The Rep

This is an old article that is still relevant today as it was several years ago, and especially pertinent to this month's topics.

The 7 Nutritional Habits of FIT People

by Johnny Nguyen

Although being fit and being healthy can mean two different
things, in this article the “being fit” means possessing a
healthy body weight. While it’s true that there are many
factors that contribute to overall health, having a healthy
body weight is a desirable trait that may hint at a
person’s overall positive health. In some of us, though, the
appearance of a normal body weight is alone a desirable
goal – an influence of cultural ideology.

Whatever your reasons for wanting to look fit, below are
some of the habits of those who are at a normal, healthy
body weight. Of course, the hope is that you want to be
healthy from the inside out, of which the desired
appearance is simply just the result. The habits listed below
may or may not work for everyone, but they make sense to
the people I’ve spoken with.

1. FIT People Know Food

People who are fit have a habit of approaching their food
with not only their stomach but also their head. Rather than
selecting food indiscriminately, choosing food based on
nutritional values and portion size is the key. It is a
thoughtful process, and fit people put the brain next to the
stomach when it comes to eating. A FIT client who lost
20 pounds – and is still losing – revealed her habit of
thoughtful food selection: “The one main difference between what I did and what I’m doing now is that now I’m
decidedly aware of what I put in my mouth – I know the
food and the portion. I put some thinking into my eating
just as I put some thinking into my spending.”

In order to know food, it’s critical to become familiar with
the nutritional value of various foods. A food data booklet,
one in which you’ll find the nutritional breakdown of
common and not-so-common foods, is invaluable. (Or you
can use the free web-based nutrition data at
www.nutritiondata.com.) Then portion-size selection at each
meal may be less erratic and more intentional. Although it
may sound like a lot of work, it’s no more difficult than
initially becoming familiar with the characters in a novel or a
movie – the rest of the time you enjoy the story.

Another client of mine commented that “knowing the
nutritional values in food is an essential investment, and it
takes some work only at the beginning. After a while, you
reap the benefits of recognizing automatically the basic
foods that you’d find in almost any reasonable dish that
you’d eat. And if the ingredients contain too many things
that you don’t know,” she continues, “then you might want
to think twice about putting it into your body.”

2. FIT People Eat All the Time

The body can digest and assimilate only so many calories
per meal, and calories in excess of this amount get shuttled to you-know-where. So a meal that’s eaten but is larger than the body can use at any one time is a stepping stone to weight gain, or at least it is a road block to weight loss. By this account, if a person eats only two or 3 meals a day, it’s likely that those meals are in larger portions than if 5 or 6 meals are eaten. Not only do the excess calories go to fat storage, but the resulting blood sugar fluctuates wildly, causing a huge surge of insulin that quickly shuttles the blood sugar (from the meal) into tissues, both muscles and fat. And, on top of all that, you slip into an energy crash mildly similar to the infamous Thanksgiving coma. So abandon the traditional three-meals-a-day practice and develop a habit of eating 5 or 6 smaller meals through the day.

One FIT client shares his secret to eating 5 meals a day:
“I try to eat every three to 4 hours, whether I’m hungry or
not. I don’t wait until my body tells me I’m hungry, because
by then it’s too late and I’m more likely to eat too much for
that meal. I go by my watch. If it’s been 3 or 4 hours, it’s
time to eat something. If it’s not time to eat, I keep busy
with something else. But because I’m eating every few
hours, I find that hunger isn’t an issue, and I can control my eating better.” He is one of my most fit clients.

3. FIT People Eat Water

Well, not really. But they choose foods that have high water
content. Foods like vegetable, fruits, berries, soup and
cooked whole grains are low in calories but are satiating.
Most also contain a lot of fiber to not only keep the pipes
happy but to help you feel fuller longer, and many contain a dense amount of nutrients to nourish the body.

A FIT client says that she eats all the vegetables she
wants during at least two meals. “I’m full at the end and I
know that I ate a lot of dense nutrients without a lot of
calories.”

Another client says, “I’m conscious of my choice in foods. I
make sure I don’t eat much that is empty calories. If I’m
going to eat something with calories, it had better have an
abundance of nutrients as well. My body deserves that.”

4. FIT People Are Anchored

So even if you use the invaluable nutrition data book, or use the nutrition data website (www.nutritiondata.com), and
know the nutritional values in just about any food, having
what Analisa Naldi calls “anchor foods” is very helpful in
keeping you eating well. Anchor foods have enabled her to
achieve her weight loss while venturing out to other
foods less familiar. It’s not realistic to know the nutrition
profile to every single food you eat, so it’s important to
develop a familiarity with as many foods as you can and call these your anchors, safety foods to “stabilize” and maintain your healthy dietary intake. Lean meats, most vegetables, certain fruits (citrus based), berries, low-fat plain yogurt, a high-fiber whole-grain cereal, a quality protein powder or drink, etc. can all be great anchors that make up the bulk of your food consumption. Know their portion size and corresponding nutritional values, and stick with them as often as you can while experimenting with others. While it’s true that variety in food intake is important to good health (and enjoyment), a variety of foods with little knowledge of what they contain can put unwanted calories or junk into your body.

Like an investor building a healthy portfolio, diversify your
own dietary portfolio by gradually adding anchor foods – but
be sure to study and know each one before it is added.

5. FIT People Don’t Skip Breakfast

You’ve heard this one before. So, are you skipping breakfast? After a fasting period through the night, if you skip breakfast, your body is starving. As a result, your muscles break down to create new energy to fuel your body as it tries to figure out why you’ve skipped the most important meal of the day. What so bad about muscles breaking down? Well, the same muscles you’ve worked so hard to build up in the gym are the very stuff that supports
metabolism. So the less muscles you have the slower your
metabolism. Don’t let a habit of skipping breakfast steal
away the tissues that are so critical to your metabolic rate.

Also, a recent study shows that skipping breakfast throws
your insulin sensitivity off, making it likely that more of the
meals you eat later end up in your fat cells. It also makes it likely that you’ll eat more calories in meals for the rest of
the day. If you don’t like eating breakfast first thing in the
morning, change your habit. Not liking breakfast first thing
in the morning is not a good-enough excuse to skip it.
If you are eating breakfast, however, have you tried Fiber
One cereal with blue berries? Excellent with scrambled egg
whites!

6. FIT People Really, Really Enjoy Their Desserts

People who are fit are human, too. They enjoy the same
great-tasting desserts that everyone else enjoys. The
difference is that they allot caloric room for them, and not
simply “add on top.”

“If I know I’m going to enjoy a chocolate soufflé, I will eat
less of other things during dinner,” says a FIT client,
who has lost weight and kept it off for over 5 years. “It is a
treat, and I consider it as nothing less than a treat and
therefore I’m going to savor every last bit of flavor! But the
most important thing is that I don’t do this regularly, which
I believe allows me to really, really enjoy desserts.”

It might be that people who are fit actually enjoy their
occasional desserts even more than people who eat them
regularly. If you go to the theater every once in a while, you
tend to pick a very good show to enjoy!

7. FIT People Rock the Alternatives

Creativity is a learned skill. Without creativity, it is difficult
to maintain a healthy dietary habit. This is why it’s helpful
to use cookbooks, find new recipes, share food ideas and
tips, and understand which unhealthy ingredients can be
replaced with healthier ones – such as substituting egg
whites for whole eggs, or even diced dried fruits for sugar in
baking.

“Instead of using refined sugar in baking recipes,” says a
self-proclaimed culinary artist who enjoys feeding her family
healthful, enjoyable foods, “I often lower this amount and
replace it with dried fruits such as dates, raisins, figs, or
dried berries. But since dried fruits are also a sugar once
they’re in your body, I sometimes just lower the amount of
refined sugar, period, without using dried fruits as substitute. It rarely ever throws off the flavor of
the final product, and if it does, your taste bud will gradually readjust… along with the size of your waist.”

There are many strategies for making delicious healthful
meals and snacks out of otherwise unhealthful ones. Doing
a little research on the internet for meal recipes, cooking
tips, and food advices can turn you into a creative homebody culinary artist. Also, you can join the FIT forum
(free) and learn or discuss nutrition and share recipe ideas.
Go to http://www.focusedtrainers.com/forum/ and register
to join today!

Good luck, and remember that becoming more fit isn’t just
doing “good” things for a specified period of time – it’s
creating lifetime good habits.