NUTRITION POINTERS

Try To Start Your Day With A Nutritious Breakfast First thing in the morning your blood glucose levels are at the lowest. After seven or eight hours of sleep you need to eat breakfast to help you through the morning. Start as you mean to go on in the day. This is the most important meal of the day.

Avoid Filling Up On Junk Food If you need to increase your calories for weight gain don’t do it through junk food, as junk foods only contain empty calories and will do little to rebuild muscle tissue. Instead add a couple more meals during the day.

Try To Plan Your Meals If your meals are planned out you are more likely to stick to them, meaning you won’t go for hours without eating. Try preparing your food the previous night or plan a shopping list for the week. Allow time to prepare the foods.

Try To Eat Less Fat And Sugar Learn to recognise the fat and sugar contents in foods. Cook with little or no fat (try ‘Pan Fry’ which is a low cal spray). Use fresh fruit or unsalted nuts as snacks instead of sweets or chocolates.

Try To Add High Fibre Foods Whole grains, fruit and vegetables – these will help you feel more full when eating a low fat diet.

Try To Prepare Foods This is a good idea if you are going out for the day, and also to take to work with you.

Avoid Depriving Yourself Of Any Foods You may eat some foods very infrequently but depriving yourself of them will cause frustration and boredom. The best way to overcome this is to eat a very good diet throughout the week, and then at weekends eat what you like eg. Pizza or Indian Food etc.

Try To Eat Often And At Regular Intervals If you eat three times a day (ie. breakfast, lunch and dinner) this often means there will be a gap of five or six hours between each meal. If you let yourself go hungry your body will crave high calorie foods and that’s when you start eating all the wrong foods. By eating often, say every three to four hours, your body wouldn’t crave all the high calorie foods because you will be constantly replenishing it.

Finally Make Sure Your Meals Contain Good Quality Food To get the best results for training and weight loss make sure you are eating high quality protein containing little fat (ie. chicken, fish, turkey breast). Also, for energy, make sure you are eating good quality carbohydrates (ie. Pasta, rice, oatmeal and potatoes). Eat plenty of vegetables and fruit. Useful information we all know. If you need to replace a meal, then for example, use a Met-rx protein drink, which is a complete meal and also quick & convenient.

Example Of A One-Day Menu
Oatmeal with skimmed milk
Fruit
Orange Juice
Tuna salad sandwich
A piece of fruit
Chicken breast with rice
Vegetables
Tuna or chicken salad
Jacket potato or pasta
Cottage cheese and crispbread