Are you eating Too much or too little protein?

Recently I’ve been having conversations with my clients about protein; how the body uses protein and how much they need eat, I thought this would be a good blog posting!

Protein’s main role is to build and repair body tissue – muscles, ligaments, and tendons as well as for the synthesis of hormones, enzymes and antibodies, fluid transport and energy.  When you fail to eat enough calories your body takes the protein away from the muscles and is used as an energy sourse instead of the intened job and if you comsume more protien then you need the body will store this as fat.  To find out how much protein you need follow the formula below:  Please note this is for active adults.

1. You need your weight in kilograms.  To find this divide your weight in pounds by 2.2.
2. Your weight in kilograms times 0.8.  This will give you the protein requirements in grams.

Example:  A 45 year old male weighing 155 pounds.

155lbs/ 2.2=50 kgs

50lbs x 0.8 = 40 grams of protein per day

Some examples of Protein found in food:

• Milk, 1 cup, 8g
• Yogert, 1 cup, 8g
• cheese, 1 oz, 8g
• Peanut Butter, 1 tablespoon, 4g
• Pasta, 1 cup, 6g
• Chicken Breast, fish, meat, 2 oz, 21g
• nuts/ seeds, 1/4 cup, 7g
• Fruit, 1, 1g
• Veggies, 1/2 cup, 2g

How much protein are you getting in one day?

If you’re trying to lose weight, use your goal weight or a weight in between to get your protein requirements per day.

If you have any questions please feel free to contact me. getfit@energygroupfitness.ca

Cheers, Angie

Spicing up your drink selection

To end this week of blogging, lets stay with the theme of liquids.  The past 2 blogs were about water  today is about other types of drinks because let face it water can sometime be a little boring and we’d like to spice things up a little!  Who wants to go to the coffee shop and order water?  What can you drink without adding too many calories?

Basically tea and coffee without any sugar or milk are the best. Zero calories and zero fat, yes caffeine but no calories.  If you have a 1oz cup of coffee from Tim Horton’s with 1 cream, 1 sugar you’ll end up with 75 calories and 3.5% fat.  These numbers can be changed with low fat milk, no sugar.  Now if you have a Vanilla Cappuccino from either Tim Horton’s or Starbucks the number of calories greatly increase to over 200 calories.  Again these numbers can be changed by having non-fat, low fat etc but the point is that a lot of extra calories and fat especially if you have one every day. This could add up to almost a 1/2 pound per week, not good if you’re trying to maintain or lose weight.  Have these types of drinks as a treat once in awhile instead of a reward because you worked out in the morning. 

If you are big into drinking lattes, cappuccinos or macchiato try drinking tea or coffee for a couple of weeks and see what happens.  

Have a great day!

Cheers, Angie
Get fit, keep fit and have fun doing it!

Water can help you lose weight

In this months issue of Women’s Health (July/ August 2009), I read about how water can help you lose weight.  I thought the article was worth blogging about!  Here are the 3 reasons how water can help you lose weight and some tips to drink more water.

1. It quells your growling tummy: thirst and hunger are both controlled by your hypothalamus therefore you may think you’re hungary but you could actually be thirsty.  If you’re not peeing every 2 to 3 hrs then you’re probably thirsty instead of hungary. Try to drink 9 eight ounce glasses of water a day to lower the odds of grabbing a snack and eating extra calories and fat.
2. It banishes bloat: sounds funny but the best way to get rid of excess water weight is to drink more water! If you are dehydrated the body will hang on to water to make sure it has enough water for the kidneys to function.  So drink up!
3. It may rev up calorie burn: The Obesity journal conducted a study of dieting women and found that by increasing the amount of water intake without changing their diet or activity had a significant drop in body weight and fat over a one year period. 

Tips for helping you drink more water:

1. Measure out 8 ounces of water and pour into a glass so you know what 8 ounces looks like.  
2. If you have trouble remembering to drink, set a timer on your computer or watch for every hour or half hour to remind you to drink some water.
3. If you have trouble knowing how much you drink, record every time finish a glass of water.  This way you’ll know if you need to increase the amount you’re drinking.

Have a great day!

Cheers, Angie
Get fit, Keep fit and have fun doing it!

Easy Chicken Recipe

Good Morning,

Over the last few months I’ve been collecting new recipes from Allrecipes.com. Try this easy and delicious chicken & rice meal.

Enjoy!

Cheers, Angie

Dietary Guidelines: An Overview

Happy Friday!

With the last 2 posting on losing fat and choosing your training mode I thought today’s blog should be an overview of dietary guidelines to help you  set your goals. Below is a list of 10 ways you can improve your health: 

1. Aim for a healthy weight.
2. Be physically active each day
3. Let the Canadian food Pyramid guide your food choices
4. Choose a variety of grains daily: especially whole grains
5. Choose a variety of fruits and veggies
6. Keep food safe to eat
7. Choose a diet low is saturated fat & cholesterol and moderate in total fat
8. choose drinks  and foods, to moderate your sugar intake
9. Choose and prepare foods with less salt
10. Drink alcoholic beverages in moderation

The above list was taken from the ACE Personal Training Manual, 3rd edition.

Which ones can you add to your life today?

Have a great weekend!

Get fit, keep fit and have fun doing it!

Cheers, Angie