Eating to Meet Your Fitness Goals
Eating to Meet Your Fitness Goals
Getting Healthier & Getting in Shape Takes Some Work
I am quite sure that many of us have added “get healthier” to our New Years Resolution lists. To some, this might mean losing some weight since the holidays tend to add lots of extra calories to our diets and waistlines. To others, it may mean get to the gym or hop on the Peloton bike/treadmill that stares you down each and every day. And, as with all resolutions, comes the realization that ‘getting healthy’ or ‘getting in shape’ takes some work.
All too often, I have clients who believe that working out equals weight loss and become frustrated when the pounds do not “melt” off as they had expected by adding exercise to their routine. Exercise will eventually help you add lean muscle and burn fat, but the real work starts with your diet.
First of all, I never promote diet “fads or trends.” Atkins/Keto and intermittent fasting all works until you stop doing them - and you stop because they are unsustainable.
What I do promote is eating large quantities of high-nutrient foods to be the secret to optimal health and permanent weight control. This is crucial in deciding what to eat. We need to eat foods with adequate nutrients, so we won’t need to consume excess “empty” calories to reach our nutritional requirements.
Appetite is not controlled by the weight of the food but by the fiber, nutrient density, and caloric density. Since the stomach can hold about one liter of food, lets’s look at what types of food are the most nutrient dense - it will come as no surprise to many of you that the foods that will let you feel fuller with the least amount of calories are fruits and vegetables. Green vegetables are so incredibly low in calories and rich in nutrients and fiber that the more of them you eat, the more weight you will lose.
Foods like dark green leafy vegetables such as kale, spinach, and arugula have a nutrient-density of 100 points. Romaine, bok choy, cabbage, brussel sprouts, asparagus, broccoli, green beans, and peas are also at the top of the nutrient density pyramid. You can also enjoy non-green vegetables such as beets, eggplant, mushrooms, and peppers as well as a myriad of fruits, beans and raw nuts, seeds, whole grains, and colorful starchy vegetables such as butternut squash, sweet potatoes, corn, and turnips.
So, let’s get back to the stomach - 400 calories of chicken will fill approximately 1/8th of the volume, but 400 calories of spinach, eggplant, and beans will completely fill your stomach’s volume.
Let’s go a step further - every day I eat a large salad for lunch. The salad is mostly dark greens like spinach, arugula, and romaine. I add beets that I have previously boiled and peeled, left over cooked veggies like asparagus/brussel sprouts, and grilled chicken. I dress the salad with a homemade dressing of olive oil and red vinegar. This salad fills me up so completely, yet I do not feel stuffed. I feel satisfied and ready to keep moving through my typically very busy day.
Through the years I have learned what works for me. So I never tell my clients or anyone who asks what they have to eat, what I eat to achieve their goals. What I will do is look for ways to make their diets healthier and more satisfying.
Still, it is not easy to change - eating has emotional and social overtones and it can be especially difficult to break an addiction. But if you give yourself the opportunity to make small changes in your dietary choices that allow you to not only look better but to feel better, then that’s really something special to gain.
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Kim Duke is a certified personal trainer and owner of Core Performance Fitness and Training, 55 Bristol Lane, Ellicottville, NY. Kim resides in Ellicottville where she raised her two sons, Zach and Nik. For more information about her studio, visit her Facebook (Core Performance Health and Fitness), Instagram (@cptcoreperformance), go to www.coreperformancefitness.com or call her directly at 716-698-1198.
