We need to begin to educate ourselves and our children in food nutrition – we need to choose foods rich in nutrients, and those that provide solid nutrition with the least amount of calories. By doing this, we can set up healthier diets and begin a journey toward wellness and health.

Eating foods that are rich in nutrients emphasizes the ability to choose foods based on the value of the nutrients, including minerals and vitamins, rather than choosing foods based on what they don’t have, like salt, sugar and fat. This can offer you a foundation to help you build healthier habits and to more adequately meet your needs, nutrition-wise, over the course of your lifetime. Being able to choose the right foods can help you thing about enjoying eating again, because what you’re eating will be helping your health. Since foods that are good for food nutrition represent the standard food groups and are easy to find, they can help you in building a stress-free, healthier diet.

Choose foods first from these important types that provide good nutrition: Whole-grain foods that are fiber rich, Lean meats, nuts, beans, eggs, fish and poultry, Low-fat or fat-free yogurt, cheese and milk, Bright colored fruits and vegetables, 100 % fruit juice

Enjoy a tropical dessert by blending pineapple juice, ice, low-fat milk and mango. You can also stir in a bit of chocolate syrup into yogurt of a coffee flavor, and freeze it. Serving healthy means using methods that give you lots of foods rich in nutrients. This includes broth-based, hearty soup that is full of lean meat, beans and colorful vegetables. Make your oatmeal more creamy by adding fat-free milk in lieu of water – you can also mix in blueberries, cherries, cranberries and raisins to add flavor without many calories. Cut and bag your vegetables to increase the amount of nutrients for your whole family. Eat veggies like yellow, green or red peppers, radishes, snap peas, cucumbers, celery sticks, carrots, cauliflower flowerets and broccoli. Keep fresh vegetables at hand so they’re ready to eat for snacks.

Smart training, optimal nutrition and adequate rest are ‘the pillars’ to an attractive and healthy body that can perform at its best. Without combining these 3 factors there’s no way we can live up to our potential. Strength training and cardiovascular activity will bring about changes to the body when adequate rest is taken between sessions, but to see outstanding results our nutrition needs to be spot on. Our post workout meal is of particular importance in ensuring out bodies can complete a challenging session and quickly recover for the next….

Post workout our first concern should be getting some simple carbohydrates back into the body to replenish depleted glycogen stores. ‘Liquid meals’ or shakes are favoured over solid foods due to their fast absorption. This should be followed up with a solid meal 60-90 minutes later. The ideal option here would be Dextrose, an inexpensive fast digesting sugar that will quickly get into the bloodstream and create an insulin spike allowing for greater absorption of nutrients. The size of the post workout meal will vary depending on the weight of the athlete. A good gauge is to take.25-.40g’s per pound bodyweight.

Next we want to get a fast digesting protein source. Whey protein is the best option here being that it easily absorbed and is rich in BCAA’s (branch chain amino acids). Again the amount taken will depend on the athletes weight, 0.15-0.25g’s being widely recommended per pound bodyweight. Supplementation post workout is an option that can further help speed up recovery. I would highly recommend 2.5g’s of creatine and 2.5g’s of glutamine be added to the post workout shake to help restore ATP and potentially increase growth hormone levels.

If you haven’t yet bought Dextrose and whey or you’ve forgotten to bring your shaker cup to the gym and need an alternative Chocolate milk is a great option! A study in the International Journal of Sports Nutrition showed it to be an effective post workout meal, providing better recovery rates than a carbohydrate only drink. There is also the added benefit of a rich calcium content which plays a key role in ‘power stroke’ the process by which muscular contractions take place. And there you have it! A simple and effective post workout plan that will help your body repair and adapt to the stress you’ve placed upon it in the gym! Feel free to ask any questions or leave comments.