Nutrition Guidelines
I will be sharing with you some of the nutrition guidelines that are followed by the top trainers in the fitness industry. It is well known amongst people “in the know” that following what the government recommends us to do is not the way to go, and should be avoided for the majority of the population. To back up my statement let’s go back to the good old Canada Food Guide, where they recommended a person eat 10-12 servings of grains/day. Most people cannot handle grains effectively and will gain weight. Try eating 10-12 slices of bread/ day and see if you don’t gain weight, whole wheat or not, you will gain weight. Also, according to the Canada Food Guide a piece of pizza is a good food choice since it contains the four food groups…let’s get real!
Here is some nutritional guidelines that I recommend to my clients to help them not only lose weight but to feel better as well. Once they adopt this diet many digestive and energy problems are removed.
- 5-6 meals/day, every 3-4 hours
- protein and produce diet
- supplement with a multi vitamin/mineral
- supplement with fish oil
- don’t eat anything 2 hours before bed
- make sure to eat breakfast
- drink plenty of water .6-.7 oz./lb of bodyweight
Nutrition guidelines should be individualized as certain people are able to tolerate higher levels of certain nutrients ie. carbs.
It is important to eat a wide variety of foods. Do not get into the habbit of eating the same thing every day. If a person eats the same type of protein everyday they will develop an alergy to it. To fix this, simply remove the food for 6 weeks then re-introduce. This is also important with eating fruits and vegetables. A good idea is to get a wide variety of colors of them as each color has its own antioxidant profile. Generally speaking the darker the fruit the better it is for you.
If people are lean and can tolerate carbs I let them consume whole wheat grains. They must be monitored closely and eating to much of them tend to make people gain weight. People tend to miss the boat when figuring out how much carbs they need to eat.
I try to get my clients out of the habbit of counting calories. Sure it is good to keep an eye on but it does not show the total picture. For example, 100 calories from sugar will have a totally different effect on the body than 100 calories from meat. To be able to follow the guidelines a person will have to make sure that they know how to read nutrition labels properly.
When you are dealing with nutrition for kids you will definitely make sure that they do get a balance of all the proper nutrients, thus the diet will be less restrictive.
