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Tag: protein

5 SIMPLE NUTRITION RULES (for better health and fat loss)

I'll make it as simple as possible, because it's not supposed to be complicated. Nutrition is a topic which often gets people confused - there's so much contradicting information out there, and advertisers are shoving all sorts of bullshit (on top of the good information) your way constantly. No, you don't need the latest fat loss pills, superfoods, supplements or bullshit shakes they make you believe are good for you (often quite the opposite, actually). So how are you supposed to know how to eat to be healthier and to aid fat loss as well as you can? I want to make things clear and straightforward, so here's a list of the things that'll guarantee you'll get better fat loss results from training, as well as nourish your body optimally. No starvation, no restrictions, no fad dieting. Ever.

  1. Minimum 2.5 litres of water daily (plus tea/coffee on top if you like)
  2. Protein with every meal
  3. Vegetables (or fruit/berries) with every meal
  4. Healthy fats every day (avocado/oily fish/nuts/extra virgin olive oil...)
  5. REAL food 80% of the time (you'll recognise real food by checking out the ingredient label in the supermarket. If there's a single ingredient in it, it's real food.)

Dedicate the next 2 weeks to following these principles. You'll notice just how easy it is to lead a healthier lifestyle. Note, that I'm saying REAL food 'just' 80% of the time?! That's right, you can have #naughtyfood freely, as long as it's not the basis for your diet. It means being able to eat chocolate and drink beer, guilt free, WHILST losing body fat.

[[More about the Freedom Diet here]]

 

/Erika

BEST PROTEIN SOURCES for meat eaters and vegetarians

Protein helps you stay fuller for longer - it is the macronutrient with the highest satiety factor (over carbohydrates or fats). Protein also, very importantly, helps build and maintain lean muscle mass in your body, which is super important in keeping your metabolism high throughout your life, and helps in building and maintaining a lean body that burns fat effectively.

To oversimplify, if you are currently inactive, make sure you get an absolute minimum of one gram of protein per every kilogram of bodyweight, every day. So if you weigh 80 kg, you should aim to get at least 80 grams of protein daily. You can track your protein intake easily with an app like MyFitnessPal (by going to the nutrition section in your food diary).

 

Here's a simple list of the best protein sources:

  • Poultry (chicken, turkey...)
  • Red meat (beef, pork, lamb...)
  • Seafood (tuna, salmon, mackerel, prawns, scallops...)
  • Eggs
  • Dairy (yoghurt, cottage cheese, fromage frais, milk, cheese...)
  • Whey protein powder (not necessary, but great if you struggle to get enough protein in)

And if you're a vegetarian, here are the best foods to help with your daily protein intake:

  • Beans (kidney, chickpeas/hummus, haricot...)
  • Legumes (lentils, peas, peanut butter...)
  • Nuts (walnuts, hazelnuts, almonds, cashews...)
  • Seeds (sunflower, flax, pumpkin, hemp...)
  • Milk alternatives (almond/cashew/hazelnut/soya/rice drinks etc. ...)
  • Soy/tofu
  • Whole grains (brown rice, quinoa, oats, bread...)
  • Veggies (peas, broccoli, spinach, kale etc. ...)
  • Protein powder  (hemp protein/pea protein/rice protein etc. ...)

For optimal health and best results from any training you do, try to include a source of protein with every meal you have.

 

Good luck, and make sure to join The 10 Minute Body team on Facebook where you can ask nutrition and exercise related questions.

/Erika

The best and worst breakfasts

People who have breakfast are slimmer on average: FACT

You need to have breakfast if you want to be fit and healthy: UNTRUE

 

Breakfast is just as important as any other meal during the day. You don'd need 5 meals a day, just have as many as suits your lifestyle. Just log your foods to make sure you're not overeating, i.e. putting on weight.

 

The most important thing to have in the morning: A pint of water.

 

The worst breakfast options:

  • Most cereals (too much sugar. Have a look at the ingredient list!)
  • Granola (packed with sugar)

Best breakfast options:

  • Eggs
  • High protein dairy (plain yoghurt/fromage frais/cottage cheese)
  • Porridge (if it keeps your hunger at bay... Also make sure your portion isn't too big)
  • Nutty muesli

 

My best tips to go by:

  • Always include a source of protein
  • Minimise sugar
  • Keep fat content in check

 

So

A full English wouldn't necessarily be a terrible option, but the super high fat content easily makes it exceed 1,000 kcals. So only have it if you're not intending to eat much else during the day to keep your waistline in control.

If you really don't feel hungry in the morning, you don't need to have breakfast. Just grab a pint of water and go, and eat when you get hungry.

High sugar breakfasts like most cereals do the most havoc to your diet. They're more likely to get you derailed with nutrition from the start and won't make you feel satisfied.

/Erika

 

P.s. In case you were wondering which cereals are nutritionally slightly better... My faves are Weetabix, Shredded Wheat and Shreddies. Purely because there's less added sugar. But I'd still personally rarely have cereal because the high carb and relatively low protein content makes my belly scream with hunger within an hour, and that's not great for insulin levels and makes silly snacking more likely.

My 5 top tips for building a healthier diet

I did personalised calorie & protein calculations for a young lady recently. She started using MyFitnessPal, and despite hitting her fat loss eating targets she's struggling to know where to start in terms of building a healthier, more sustainable overall diet instead of eating crap within her allowances. Both will make you lose weight, but of course it's better to focus on good quality nutrition to keep your body healthy and mind sharp. Now I know it's much more media attractive to promote a simple unsustainable shitty juice diet than make BALANCE an attractive idea. If you've done several diets in the past, you're used to being given specific rules on how to eat for a short period of time. Unfortunately, this is very rarely sustainable and the cold truth is that if you want to lose weight and keep it off for good, you have to work on finding your own balance with nutrition. A professional can help you build up good basics, but you must do the hard work of integrating the new habits into your lifestyle yourself.

Here's my top 5 tips on how to make the process as painless as possible:

  1. Eat only when you're hungry. Wait for it, and then really enjoy your food. Always have a healthy snack handy though (fruit/nuts/natural yoghurt/even just a glass of water), because the time when you're most likely to make bad choices with nutrition is towards the end of the day when you're tired and hungry. Kill off the biggest hunger whilst you're making a quick healthy meal.
  2. Focus on colours. The more colours you have in your diet, the more vitamins your body gets from the food you eat. Now obviously this doesn't include artificial colourings. Stock up on different coloured veg to get up to a great start, or have a side salad with your meal. If you're not a huge fan on veg, just chop it up small to hide it in great traditional dishes like spaghetti bolognese or various oven bakes. I tend to throw in onion, garlic, peppers, grated carrots and even celery for a great tasting, authentic spag bol.
  3. Eat from a small plate. This has all to do with your brain - research shows that if you eat the same amount of food from a small plate versus a larger plate, you'll be full sooner eating from the smaller plate. This is because your brain  will perceive that you've had more food  when you've finished off a full plate. If you're genuinely still hungry after finishing it, feel free to top up. Another related tip that can work wonders is to eat with a smaller fork, or even just a teaspoon.
  4. Focus on the positives. There are no foods you can't have if you're trying to lose weight. Your brain is very bad at processing negatives - if you tell yourself you "can't have chocolate", all your brain hears is "have chocolate". Traditional dieting - where you're only allowed certain types of foods - and not allowed others, is based on a deprivation mindset. This won't help you build long lasting habits. To build a sustainable healthy diet, you are in fact allowed anything you want, but you should learn to not want a lot of it. Just think about the reasons of why you want to eat it. To successfully maintain your dream weight, your diet should consist 80-90% of real foods and 10-20% of treats (this can be readily processed foods, chocolate, alcohol... whatever you fancy). When your overall diet is based on real, nutritious food, you'll feel fantastic and full of energy... So why would you want to ruin it with tons of junk? Remember, the first bite of your favourite foods/treats is always lovely.... And the experience doesn't increase on the 10th mouthful. You can learn to just have a bite of chocolate, not the whole bar at once.
  5. Balance out your macros. Try to find a balance with having all three types of macronutrients (protein, carbohydrates and fats) in good proportion with every meal. Fats are highest in calories, so although you need fats to be healthy, you also want to be careful not to over consume them. For portion control, take a handful (not more) of carbs with each meal (that's pasta/rice/potatoes...) and limit added fats to a minimum. You'll get enough fats pretty much with any diet, so focus on foods that contain great quality fats like avocado or salmon. Also, a tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil a day has great health benefits, so you can make sure to top your side salad with that every day. Processed fats (transfats) are the worst and super unhealthy, as these are produced in factories just to make your processed food palatable. Most importantly, try to make sure to have protein (meat, dairy, eggs...) with every single meal of the day and you're off to a great start - it's also the macronutrient with the highest satiety factor, i.e. it'll make you feel full for the longest.

I hope these tips will help you build a healthier, sustainable diet that'll get you the body you deserve. Maybe you can share it with a friend to help them out too.

Peace out, love yourselves.

Erika xx