are all those whole grains, beans, legumes, and fruits (not fruit juices). These are the foods that keep a steady level of blood glucose (sugar) without severe spikes delivering a consistent flow of energy to the body which is ideal for physical and mental activities. Example of these foods are: wild and brown rice, oats, whole grain breads, starchy vegetables berries, melons, bananas, and others. Step #3 - What about micronutrients Proteins, fats, and carbohydrates are considered macronutrients because we need to consume them in large quantities. However, we also needs many trace elements in order to function properly. We call those micronutrients. If you rely on diverse nutrition and include plenty of different whole foods in your menu, you don’t really need to pay specific attention to micronutrients. That is unless of course, you have certain micronutrient deficiencies, in which case your best bet is to consult with your physician. Step #4 - Cook in bulk! Once you’ve picked out your favorite protein, fat and carbohydrate sources, it is time to cook! For the meats, you can use basic marinade - Soy sauce, salt & pepper. Once that’s done, you’ll have ~2-3 lbs of meat all cooked and ready. For your grains and root crops, you can use basic seasoning and preparation. Once that’s done, you’ll have a solid amount of carbohydrates ready on demand. Since these are prepared in a very basic way, you can use them as a BASE to add upon. For example, you can take some of the pre-cooked meat and toss it in a pre-heated pan with some vegetables, glazes & other spices. The same goes for your carb sources, meaning that you can craft a variety of recipes and bring diversity to your nutrition, even though you cook the same foods every time. Again, these are just your bases for meals and you can always add more vegetables such as , dried tomatoes, olives, capers and any other side products you may like. Step #5 - Enjoy your food & time Most people think that cooking your own food requires a lot of time and energy. However home prepped food is almost ALWAYS cheaper and takes less total time because its more efficient to execute a plan than it is to fly by the seat of your pants. So, what do you have to lose?
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When it comes to training and eating well for the goal of enhancing the quality of life, “I don’t have time” is the most common excuse people tell themselves.
Even if you suggest convincingly illustrate the how the benefits of an optimized training and nutrition plan outweigh the time invested, people will likely hold onto the belief and defend how busy they are. In this article, we are going to give you actionable tips on how you can integrate a healthy lifestyle into a busy schedule. Why Should You Do This? Well, quite frankly your success in every aspect of life is primarily based on your physical, emotional and mental wellbeing. In the modern-day lifestyle where even at work people typically sit for long periods of time you get robbed of quality movement while simultaneously having access to a load of junk food. In a sense, being fit and even muscular is something completely natural. Nowadays however the industrial society has imposed upon us unnatural living patterns, thus making fitness & wellbeing “someday goals” for most people. However, they can not be someday goals. Your body is a community of cells that you govern and nurture through what you eat, and what you do. Your body doesn't know your busy, it simply responds to what you do and what you eat. Now let’s talk about training and possible ways to integrate a healthier lifestyle into a busy schedule (yes, even if you work 12 hr shifts.) How To Train Efficiently For most people, it feels like forever to get to the gym, warm-up, do the workout, get back home, shower & eat. And the truth is, all of this can be quite time consuming so your best bet is to optimize the whole process. Here are some tips which you can use today:
One question still stands though - What is the best time to workout? Lets take a look at each time of time. Training in the morning Upon waking up, your body is fasted, meaning that your glycogen (usable energy stored in the muscle) levels are lower than usual and therefore, your strength performance may be suboptimal. However unless your a professional athlete or bodybuilder it won't matter. The most suboptimal workout is the one never done. Additionally, training in the morning is a good way to kickstart your day, as it will give you tons of energy and boost your mood (especially after your breakfast afterwards). Training in the afternoon As you wake up and get into your day, more and more sunlight passes through your eyes. That sunlight signals the pineal gland to secrete serotonin, which is a daytime neurotransmitter which makes you feel more awake, alert & gives you the energy and mood for your daily activities. So, you see, your body is fine-tuned to the sun and the earth’s cycle and this is the period when your cardiovascular efficiency, muscular strength and nervous system are the most active. This is generally between 3:00 to 5:00 pm. Not only will you be in sync with the highest biological activity time window of the body, but you’ll also have food in your system and thus, more energy. Training in the evening Just like the previous two, training in the evening has its advantages and disadvantages. For instance, workouts after an entire workday can be a massive stress reliever! On top of that, night time is the recovery time for the body, so with an intense workout, you are priming all the recovery mechanisms of your body and it becomes easier to fall asleep. However, if you do your workout too soon before bed, you might disrupt your sleep cycle. So it is recommended to perform training no less than 3-4 hours before bedtime. Conclusion Training and eating well should not be someday goals but more so tools that you use to optimize your performance in all aspects of life, as well as your overall living quality. As your health should be your number 1 priority, it is important to consider how you can optimize your training process, so that the benefits would outweigh the time invested. Some best practices are: find a local gym or train at home, do shorter workouts but workout more frequently and be aware of time gaps or down time used on things like tv, social media etc, In part two of this article series, we are going to tell you more about nutrition on a busy schedule and how you can actually spend less time & money to eat healthier and better. See you there! First stop beating yourself up! If you've spent 5-10 minutes giving yourself grief that's plenty! Being upset with yourself for a few minutes may give you perspective.. and some motivation to change. However, it is that thought process that leads people to think if they stay upset with themselves it'll help them make better choices.. however that does not tend to be the case. Often when people beat themselves up for a prolonged period of time what ends up happening is they move from being angry to being depressed or hopeless. Once they reach this point they give up (at least momentarily) and more poor choices ensue. Second stop thinking diet and start thinking choices. If you had a scoop of ice cream it is not the end of the world. Ice cream has protein, fats, carbs and other substances our body needs and if this is balanced with lean protein, low fat, low sugar foods it will make little impact. I would say however that the bigger thing to understand is if you had that ice cream spontaneously (meaning it was not planned) you did give away some of your personal power. You can choose to have ice cream, but do it on your terms, do your very best not to have it because "you've been doing so good" or someone shows up to the office with goodies. This is a process and again, if you have failed, all successes begin with failure so don't get hung up on it. It is important to reconfirm why you're making the lifestyle change, take a moment to feel the feelings of achieving your goal, then identify what contributed to the failure/laps and try again. This process if repeated will become a habit, and will lead to better choices. Better choices move you toward your goal!
The human body is meant to move. It is not so far fetched that if the body is meant to move, that not doing so will cause malfunctions. We find this in nature time and again. You even see in in machinery. When a car sits for a prolonged period of time it develops problems when you finally try to start it. Here's a brief overview of how human movement impacts the body... some of which may surprise you.
Human movement improves hand eye coordination, balance, bone density, and blood circulation, blood composition, and energetics. A lack of human movement has the opposite effect and results in various diseases such as diabetes, osteoporosis, sarcopenia and heart disease just to name a few. It slows down the ability for the body to recover and regenerate on a cellular level. This then increases secondary aging. Human movement and exercise help youth in physical development, as well as develop a healthy self-image and confidence. For people of all ages it helps alleviate depression and promotes emotional well-being. It promotes hormonal balance, which additionally impacts our moods, and our body's ability to heal. Exercise and human movement improve our immunity. There's a fluid called lymph that helps eradicate viral infections found in and around the muscles. Human movement then helps circulate the lymph which allows it, to do its job. The improvements in physical health that increase our breathing and heart rate also make us less susceptible to viral respiratory infections. Exercise as we age helps reduce falls, fractures if we fall, and frailty. Heavier lifting... such as taking out the trash or moving boxes at home can have dire consequences if we do not keep our muscles strong. When we become frail the heart rate dramatically increases when we lift something that is "heavy" compared to our physical ability. Such instances can result in heart attack, back injuries and falls. Furthermore by keeping dense bones through exercise if you happen to fall the likelihood of breaking a bone is dramatically reduced. Staying healthy in this way ensures you can live unassisted for a longer period of time. Exercise and human movement are associated with improved cognitive function. This is true of those over 65 years of age, and is also true of youth. Studies show children that regularly play tend to out perform their sedentary counter parts academically. There is some research looking at exercise and its impact on ADHD. New Year’s fitness resolutions are characterized by joining a gym (or getting a trainer), and going on a diet, which is typically drastic for that person. This will get you results, right? Of course, it will. However, will you keep those results? Probably not. Why? Because you are missing something… something important, something huge! It’s sustainability. What is sustainability? Sustainability means you make a change that is permanent. So instead of thinking exercise and diet, think strategy and sustainability. Also keep in mind strategies change and adapt. This is not the same thing as “I’m going to try a trainer and go on the keto diet to lose weight”. This is not a strategy it is merely a test. A test to see if those actions work for you, and they may temporarily, but is that what you want? Getting a qualified trainer is a great piece to a strategy, because they can help you find the mini strategies that will eventually comprise your day-to-day routines. After all most people need to lose weight or get in shape because their day-to-day routines got them to that point. However, people often have those day-to-day routines because they serve some underlying need or desire. So in order to be successful you will need to find ways to meet those same underlying needs and desires that aren’t counter productive to your weight loss and health goals. For example:
You and a group a friends meet for drinks every Friday night, or brunch every Saturday morning, or beer and wings to watch the game every Sunday afternoon.. or you and your co-workers go out to lunch each day. In many cases we have multiple events like this throughout the week. These examples illustrate where food is the center piece for a social gathering, and meets those needs of connectedness, and joy. Both of which are important and cannot be stifled long-term. When people go on a diet, they may still attend these social gatherings but often it is borderline torture for the but they may still succeed by telling themselves it’s only temporary. Once this temporary time passes, they go back to participating in these activities and of course they put all the weight back on. So it would appear you have one of two choices. You either give up those social gatherings, or you give in to those social gatherings. However, I’m here to tell you, you have more options than that. This is where strategies come in. However, to do that you have to rethink your social calendar, which “events” are most important to you, which one’s you may have no problem attending without gorging. You also want to rethink your nutrition on those “high calorie” days. For example, on Fridays we frequently do a pizza/stromboli night, or wing night. These all full of fattening calories. However, since I know this event is coming, I’ll eat much lighter during the day. During the day Friday all I have is black coffee (to curb my appetite) and a protein shake. Then when it is time for pizza I’ve only had 200 calories leaving me the balance (rest of calories I should have that day) of my calories (1600-1800) for that evening. This does not mean lose control and absolutely gorge yourself because you can still over-do it. It does mean that you can eat until you are no longer hungry and feel satisfied. I would encourage you to eat slowly (i.e. 40-50 chews per bite) and maybe take breaks between servings allowing for your hunger hormones to shutoff. This is an example of a few mini strategies that works for me. It may not work for you, or maybe you’ll need to adjust it, but the point is, you’re not going to create a sustainable lifestyle by mindlessly following a diet. A diet may work for a short period of time, but eventually your head and heart are going to chime in with feelings of regret, or justification to cheat, or feelings of deprivation. Implementing strategies is how you manage those feelings until it eventually they all work together seamlessly and it just becomes something you do. If you find yourself about to cheat on your diet thinking to yourself…. It’s ok to have this because you’ve been doing so well, then you’re off track. That thought is common with “dieters” and if that does pop in your head you need a strategy to deal with it. For example, you can tell yourself you’ll write down the food item you want (maybe it’s a donut you saw at work) and plan a time to have it. Be sure to write down when you can have it, and make sure you follow through. Remember having it without a plan will undermine your integrity to yourself. Lastly, also keep in mind there are other ways to meet those needs of connectedness and joy. Believe it or not you may even meet those needs better by engaging in new activities. For example, you can join a softball team, or a kick ball team, a dance group or a walking group. In these examples you can meet your needs without it revolving around unhealthy foods. The point is there are unlimited possibilities for meeting these underlying needs, and by finding the right strategies not only will you reach your weight loss and health goals, you may also find you’re living a more fulfilling life. |