http://brendasblog.tumblr.com/post/4056037443/tips-and-tricks-nutrition
Before I can get to the good stuff I need to remind you, I am not a nutritionist, not a trainer, and don’t speak for World Health. Anything in this blog is my opinion or based on my experience.
We know that eating fast food is not good for us. Bacon, fried chicken (hmm, I haven’t eaten craving foods in so long I am having trouble coming up with examples), muffins, breakfast sandwiches, specialty coffees, soft drinks, diet soft drinks, burritos, chicken pot pie, sausage, chips, ice cream, cookies, treats (ahh, its coming back to me now). These foods and beverages are either loaded with fats, sugars, just plain grease, or have no nutrient value (in my opinion).
Now let’s say you have been behaving but you are still not losing weight. Have you been behaving, or do you just think you have been behaving? I’ll just have a couple of treats (today), and tomorrow I’ll have a speciality coffee, and the next day, oh one cookie won’t hurt. Hmmm, don’t think I want to do the caloric math.
Step one – awareness. Track everything that goes into your mouth. Candies, drinks, coffees with cream, juice, everything. Count how many nuts. Track it all. There is a cool tool at www.fitday.com that allows you to track your calories in, calories out. You can buy the software or use their free online tool. I don’t plan on counting calories my whole life, but I do need to be aware of what I eat and in what portions.
Okay, so you know what not to eat and you are tracking your food intake but still you are not able to lose more weight. You are getting frustrated to the point of going back to your bad habits because, after all, if you are working hard, behaving yourself and still not losing weight, what is the point?!
I wanted to restrict calories but I needed enough energy to keep going in my workouts. I also worried about staying healthy. How do you restrict calories without endangering your health? Well, that’s where a gentleman named Dr. Kevin Ashby comes into the picture. Someone I know gave me his number so I called him up and made an appointment. I went into his office and saw pictures of him and his wife posing in some sort of fitness competition. (Just read on their website they are known as “Canada’s Fittest Couple”. Glad I didn’t know that when I booked my appointment. ) Great, this guy is going to understand a person who has spent most of their life sitting on the couch (that would be sarcasm). Well, surprisingly, that didn’t seem to be an issue. You have to remember, in front of people like Dr. Ashby or my trainer, I still feel like I am 260 pounds. So here I am, once again, sitting in front of a fit dude telling him I want to be thinner, fitter, and that I will do what is necessary to accomplish that goal. And Dr. Ashby? How did he respond? He proceeded to tell me how to accomplish my goal. It was that simple. I check in with him on a regular basis. He adjusts what I am doing, in consultation with me, and I follow his instructions. He’ll ask me questions like “how do you feel about cottage cheese?”. Now if I said to him, hate it, can’t eat it, I fully believe he would adjust my plan to avoid cottage cheese. In my instance, the man knows his stuff and so when he asks how I feel about cottage cheese, my response is simply “I’m sensing I’ll be liking it?”
So is he my magical cure? No. He is a person very knowledgeable in both nutrition and fitness and so the ideal person to assist me in not only reaching my more immediate weight loss goal (immediate meaning over the period of several months), but more importantly my long term goal of maintaining my weight loss for the rest of my life. As I told Dr. Ashby, I gave away all my “fat clothes” (everything size 14 and above), gaining the weight back is not an option. Another great thing about Dr. Ashby is he is more than happy to work with your trainer so you have a team helping you get healthy, instead of competing professionals.
Now Dr. Ashby’s clinic (I’ll call it a clinic) isn’t just about nutrition. He’s a chiropractor, and he has a team that provide the following services: Chiropractic, Physiotherapy, Massage Therapy, Traditional Chinese Medicine/Acupuncture (that’s something I will check out in the future), Custom Orthotics (hmm, that’s good to know), Nutritional Counselling, and Fitness.
I have a massage therapist, holistic nutritionist and physiotherapist each of whom I found before I was introduced to Endurance on 8th and I remain loyal to those people and will likely tell you about them at some future point but I really like the concept of being able to see all of those professionals under one roof. And I like that they are willing to work with my trainers and with each other. I have had medical professionals who don’t understand trainers, or have experienced what I like to call “wannabe trainers” and so have a very low opinion of my trainers without even taking the time to get to know them. My trainers are willing to speak with my medical professionals; are happy to work with them for my ultimate better health. It is nice that Endurance on 8th is willing to work with my trainers as part of my team of medical professionals helping me be a healthier person.
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