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Eating Right actually takes less time than you think. Tip # 6: Eat more snacks!

Educating a top national sprinter of the importance of proper nutrition for recovery & growth for optimal performance

Eating more snacks

How good is that?!

Eating more snacks, that is. It makes us all feel good just reading that tip. Gives you some mental peace of mind, a release valve when you’re on a ‘slimming diet’ program or just contemplating the thought of going months on end saying ‘no’ to all the good food you’re used to eating.

It can be quite difficult for many to create what I refer to as your own self-imposed ‘purity bubble’ when everyone around you is consuming everything. In abundance. Yes, indeed, it can be very difficult.

Your saving grace is your imagination.

The more vivid your imagination is of the image you visualize yourself to be, the less difficult it is to maintain that purity bubble. Your desire and need for this has to be greater than your need for instant gratification from temptation in the short-term. You goal (image) could be to ….

… To look and feel better about yourself at Christmas, say.

My tip of eating more snacks will assist in your journey towards this goal. Phew, finally, a nutritional tip that agrees with the majority of us! Finally, a tip that we all want to do more of and yes, the more snacks you consume, the better.

But not too fast now … there are conditions though.

There is a definite ‘mind-muscle’ connection. Train your muscles to train & exercise your brain and help it release all those necessary life-affirming hormones to flood your body … needed nutrition for the cells and soul. Try it.

there are conditions 

This tip should take you less than 4 minutes flat!

Add that to the running total of my previous Top 5 Tips which was thirteen minutes.

Sum of estimated time taken to perform the Top 6 Tips = 17 minutes. A whopping 17 minutes (or 1020 seconds) out of your busy day with the goal of eating right.

Just to remind you that these Top Ten Tips to eating right also has another goal and that is to demonstrate to you that it should take you less than 30 minutes (1800 seconds) out of your day to eat right. And why is this important to you and worth your body, mind and spirit’s time? Because it is important to provide the best ‘mix’ of raw materials to the being, the machine, the energy-ball that is – YOU.

I am not going to go in to why snacking is important. I have elaborated on this in a previous blog “snacking. The more, the better”.

What I am going to do is give you a list of some good snacks you should carry with you every day before you leave the house for work, play or socialize. Whether you’re a vegetarian or an omnivore, we all still get most of our protein from the three main meals – breakfast, lunch and dinner. And, before you get the wrong idea, by snack I don’t mean cupcakes and fries!

Nope, I refer to a well-composed small meal on the run.

Your life is a continous journey of setting, failing and succeeding in goals … until you …
kick the bucket!
Keep moving forward, I say!

The choice of what you eat is always yours 

Whilst food is analysed to shreds keep this one fact in mind for simplicity’s sake: once any form of carbohydrate is eaten (whether its fast burning or slow burning), your body converts all carbohydrates to sugar. So, from that standpoint all sources of carbs are equivalent. However, what is different from the types of snacks I will be listing below and junk choices are essential input the body needs.

Essentials such as fiber, the vitamins and minerals and some cancer-fighting phyto-chemicals found in vegetables and fruits.

At the end of the day, the choice of what you eat is always yours, but so are the level of risks attached to those choices and the consequences likely to occur to your health. Your life.

Choose wisely.

Carbohydrate (Carb) comparisons examples:

1 marshmallow = 1 medium raw carrot = 7 cups mushrooms = 420g (3 ½ cups) of broccoli = ½ cup melon = ½ orange = ¼ very small potato = 1/7 Mars Bar = 1/3 medium banana = 7 jelly beans = 14 cups fresh lettuce = 3 french fries!

Interesting calorie to volume ratios relating to just a small sample comparison, isn’t it?

The snacks below provide approximately 5g or less. If you’re hitting the weights in the gym, add a protein shake (with low carbs or no carbs) to these to ensure that you’re getting adequate levels of protein for muscle repair and growth. A serving should give you between 20g and 30g additional protein.

½ medium avocado = 1 medium carrot = 1 cup frozen spinach = 1 medium tomato = ½ cup diced eggplant = ¼ cup blueberries = ½ cup strawberries = ½ cup snap beans.

Other snack options:

Sandwich (light bread, 30g meat) P:C = 7g:7g

Apple/cheddar slices (1/4 apple/30g cheese) P:C = 7g:1g

Cottage cheese  (1/4 cup) P:C = 7g:2g

Hard-boiled egg (1 large) P:C = 6g: 0.6g

Lean meat slices (30g) P:C = 7g: 0.1g

Walnuts (30g) P:C = 4g: 5g

Macadamia (30g) P:C = 3g: 4g

An exhaustive list of ideal snacks? No. Rightly so.

Homework for you: try to become more aware of what you’re consuming. Start measuring the food you eat. We measure everything else – how much money we spend; how much time you spend at work; what size coffee you want; buying a new pair of shoes or trousers.

Measuring is part of our every-day life. We’re constantly measuring. Why not start measuring your food intake. Buy yourself a food scale and measure your foods.  Make it habit. To make it habit, repeat to remember and remember to repeat. Like a good pair of shoes, make your food ‘mix’ fit right. For you – the YOU, you want to be (in a few months perhaps).

There you have it, my 6th Tip of my series of Top Ten Tips to a better you, this summer.

If by some chance, a part of you, a part of your goal is to lose excess body fat – and for most people who suffer from insulin resistance, it is – this tip, along with the previous five and the next four will be good for you. It will offer you one of  the easiest and most effective system available (through the power of habit) for doing that quickly, safely and sustainably.

Two common questions I have heard from the many hundreds of people I have helped over the last two decades is:

  1. How quick can I lose weight and how long will it take to reach my goal?
  2. How much food can I eat each day?

Before you seek answers to this, my tip to you is try adopting my Top Ten Tips in to your daily life. Work it in to your lifestyle. The metabolic adaptations that occurs in your body as a result of falling insulin and the increased sensitivity achieved triggers off many good things.

Your improved sensitivity to insulin will in turn increase the rate at which you burn calorie (even at rest) and you will find the new you, sooner than you think.

Act.

Adapt.

…. And give you a little bit more peace of mind.

Good luck in your choices.

Until next time,

Do the Right Thing, ALWAYS.

 

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Eating Right actually takes less time than you think: Tip # 4.

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Tip # 4: Take your Nuts with you, wherever you go!

Total estimated time taken out of your day = approx. 10 minutes (as detailed in my previous blogs) –

Represented by:

Time to perform Tip # 1= 5 min

Time to perform Tip # 2 = 3 min

Time to perform Tip # 3 = 2 min

So, hopefully you are trying to incorporate the first 3 tips I have shared with you in my previous blogs. Also, hopefully, you are slowly being convinced about my subject heading.

With this tip (#4), adding nuts to your day is a fantastic ‘snack’ option. Like I have mentioned in a previous blog, ‘snack’ does not need to be a euphemism for junk food. Snacking can be healthy too and should be encouraged for many good reasons.

What do you need to do?

Eat nuts but don’t go nuts on it!

All you need is a handful. Actually, we all have different size hands so I will be more specific – eat less than or equal to 30g of nuts. Some good nuts to choose from include: walnuts, almonds, cashews, peanuts and macadamias.

Quick snacks on the run should still ideally provide high-quality protein with a controlled amount of carbohydrate. This handful roughly provides between 4g and 7g of Protein and Carbohydrates and vary from nut to nut.

Time taken to perform this Tip # 4 in the mornings is approximately 1 minute. Yep, only 60 seconds. So, the running total for the 4 tips so far is approximately equal to 11 minutes. Eleven minutes out of your busy day!

Just to eat right.

A good snack. Berries are a wonderfully tasteful treat.

Good Fats.
My aim is to show you how my Top Ten Tips to eating right should take you less than 30 minutes of your day. Why is this eating tip worth your time and of great value to your body, you may ask?

Well, it provides ‘good fats’ to your body. Yep, not all fats are ‘bad’, but you know that. Your body needs fats to survive and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. There are some vital minerals and vitamins that are fat soluble only.

For example, vitamins A, D, E and K are some such vitamins. So, these essential vitamins are only assimilated in to your body as nutrients in the presence of fat.

Even for those of you reading this blog that have started or are planning to commence your ‘get fit for summer’ training program, understand that losing fat is assisted when you provide the body with fat. Good fats, that is.

That’s correct – you need fat to burn fat!

Good fats provide many benefits such as omega – 3 fatty acids that elevates good cholesterol or High Density lipo-proteins (HDL). Why is this important? Well, this lowers your risk of heart disease as blood is more malleable, that is, blood is made thinner, hence flows better to keep you alive.

Good fats from nuts also provide joint protection. This is vital for those of you who work out in the gym with weights – like me. Having nuts in your diet allows better recuperation for inflamed joints, stiffness and swelling. You’ve got to be nuts not to include them in your diet after reading this.

It should also be noted that these good fats are found in cold water fish such as salmon, tuna and mackerel and plant-based foods such as flaxseeds and soyabeans. Reach out and grab them and add these sources to your diet.

To dig deep, you have to dig deep.

Nuts come in many sizes.

The average person does not eat adequate daily amounts of these good fats, probably less than 1g per day. Carrying around two or three servings of nuts with you in your busy day does not take much time to consider and provides great value to your body, mind and vitality.

Nuts come in many sizes but are essentially small and convenient enough to eat ‘on the run’. Here’s an old Uni riddle: What do you call nuts on a wall? Yep, walnuts. So go for walnuts. There’s no excuse!

We’re on track to prove that Eating right actually takes less time than you think. So far, a grand total of 11 minutes out of your day to apply my Top Four of my Top Ten Tips to get you in Tip-Top Shape this summer.

You’re now Aware. Apply Action. Adapt accordingly.

My Triple A philosophy to self-development.

Thank you for reading.

 

Until next time,

Do you strive to better yourself in every way?
Are you a Leader?

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Work your giving muscles.

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Give.

Giving is a joy.

For the same reason that we should exercise our bodies, we should GIVE. Your body is functioning at its best when it is forced to work, specifically, when your muscles are forced to work. If you don’t do anything and live a sedentary lifestyle, then in the long term you are actually hurting them and yourself.

It is as simple as that.

The thing about muscle training is that you have to ‘expend some energy’. Some people just don’t want to do that, because it means ‘work’. Work equates to pain which equates to fear of it. That’s certainly a very common way of thinking of lifting weights in the gym, but that’s only one perspective.

Another perspective is that ‘working out’ your muscles, when done properly is one of the greatest and most vital pleasures you can possibly experience in your life.

Your lifetime.

In whatever goal you desire, you need to make sure you understand how to use the tools 🛠 necessary to bring about the change you seek.

Energy Crisis WITHIN.

We are constantly reminded that there is an ‘energy crisis’ in the world today. True, there is. The science says this and politicians argue over interpretation of facts about it. Different perspectives again, on a global scale.

However, the biggest threat to man-kind today is evolving within. I refer to the growing energy crisis WITHIN. Within each individual.

There is a direct correlation between what I call an ‘energy crisis’ within and the increase in sedentary lifestyle choices. If you don’t ‘spend’ any energy in the gym and work your muscles, strangely enough, the result is you will progressively have less strength and energy and VITALITY, than if you had.

This individual energy-crisis physically manifests itself in many life-threatening illnesses – both mentally and physically.

First test. Test YOU, always.

Re-charge.

The gym and weight-training is, I believe, one of the last remaining genuine “re-charge points” available for each and every one of us. Yes, available to you, too. Just like your mobile phone and other modern-day comfort and convenient goods need re-charging and energy to function optimally, you do, too.

The more energy and vitality you re-charge and ‘feel’ within you after expending energy working your muscles is akin to what you will get and feel when you GIVE and don’t expect anything in return.

Do you GIVE it just TAKE?

Are you a Giver or taker.

There are givers and there are takers in this world, but I would like to think there are more givers. Are you a giver or a taker?

Do you exercise your ‘giving muscles’?

“Giving muscles?” I hear you say. “What is that?”

Lets firstly look at what it means to be a “giver”?

We can certainly look up a definition if we google it but I will attempt to explain it by referring to some behavioural traits we observe in people around us, and you.

Well, there are many traits – you could say, giving people offer friendship easily; they are caring and empathetic – not only with their money but emotions and knowledge; they take genuine delight in the good fortune of others.

Education through a perception of the truth.
Increasing your awareness, taking sufficient and appropriate actions and adapting accordingly is key towards self-improvement.
Funny thing is that the process also applies to relationships and response.
Vv

Giving is an Attitude toward Life.

Just like making exercise a part of your life, giving is an attitude toward life than it is a specific act at one time or another. Givers have certain openness about them. Givers don’t seem to speak a lot about their ‘rights’. Givers do what is right. They generally find time to laugh and don’t wallow in self-pity. They are forward-thinkers but learn from the past and are keen observers of the present.

Givers do not run constant cost-benefit analyses to see if an opportunity for generosity is to their advantage. They are likely to not get too attached to the material possessions in their lives.

Help people strengthen their resolve, internally, with their own souls
so… that nothing can tear it out. I give knowledge to those who want to learn.

Want Less, Give More.

There are giving muscles in you, in every one of us. We just need to consciously use it and ‘feel’ the life-giving effects of using it. Feeling its essence. It is, in essence, what it means to be human.

Like training your muscles – for 20, 30, 45 or 60 minutes in the gym, you get back ten times the energy and vitality you expended which re-charges you and your being. Your life. You can’t afford not to invest energy. Give more and ultimately, get more. Add more life in to your years and not just be concerned with getting more years to your life.

Giving is to your benefit – physically, mentally and spiritually.

You don’t have to be a saint or martyr to give. Miserliness in all forms, diminishes you – diminishes us.

Diminishes the human race.

The more you keep, the less you have and the less you are.

Giving is a joy.

Want less. Give more.

Try it if it isn’t already a part of your attitude to life.

This is another of life’s interesting paradoxes.

Until next time,

Writing things down sometimes helps in the communication process.
The goal is not communication. The goal is EFFECTIVE communication.
Making real changes with the knowledge gained from ‘feedback loops’ allows me to formulate the right adaptive strategy for student – ex Australian Wallaby Captain, Phil Waugh.
Vv.

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How Fit and Healthy are you?

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Definition of Total Fitness

There is no standard definition of physical fitness.

It means different things to different people. Decide on your own definition but be mindful of your activity. Fitness is relative to the activity performed and not all activities require similar fitness.

For example, someone who is playing as a goalkeeper in soccer may not necessarily be fit for hockey and the fitness for running a marathon may not translate to the fitness for playing rugby.

I believe it is more appropriate to promote a broader definition of total fitness that should comprise of the following 5 elements:

  1. Strength and the development of lean body mass (muscle).
  2. Flexibility
  3. Cardiovascular conditioning
  4. Ease of general daily activities
  5. Exercise-FREE factors

Elements 1 to 3 is quite self-explanatory but lets talk about 4 and 5.

With element 4, if you go about your daily activities without an ache or pain in the world, then, you must be doing something right with your life. Stop and spare a thought for the millions of people in the world that are not as lucky as you to just jump out of bed bursting with the vitality of a hundred people.

There is a definite ‘mind-muscle’ connection. Train your muscles to train & exercise your brain and help it release all those necessary life-affirming hormones to flood your body … needed nutrition for the cells and soul. Try it.

Consider starting a Fitness Program tailored to you

Many humans struggle just to get through their daily activities, like getting out of bed, doing their shopping etc without some form of pain or discomfort. Some could not get through their day without resorting to more than a handful of drugs.

Not nice. Not the way they had envisioned of living, I suppose.

With element five, this includes variables that make up your lifestyle such as healthy nutrition (for the body and mind), no drug abuse, adequate rest and recuperation (sleep), adequate exposure to sunshine (but don’t get sun-burned), good posture, healthy and fulfilling relationships and an enjoyable and satisfying employment.

Now, for people who make their living being a sportsperson, being talented is not enough. They each need to ensure they hone their skills specific to their sport to be the best they can be to be totally fit for that activity.

However, if you’re thinking of starting a fitness program. Great for you! Consider the elements I have listed when you think about getting ‘fit’. All these elements should be factored in to your program for self improvement before, I believe, anyone can really be said to be healthy and fit.

I have seen them, so perhaps have you, people that are strong and well-built but physically unfit and cannot even run up a small flight of stairs without difficulty. Just all show and some suffer from a world-wide epidemic, very evident on beaches – mostly men who suffer from what I have termed “ILS” or “imaginary lats – syndrome”.

Yep, you’ve seen them! Then you have people who are extremely fit physically and yet not be healthy (very long-distance runners could arguably fall in this boat).

What is your definition of health, strength and fitness? Does it include your TOTAL self – physical, mental, spiritual, emotional, intellectual, socially?

What is “Fit” to you?

What is ‘Fit” to you?

There is a prevailing mis-perception about what people consider to be ‘fit’ in society as it most probably does not include the 5 elements I have highlighted above. Although it is highly desirable to be physically fit, please bear in mind that there is so much more to total fitness (and health) than just that.

Now, if you’re brave enough to ‘get off the fence’ and help yourself with your physical goals in life and if you’re lucky enough to seek and get help, just do it! (I just love this NIKE slogan). If you feel you want to go about it on your own then consider mapping out a time-frame for your body transformation journey, say a 16-week (4 month) goal with realistic but specific goals.

Obviously, don’t be too ambitious in the early days. Don’t be disappointed if you can’t achieve instantaneous results. Like I have said before, learn patience and persistence.

Take stock of your physical health so far and remember you have had your body since you were born. You have possibly misused it for many, many years.

You have a lot of mending to do, so getting fit won’t happen overnight, but it WILL happen if you TRY.

Be the most UN-Common Man/Woman you can be.
Find the Real YOU and … be YOU

Health, good health is the sum of many parts

Health, good health is the sum of many parts, including how you think, what you eat, read and drink, how you see your body, how you plan your daily activities and how you perform them and how you get on with your internal and external environment.

Like I have said in an earlier blog, you are like a juggler with many balls in the air. If you drop one, that’s fine. Keep going, the others will take up the slack. And then tomorrow, start again with all the balls.

Take a day off occasionally. On those days, sit down for a few minutes and think how you could make your routine more enjoyable.

Notice, I said more enjoyable – NOT EASIER..

Stay focused!

Until next time,

 

Cheers & Ahoy!

The old Cap’n Viking Pirate Evangelist Muscled Monk … & How fit and healthy are you

Side triceps pose. Contest: Australian Natural Bodybuilding Titles. Placing: 2nd.

Side triceps pose.
Contest: Australian Natural Bodybuilding Titles.
Placing: 2nd.

 

Always maintain discipline in all areas of life, at all times, under all conditions … like a great Viking or Pirate of the Seas do.
Become the best Captain of the Seas of Life you can be. …
Cheers & Ahoy!
The old Cap’n Viking Pirate Evangelist Muscled Monk

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