One of the biggest nutritional mistakes people make outside the gym is focusing on getting lots of protein for muscle recovery and starches for energy but then not getting enough fruits and vegetables.

I’m sure when you were a child your mother always told you to eat your fruits and vegetables! Why was this so important? This was so important because she new and was taught that fruits and vegetables were so important for you to grow up healthy and strong.

Now that you are older and full grown many of you have abandoned the fact that you still NEED your fruits and vegetables every day!

Why are fruits and vegetables so important? Lets take a look at some of the health benefits of fruits and vegetables:

-Fruits and vegetables are LOADED with fiber, vitamins and minerals that are crucial for tissue growth, repair and many other important body functions. The fiber, vitamins and minerals in fruit and vegetables are also shown to help treat, and prevent many chronic diseases like cancer, Alzheimer’s, heart disease and stroke!

- Fruits and vegetables are full of many phytochemicals that are important for optimal mental function. Do you suffer from depression, or attention disorders? Eat your fruits and veggies!

-Fruits and vegetables provide an alkaline load to the blood. Since proteins and grains present acids loads to the blood. Eating fruits and vegetables every meal will help prevent an acid/alkaline imbalance. Too much acid and not enough alkaline means loss of bone strength, and muscle mass, which means more body fat!

- Fruits and vegetables will help fill you up and control your appetite and blood sugar which in turn will help with maintaining energy and fat burning.

Make sure to get a healthy variety, think color. Eating fruits and vegetables of different colors gives your body a wide range of valuable nutrients, like fiber, folate, potassium, and vitamins A and C. Some examples include green spinach, orange sweet potatoes, black beans, yellow corn, purple plums, red watermelon, and white onions. For more variety, try new fruits and vegetables regularly.

You can not go wrong with eating fruits and veggies every meal! I recommend 2-3 servings (1/2 cup) of fruits and vegetables at each and every meal. This would be around 10-15 servings if you eat frequent supportive meals.

“Yeah right!?” “How the heck can I get 10 servings of fruits and veggies every day?”

Fresh and frozen fruits and veggies are ALWAYS recommended. But the next best option is VGF 25 +. This not a multivitamin this is a whole food super pill with 25 fruits and vegetables, antioxidants, essential good fats, and amino acids.

This is usually everything your body is lacking if you’re not eating healthy frequent meals, if you’re lacking fruits and vegetables, or even if you think you’re eating healthy. VGF 25 + will fill in all those nutrition gaps most people suffer from. That’s why I personally take it myself 3 times a day and have and put my name on the line recommending it to my clients.

This supplement was designed to fill in nutritional gaps that most suffer from. it was designed by registered dieticians, and nutritionists.

Just a reminder if you take a Centrum or Meijer vitamin you are getting synthetic vitamins made in a lab with lots of chemicals! YIKES!

You can not go wrong with VGF 25+ all natural whole food vitamin.

You can read more about VGF 25 + and its benefits below.

for women click HERE

for men click HERE

Your Fitness and Nutrition Coach,

~David Modderman

2) Cutting Out Carbs with no strategy in place.

The low carb diet craze has been in effect for over decade. Some of the more popular diets like Atkins and South Beach were two of the better known diets where you eliminate the majority of starchy carbohydrates in your diet and some things like fruit as well. This is a major mistake as an effective solution to long term fat loss. Why are carbs so important?

Carbohydrates are your bodies preferred source of energy. Meaning for you to have steady energy and blood sugar throughout the day you need to have carbohydrates in our diet. Why have the low carb diets worked so well for people to lose weight in the short term?

When you eat carbohydrates your body will use them for immediate energy/fuel and also store them as glycogen in your muscle in your liver for reserved energy. Most people are not aware that glycogen holds and attracts water. For every gram of glycogen your muscle holds it attracts 2.4 grams of water.

So when you eat carbohydrates your body will instantly hold more water. When you suddenly just stop eating carbs your body will hold less water. Make sense? So people who weigh themselves daily after cutting out carbs will see a 5-10 pound weight loss in just a few days. So in your mind Carbs =make you fat. However, you’re not losing fat your losing water. Water is temporary and meaningless in regards to weight loss. Your goal is to lose that ugly fat around your waist and behind and not just weight correct? Then you need to stop just cutting out carbs and have a real strategy to lose fat and keep it off.

The first strategy of carbs is to make sure you are getting the right ones. There are some carbs that are very healthy for you and needed and some that are very bad for you. You want to get all natural non processed carbs which are high in fiber and low in sugar

Good sources of carbs are foods like: sweet potatoes, apples, old fashioned steel cut oatmeal, and broccoli. (almost all fruits and veggies)

Bad sources: candy, potato chips, donuts (pretty much any food with simple sugar and white flour)

What if I told you carbs are essential for long term fat loss? There is no magic to just cutting out carbs. Just cutting out carbs with no strategy in place can really backfire.

A few things will happen on a very low carb diet:

1) Lose water weight (which is temporary and meaningless)
2) Mess up metabolism and lose lean muscle mass which will lead to more fat storage
3) Slow production of thyroid hormone

I educate my clients on how to eat the RIGHT carbs the RIGHT way to reach whatever goal they have whether it is to lose lots of fat or gain lots of muscle. Eating carbohydrates to see the best results and reach your goals requires proper knowledge and strategy. Do you know eating the right carbs at the right times during the day on a fat loss plan can accelerates fat loss by 50%? You need to learn not how to cut carbs but HOW to strategically manipulate/cycle them for the best results.

Contact me now to learn how to cycle and manipulate carbs to increase fat loss by 50%!

Your Fitness and Nutrition Coach,

~David Modderman

This is a problem and I will explain why:

A calorie is a unit of heat or energy. Every time you move you conduct heat and energy therefore your body actually needs calories to function and yes to burn more calories. Most people when I say the word “calorie” associate this with something negative. Many are wired to believe just by watching how many calories they eat alone is a successful weight loss plan. This is flawed because one would assume and are taught a calorie is a calorie. This is not true. Maybe, a calorie is a calorie outside the body but as soon as it’s put in your mouth and swallowed/digested it changes.

For example a 270 calorie Snickers candy bar compared to a 270 calorie 7 ounce grilled skinless chicken breast are equal in calories but do you think they are digested the same? Do you think they affect your metabolism and blood sugar levels the same? NO!

A candy bar will have a big ingredient list (many unnatural) and it will most likely contain a lot of fat (some trans fat –hydrogenated oils -the number one cause for heart disease) and lots of sugar, this sugar will spike your blood sugar levels and then it will crash it leaving you feeling like you want to take a nap about 15-30 minutes after eating it. After your blood sugar crashes you will eventually crave more sugar or fat to bring blood sugar back to normal…unfortunately blood sugar will never stabilize from this food. The candy bar contains fat and sugar and comes with very little natural ingredients so this will have little or no effect on your metabolism. (0-.5% increase on metabolism during digestion)

Snickers ingredients are: milk chocolate (sugar, cocoa butter, chocolate, skimmed milk, lactose, milkfat, soy lecithin, artificial flavor), peanuts, corn syrup, sugar, skimmed milk, butter, partially hydrogenated soybean oil, lactose (a milk product), salt, egg whites and artificial flavor.

So let’s now take a look at that 270 calorie 7 ounce grilled chicken breast. The chicken breast will contain mostly lean protein; it has only one ingredient CHICKEN. It has little fat and contains almost all protein (the most thermic macro nutrient)so this would literally have a very positive leveling effect on your blood sugar give you stable energy and increase your metabolism by up to 20-40% during digestion. The chicken breast will also fill up you longer than any candy bar would.

Still think a calorie is just a calorie? If your goal is long term fat loss the ingredients are much more important than the just calories. Most fail to realize how many calories they actually need to burn fat it’s probably a lot more than your 800-1200 calorie diet plan, and if this all you are all eating good luck losing fat and keeping it off for the rest of your life.
If you’re buying 100 snack packs of cookies thinking this is a good way to lose fat (not just weight) and keep it off you are severely misinformed. One hundred calorie pack of cookies or a 200 calories serving of natural hummus and carrots which is better for weight loss? The hummus of course! Look at the ingredients first not just the calories!

Avoid anything with a long list of unnatural ingredients no matter what the calories are and what it says about being healthy on the front of the package. You should be looking for and eating real whole natural foods and ingredients.

Look for Mistake #2 next week!

Your Fitness and Nutrition Coach,
~David Modderman

Did You Know Halloween is when the Holiday weight gain really starts?

Most people put the emphasis on Thanksgiving and Christmas along with New Year’s, but the weight gain challenge actually begins right when the eating festivities begin. Halloween is a time of many candies and treats, but it needn’t be a time of expanding waist lines. The overindulgence of sweets during Halloween often leads to poor food choices following the holiday. The holidays should not be used as an excuse to eat poorly and thusly gain weight.

The candy and other treats are still lingering around the house after the holiday is over, encouraging bad eating beyond just the one day. This behavior can develop into a habit and then the holiday lifestyle follows. People then just put off losing weight until their New Year’s Resolution. You need to remember that Halloween is just one day, the eating behavior that is part of the holiday should last just one day as well. To get yourself back on track after the holiday start the next day off with some physical activity and a healthy breakfast. This often motivates you the rest of the day which carries on each day thereafter.

My other tips include:

1 – Only buy enough candy to last a few days, don’t stockpile for the whole winter.
2 – Include exercise during the morning of the Holiday to help burn off some of those extra treats you eat later in the day.
3 – Try healthy snacks, they will taste great and be good for you.
4 – Enjoy your treats, and don’t feel guilty about over indulging.
5 – After the holiday, donate, or pass on to the neighbors any left over candy.

Most people eat more candy than they really think between Halloween and Thanksgiving and then the rest is down hill after that. You need to get ahead of the game and set your New Years Resolutions right now! While everyone else is starting fresh in January you will have 2 months of results under your belt.

Remember candy is LOADED with sugar and sugar inhibits fat release! Meaning if your goal is weight loss then sugar is going to really hurt your chances of losing weight and keeping it off.

Today I stopped by WZZM Channel 13 to discuss some healthier and alternative options to handing out the traditional candy to kids.

“Eat Right and Exercise” I am sure you have heard this phrase a number of times.

Whether it be from the doctor or friends it is phrase that has been used religiously in our society.

Very often when you visit a doctor or person in the medicial field. They often give you a prescription to help lower high blood pressure, lower cholesterol and diabetes, and even help lose weight. They don’t always focus FIRST on treating disease and health ailments with exercise and nutrition like I would suggest. In my professional opinion the right nutrition and exercise should be always the first option before any medication is prescribed.

However, if you have a good doctor he/she will also suggest you try to treat your issue with “Eating Right and Exercise.” Yet they really never seem to tell you what eat right and exercise really means and should mean to you.

What should “eating right” really mean for you?

I recently recording a video to explain what “Eating Right” should mean to you.

You can find the video below:

Look For Part -2 Before the weekend “What The Right Exercise” should be for you and your goals.

Your Fitness and Nutrition Coach,
~David Modderman
david@davidmodderman.com

Now a days it’s so difficult to go to the grocery store to find and buy healthy natural foods. It seems like a large percentage of the foods now are prepackaged processed foods that will just add to your waist line.

The foods you want to buy are there….Unfortunetly, most do not know what to avoid and what to look for.

I have been taking my clients to the Supermarket for years and educating them on what to look for and what to want to avoid if they want to improve health, lose fat and build lean muscle. They are usally shocked when I show them how many deceptive foods labels are out there and how this is killing there weight loss goals?

Did you know there are foods are that are labeled sugar free that are LOADED WITH SUGAR!?

Did you know there a foods labled fat free that are 100% FAT!?

I recently took 94.5 Thunders Country’s Own “Flounder” to the supermarket to help educate him on what he should be looking for and what he should be avoiding when starting his new “Weight Loss Journey”

You Can View This Video Below:

Do you really know what your buying at the grocery store? I have only met a few who really do……..

If your not sure….I can help you!

Contact me today to schedule a Grocery Store Tour For You, and Your Friends and Family!

Your Fitness and Nutrition Coach,

~David Modderman
david@davidmodderman.com

10 Reasons You’re Not Losing Weight-Part-1

10 Reasons You’re Not Losing Weight-Part-2

10 Reasons You’re Not Losing Weight-Part-3

10 Reasons Why You’re Not Losing Weight- Part-4

Reason 7) Looking For the Magic Pill or Potion
As a personal trainer I get questions all the time about what are the best supplements, drugs or pills to help lose weight and burn fat. My answer is always the same “A supplement, drug or pill will never be the solution.” Any pill, powder, or supplement is a lie that says, “This will burn fat”, or “This will make you lose weight.” Why? No pill or powder or potion will burn fat by itself without some effort from you. There are some supplements that can help/aid you in burning fat but it will take some effort from you. If you are exercising and eating correctly and not losing weight some supplements will aid you in the process. However, there is no magic pill, powder or potion that exists that you can take and then sit on the couch and expect it to go to work for you. I recommend resistance training, aerobic exercise, and a solid nutrition plan first. Then you can think about getting a good multivitamin and beyond.

Reason 8} Looking For the Magic Device
Ever watch television late at night an on the weekends? If you have I’m sure you have been bombarded with every exercise device known to man. There are thousands of abs devices, waist shrinkers, and butt burners advertised to anyone desperate to lose weight. These devices and products promise you the world, but the only thing you usually lose is your hard earned money. There is no magic device that you can use on your stomach or your butt that will reduce inches and burn fat without some change in your nutrition plan and the also the amount of calories you burn. If this magic device existed then everyone would be using it. If these products worked so well, why do they keep coming up with new ones every month? They do this because they like to play with your emotions and they like to tell you what you want to hear so will buy it. You do not need these devices; you just need a good solid exercise and nutrition plan.

Look for the 5th and Final Part Tomorrow!

Your Fitness and Nutrition Coach,

~David Modderman
david@davidmodderman.com

10 Reasons You’re Not Losing Weight-Part-1

10 Reasons You’re Not Losing Weight-Part-2

10 Reasons Why You’re Not Losing Weight-Part 3

Reason 5) Eating Too Much

Eating excessive calories is probably the number one reason people are not losing weight. With the rise of fast foods and unhealthy foods everywhere we turn its no wonder that obesity has effected our population so much. It is said that Americans today eat 30% more than they did 20 year ago. Food is sold in bigger containers, and portions in restaurants have increased as well. When you eat more than your body burns these calories will most likely be stored as fat. The most effective way to treat overeating is to focus on eating less food but not starving your self. Focus on eating smaller portions, but also eating fewer calories. An easy way to do this is to eat smaller more frequent meals, and control the size of the portions you are getting. Not to mention getting less fat in your meals (which is higher in calories than protein and carbohydrates), and concentrate on getting leaner proteins, and more fruits and veggies. These natural foods will fill you up and be used efficiently for energy.

6) Not Eating Breakfast

If you want to really lose weight and keep it off you must eat breakfast. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day for many reasons. Studies show that people who skip breakfast are 4.5 times more likely to be overweight.

The average 8 hour of sleep burns 450 calories. You must try to eat within 60-90 minutes after waking. Adding breakfast is what starts your metabolism up and prepares it to burn the rest of the day. If you skip breakfast your metabolism slows down and your blood sugar drops. You will increase hunger, have less energy and most likely store fat. You will crave high sugar, high fat foods, and tend to crave calories late at night. A recent study from the Weight Control Registry out of those who lost at least 30 pounds and maintained it for at least one year ate breakfast every single morning.

Look For Part 4 Tomorrow!

Your Fitness and Nutrition Coach,

~David Modderman
david@davidmodderman.com