Make Your Own Sports Drink

In a previous post I talked about all the chemical additives in our food. If you're an athlete relying on relying on sport drinks and gels, it is often challenging to find products without extra dyes or additives.

Here is a link to a great article on more natural sources of fuel for athletes by a dietitian from the Canyon Ranch Spa.

While brands such as Clif, Carb Boom!, and Gu don't use high-fructose corn syrup, food dyes or artificial sweeteners, you can also get in the kitchen and make your own sport drinks and snacks.

Here are two sport drinks recipes to try. Just test it out to make sure it is palatable at various temperatures and doesn’t cause any stomach upset.

Tart Cherry Sport Drink

Tart cherries help to reduce inflammation associated with exercise.

32 ounces water
1 teaspoon sea salt
24 ounces Knudsen Tart Cherry Juice (if this is too tart for you use regular cherry juice instead)
¼ cup lemon juice

Makes seven 8-ounce servings
60 calories, 177 mg sodium, 186 mg potassium, 15 grams carbohydrate

Pina Colada Sport Drink

The coconut water gives a light flavor, a few carbohydrates and tons of potassium.

12 ounces water
½ teaspoon sea salt
32 ounces O.N.E. Coconut water
12 ounces 100% pineapple juice
¼ cup lemon juice

Makes seven 8-ounce servings
60 calories, 194 mg sodium, 352 mg potassium, 15 grams carbohydrate

Directions for making your own sport drink:Bring the tap or bottled water to a boil. Dissolve the salt in the water. Mix in juice and coconut water (if using). Chill and consume.

Very Veggie Breakfast

Most people have trouble fitting in vegetables during their day. Why not start the day off ahead of the game with this easy and very veggie breakfast recipe from Dr. Chris Mohr:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8nD8A7phwc

Need more help figuring out what to eat? Contact me for an appointment today.

Chemical Additives in Your Food

Ever feel like you need a PhD in chemistry to decipher the list of ingredients on a box of crackers?

Here's a link to definitions of the top 15 chemical additives used in our food to help you understand what you're really eating. A few things may surprise you:

• 1-METHYLCYCLOPROPENE - This gas is pumped into crates of apples to stop them from producing ethylene, the natural hormone that ripens fruit.
• ASTAXANTHIN - Producers feed farm-raised salmon this substance (made from coal tar) to give the fish a nice pink appearance.
• CANTHAXANTHIN - Egg yolks don't always come out golden yellow, so producers use this pigment to make them more palatable.

What's a shopper to do? One strategy to is re-think your choice if the list of ingredients contains more than 5-6 items which read more like something produced in a chemistry lab than something you would want to eat.

Veggie Wraps

We all know we should be eating more vegetables but that doesn't mean having to eat plain steamed broccoli everyday. Instead here's a fun and flavorful way to get those servings in with my veggie wrap recipe.

I discovered this unique idea when I was eating at a vegetarian restaurant in Boulder, Colorado. I loved it so much I came home and created my own version. I use swiss chard as the wrap to hold everything together. If you haven't tried swiss chard before, I recommend it as it has a milder taste than spinach. (I've included a picture of rainbow swiss chard to help find it in the grocery store, but it also can be found in bunches of just red or green chard.) Feel free to substitute butter or romaine lettuce for the wraps and experiment with different veggies for the filing.

Veggie Wrap Recipe

For the leafy wrap:
8 Swiss chard leaves or romaine lettuce leaves or butter lettuce leaves

For the filling:
1/2-1 cup grated carrots
1/2-1 red bell pepper, seeded and thinly sliced
1/2 cucumber, thinly sliced or julienned
1/2 cup sprouts

Other mix and match filling suggestions:
1/2-1 cup shredded cabbage (purple and/or green)
8 large basil leaves
Chopped green onions

Dipping Sauce:

I like to make my own dipping sauce, but you could also use a bottled peanut sauce. You can either dip your wrap in the sauce or drizzle it over the filling before you roll the wrap up.

Here's a sauce recipe I found in the Vegetarian Times magazine.

Lemon-Ginger Dipping Sauce

1/4 cup raw tahini (ground sesame seeds - look for it by the other nut butters or in the specialty foods aisle of your grocery store)
1-2 Tablespoons agave nectar or brown rice syrup or honey
4 teaspoons low sodium soy sauce or Bragg's Amino Acids
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
2 teaspoons fresh ginger

Estimated nutrition per roll (will depend on the veggies and dipping sauce you choose):

167 cal; 6g protein; 11g fat; 15g carb, 282mg sodium

New Company Logo!

I'm excited to present my new Dynamic Nutrition company logo. Many thanks to the great design team at Top Shelf Design. I'm really pleased at how it came out. Let me know what you think.

The Six O'Clock Scramble

Are you constantly stressing about what to make for dinner when 6 o'clock rolls around?

Trying to figure out what to eat when everyone is tired and hungry is extremely challenging. At these times it often seems easier to get fast food or pick up the phone and order something. Therefore one of the keys to avoiding the 6 o'clock scramble is taking the time to plan out your meals for the week and having the ingredients already on hand to put your plan into action. As I always tell my clients, while it does require some work, a little planning goes a long way.

I have found a great meal planning website to help you with this. The Six O'clock Scramble is an online dinner planning service. By subscribing you get a weekly menu plan with five family-tested recipes that take 30 minutes or less to prepare. You also get a grocery store list for the recipes so you can shop just once per week. Subscriptions are available for either 3, 6, or 12 months. All the recipes have nutritional information and designations such as whether it is gluten-free, kosher, or vegetarian.

If you're not interested in subscribing to a service, there are many great free recipe sites to put together your own weekly plan such as Cooking Light, Allrecipes, Eating Well, and The Vegetarian Times.

Need more one-on-one assistance to help with meal planning? Contact me for an appointment today.

Protein and Muscle Building: How Much Is Enough?

So if you want to build muscle, just load up on lots of protein, right? Not so fast. Before you start eating a steak bigger than your dinner plate, a recent study in the September Journal of the American Dietetic Association showed that only about 30 grams of protein or 4 oz of chicken, fish, beef, dairy, or soy products consumed in a meal was needed to increase muscle building or synthesis by 50%. A 4 oz serving is slightly bigger than a deck of cards.

So you might be asking yourself, "Well if some protein is good for muscle building, more must be better." The researchers asked the same question and gave the subjects a 12 oz serving - 3 times as much as the original - to see what would happen. A drum roll please: The results were exactly the same as the muscle increase for the smaller 4 oz serving. This study suggests that muscle building or muscle protein synthesis hits a ceiling at 30 grams or a 4 ounce serving of protein at meals.

The researchers pointed out that the most effective strategy for muscle building is to have moderate size servings of protein over the course of the day rather than a huge serving of protein at one meal at night. So instead of eating half a chicken at dinner, make sure to add a good quality source of protein at breakfast (such as eggs, milk, or yogurt), at lunch, and have a moderate portion at dinner.

Besides protein, muscle building requires working hard in the gym, eating more calories than you're burning, consuming a balance of nutrients (don't forget about those carbohydrates and healthy fats as well), and having a consistent eating plan.

Need help figuring out your eating plan to build muscle? Contact me for an appointment today.

Do You Suffer from I-can't-itis?

What? You've never heard of I-can't-itis?

I-can't-itis is a common condition in which when presented which a change, a person will automatically respond - either in their mind or aloud - with the words "I can't." This is often accompanied by a list of reasons why it is impossible for the mentioned task to be accomplished.

I-can't-itis oftens strikes when the subject of a healthy lifestyle is discussed, especially changes to nutrition and exercise.

Symptoms include:

• The belief that you already eat really healthy and don't need to change anything.
• Feeling defensive when discussing changes to eating or exercise habits.
• Feeling defeated by past attempts to eat healthier and exercise.
• An all-or-nothing mindset in which you yo-yo between being very strict to slip-ups that cause you to fall off the wagon - sometimes for days.
• Clinging to your current lifestyle habits even though you don't look and feel your best.

These symptoms can be exacerbated after attempting popular fad diets from books and magazines or following dietary advice from well-meaning family and friends.

The good news is that there is help for this chronic condition. Working with a licensed nutrition professional can help you battle this condition by identifying ways to painlessly implement incremental lifestyle changes that help you meet your goals and achieve results.

You have the power to change your life. Don't let I-can't-itis rule it for you.

Punched Up Peanut Butter Recipe

Here's a great video by Dr. Kara Mohr demonstrating how to give your peanut butter an extra nutrition packed punch.

To summarize the recipe from the video, just peel and steam up 3-4 large carrots, enough so you can mash them up and get about a 2/3 cup serving. Then blend 1/3 cup peanut butter with 2/3 cup of the mashed carrots and joila - a delicious sweet and salty spread with half the fat of plain peanut butter. Feeling sassy? Add a dash of cinnamon or nutmeg to spice things up.

This is a great recipe for adults and kids alike to help get more veggies in during the day. Remember to look at the ingredients on the back of the peanut butter jar and get the brand with just peanuts and salt listed rather than added sugars and oils.

Here's the link to the video to see the recipe step by step.

Need more meal and snack ideas? Contact me for an appointment today.

Tips on Choosing Frozen Meals

When you're short on time and energy but still trying to watch your weight, frozen meals seem like a great idea since they're portion controlled and easy to prepare - just heat and eat. But not all frozen meals are created equal. Here's a link to an article with tips on what to look for when choosing frozen meals.

To summarize:

• Look at the list of ingredients to make sure it first lists real food such as chicken, fish, pasta, or vegetables rather than a stabilizer or filler that requires a chemistry degree to decipher.
• Sodium should be no more than 30% of your daily intake or 700 milligrams or less.
• Stick to entrees with no more than 15 grams of fat and 5 grams of saturated fat.
• Aim for at least 10-15 grams of protein.
• Look for meals with at least 3 grams of fiber.

I usually recommend to my clients to add extra steamed veggies and maybe a side of fruit to help round out the meal, provide more vitamins and minerals, and help fill them up for fewer calories.

Some of my favorite brands of frozen meals are Amy's, Kashi, and Seeds of Change, but just make sure to read the labels as not all fall within these guidelines.

Need more help figuring out nutrition guidelines for your unique life? Contact me for an appointment today.