Jes Reynolds…Your Fitness Coach

Of course it’s important to know which workout ideas will help you achieve your goals, but sometimes the most valuable gym tips are those you’ll use when you’re living life outside the gym.  If you truly want to succeed, learning to create a healthy nutrition menu that considers your specific goals is a must.

Define your goal

It’s important to realize that a nutrition plan for a marathon runner is going to be entirely different than a plan for weight loss, bodybuilding, or sprint distances and recommendations should be tailored to your body and the responses you see and feel after shifting your nutrition.

Once you’ve determined your goal, make sure it’s defined clearly, using S.M.A.R.T. Goals is the method I recommend using to ensure goals set properly.

Create a step-by-step plan to achieve your goal

Like we’ve talked about in previous posts, effective goal achievment happens when you break your goal down into increments and work one step at a time towards the final result. Studies show that one reason diets fail is the lack of sustainability over time.

S.M.A.R.T. Goal Nutrition Example

A common goal among fitness enthusiasts is to lose 10 lbs. Basically, this is a smart goal, but it doesn’t include a time factor. Let’s use the example of wanting to lose 10 lbs in 8 weeks as a goal. Next, we create a map that leads us to that goal. While exercise will be a significant contributor to acheiving success, learning to create a healthy nutrition menu is paramount.

First, determine your current caloric intake.  Second, create a food log and track what and how much you eat for the first week.  Ad at least 3 20 minute workouts per week.  Cut out pop, juice, and late night snacks.  Follow these guidelines for 3 weeks and assess your results.  Did you lose weight?  Did you gain weight?  Once you understand your response to making a few small changes, you can adjust your healthy eating plan and exercise activities to accomplish more.  Remember to stop and asses the effect of the changes you’ve made before continuing forward for the entire 6 weeks.

I’ve also written an article that explains the importance of creating a healthy nutrition menu and why it’s one of the most important gym tipsyou can utilize.  Educating yourself in the subjects of nutrition and exercise will propell you forward so I encourage you to read this and offer me feedback or questions if you have them.

Barbeques are a summer tradition that everyone loves to attend. While almost everyone cherishes the taste of certain favorite dishes, a strictly traditional BBQ menu can present some obstacles to your health goals.

The traditional BBQ Menu typically includes:

Appetizers
Potato Chips and Fatty French Onion Dip
Nacho Chips and Salsa

Salads
Cole Slaw made with traditional mayonnaise
Macaroni Salad
Potato Salad
Caesar Salad

Meat
Cheeseburgers
Hot Dogs or Kielbasa
Ribs

Sides
Baked Beans
Corn on the Cobb

Desserts
Watermelon
Ice Cream

You can host a semi-traditional BBQ without disappointing your guests or coming up short on taste. To start, switch potato chips and French Onion dip with whole wheat crackers and low-fat cheese slices. Substitute baked chips and light dip for nacho chips and salsa. Finally, include sliced veggies and hummus for the ultimate healthy alternative.

Cole slaw and potato salad are BBQ favorites that most guests look for on the picnic table, and with some simple recipe substitutions can still be part of a healthy meal.

•Prepare coleslaw or potato salad in the same manor, using light mayo instead of regular mayonnaise to cut  calories by up to half.
•Some potato salads also include hard boiled eggs. Removing egg yolks will reduce overall fat content of salad.
•To reduce calories by even more, use a ½ mayo – ½ fat free plain yogurt combination as a dressing for either salad.

Replace macaroni salad, which is high in fat and high glycemic carbohydrates, with fruit salad. Fruit salad offers a sweet alternative that also contains fiber and natural anti-oxidants and vitamins. When choosing fruit, include cantaloupe and honey dew melon, apple slices, blueberries, and strawberries and steer clear of the mandarin oranges and pineapple to keep sugar content relatively low. Caesar salad in comprised of mostly lettuce, croutons, parmesan cheese and is usually dripping with high fat dressing. Replacing it with a garden salad made with a mixture of spinach and romaine lettuce and light balsamic dressing adds fiber, natural vitamins, anti-oxidants, and also significantly reduces fat content.

Instead of cheeseburgers made with American cheese and ground chuck, try using a more natural cheese and lean sirloin or ground bison to make your burgers. You can also replace a white flour buns with whole wheat or multi-grain buns without missing too much of the flavor. If you must have hot dogs, make sure they are 100% beef with a relatively low fat content and I recommend staying away from kielbasa all together. The only way to replace barbeque sauce slathered ribs without getting thrown under the bus by your guests is to grill some pork tenderloin instead, trim visible fat and marinate before grilling.

A great choice for grilled vegetables is zucchini or summer squash. To prepare either, you should first cut ends off zucchini, use a large knife to slice lengthwise. Before setting on grill, brush both sides with olive oil and dash with a little balsamic vinegar. Luckily, corn on the cob is a healthy BBQ tradition, who knows, if you keep it on the table maybe your guests won’t notice the other healthy substitutions.

When it comes to dessert, watermelon is the healthiest item on a traditional BBQ menu, don’t change a thing. Instead, focus on substituting traditional ice cream for ‘Skinny Cow’ Ice cream sandwiches to reduce overall calories and especially fat calories consumed during dessert. If traditional ice cream is a must-have, try serving ‘snack sized’ ice cream bars instead of ice cream scoops. Snack sized bars obviously taste the same, but the smaller portions will (hopefully) lead to eating fewer total calories.

Finally, as a rule, replace fatty condiments with light or low salt versions to maintain your healthy theme. But I don’t recommend removing BBQ standards from the table completely. You can have small portions of traditional baked beans, regular mayo, and even ribs along side your new and improved BBQ ingredients. This will give your guests both the opportunity, and a slight nudge to start eating in a healthier direction.

Purchasing the right foods at the grocery store is a big part of eating healthy and giving your body what it needs each day. Use this shopping list as a checklist to ensure you have nutritious, wholesome foods in your kitchen when it’s time to prepare a meal or snack.

Protein	Carbohydrates	Fat	Vegetables
Buffalo Cod Crab/Lobster Egg Substitute Egg Whites Extra Firm Tofu Flank Steak Free Range Egg Whites Fresh Fish Lean Ground Beef Lean Ground Sirloin Lean Pork Lean Sirloin Steak Lean Turkey Products L.F Cottage Cheese Ostrich Salmon Shrimp Skinless Chicken Breast Soy Products Protein Powder Swordfish Tuna Turkey Breast Whey Protein Powder	Baked Potato Barley Brown Rice Corn Old Fashioned Oatmeal Pumpkin Spinach Pasta Squash Strawberries Sweet Potato Wheat Pasta Whole Grain Pasta Whole Grain Tortillas Whole wheat bagels Whole wheat bread Whole wheat English muffins Wild Rice	Almond Butter Canola Mayonnaise Cold water fish Flaxseed Oil Flaxseeds Free Range Egg Yolks Natural Peanut butter Olive oil Olives Peanuts Safflower oil Sunflower Oil Tahini Walnuts Fruits Apples Apricots Blackberries Blueberries Clementine Grapefruit Mango Melon Orange Peaches Raspberries Strawberries	Asparagus Beans (black, navy) Bell Peppers Broccoli Broccoli Slaw Cabbage Carrots Cauliflower Celery Cole Slaw (dry) Cucumber Garbanzo beans Green Beans Green Peppers Kale Lentils Lettuce Mushrooms Onions Snow Peas Spinach Tomatoes Zucchini

Stocking your kitchen with foods packed with vitamins, nutrients, and fiber, makes it much easier to stay focused on your eating plan. Instead of filling your pantry with “junk”, use this list as a guideline to providing healthy alternatives.