Do You Eat Enough Fruits and Veggies?
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
Filed under Lifestyle, Nutrition, weight loss by on Oct 2nd, 2011. Comment. 
Proper nutrition is still the missing piece for most people and why they are not seeing great results after working out consistently every week. Whether you’re looking to just firm up, lose 50 pounds of fat, or build more lean tissue having proper supportive nutrition is a MUST. Over the next six weeks I will be focusing on the top 6 nutritional mistakes people make outside the workout.
1) Mistake: Focusing only on calories and not the ingredients
Over the last 12 years I have talked to and worked with thousands of people on their nutrition and eating habits. Even after so many years of nutrition coaching I still have people coming in asking the same questions and making the same mistakes nutritionally. There seems to be a new diet book or program out every month. Yet almost all diets focus on calories first and ingredients second or not all.
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
Filed under Nutrition by on Jul 31st, 2011. Comment.
“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
Filed under Lifestyle, Nutrition by on Aug 24th, 2010. Comment.
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 You’re Not Losing Weight-Part-4
Reason 9) Poor Attitude and Believe System
A big reason people struggle to lose weight is they have a poor attitude and belief system. Have you ever caught yourself saying the following phrase “I can’t?” ‘I can’t lose weight” “I can’t exercise.” Most who say “I can’t” really believe they can’t. But the reality is they can, they just choose not to. To lose weight and keep it off you really need to believe in your self and say “I can and I will!” Never underestimate the power of positive thinking. If you really want to exercise and eat correctly you can you just have to make it a priority in your life and believe in yourself and follow through.
Reason 10) No Support
Having a support system is such a huge part of losing weight. So many struggle to lose weight on their own, without some form of help and support. Studies show when people are trying to lose weight those who have support from a friend, family member or personal trainer stick with an exercise and eating plan 75% more than those who do not. I recommend attaching yourself to friend or family member with some of the same goals to help you along the way. Never underestimate the buddy system when it comes to exercising more and eating better. Enlisting a personal trainer/fitness expert could be a great way to stay educated, accountable and motivated to reach your goals.
I hope you have read and enjoyed the “10 Reason Why You’re Not Losing Weight” blog series. Please let me know if you have any questions!
Your Fitness and Nutrition Coach,
~David Modderman
david@davidmodderman.com
Filed under Uncategorized by on Jun 14th, 2010. Comment.
Have you seen this new tv commercial ad?
I can’t believe that they are trying to decieve you that High Corn Syrup maybe is not bad for you?
Give me a break!
High-fructose corn syrup is a sweetener and preservative used in many processed foods. It is made by changing the sugar in cornstarch to fructose another form of sugar.
High-fructose corn syrup extends the shelf life of foods and is sweeter and cheaper than sugar. For these reasons, it has become a popular ingredient in many sodas, fruit-flavored drinks and other processed foods. Check your food labels. You may be surprised by how many foods contain high-fructose corn syrup.
Nutrition experts blame increased consumption of high-fructose corn syrup for the growing obesity problem. One theory is that fructose is more readily converted to fat by your liver than is sucrose, increasing the levels of fat in your bloodstream.
The facts about High Fructose Corn Syrup:
Main Points to consider:
Common Foods High in HFCS
- Regular soft drinks
- Fruit juice and fruit drinks that are not 100 percent juice
- Pancake syrups
- Popsicles
- Fruit-flavored yogurts
- Frozen yogurts
- Ketchup and BBQ sauces
- Jarred and canned pasta sauces
- Canned soups
- Canned fruits (if not in its own juice)
- Breakfast cereals
- Highly sweetened breakfast cereals
Problems Caused by Too Much HFCS
- It can lead to higher caloric intake
- It can lead to an increase in bodyweight
- It fools your body into thinking it’s hungry
- It increases the amount of processed foods you eat, thereby decreasing your intake of nutrient-dense foods
- It may increase insulin resistance and triglycerides
Is HFCS worse than sugar? Maybe not but since when is sugar good for for you? Atleast sugar is not man made in a lab.
Avoid it!
How? Cut back on pop, regular and diet and read your food labels it’s in everything!!
Your Fitness and Nutrition Coach
~David Modderman
Filed under Nutrition, weight loss by on Sep 24th, 2008. Comment.
I know most of you wait till you are hungry till you eat anything. Unfortunately, this is a big mistake! What happens when your body is hungry? When your body is hungry it is craving anything it can get. Why? Because your blood sugar has dropped and it will crave something that is not healthy to bring that blood sugar back up. So that means you will be tempted to eat things that are high in sugar and high in fat. It means that going somewhere to buy that healthy lunch probably won’t happen. But that quick fast food drive thru will seem just perfect. So in simple terms you need to eat before your body gets hungry especially really hungry.
Eating when you’re hungry will cause a few things to happen:
- You will make bad food choices
- You will eat too much of that food
- This will cause you to not eat again for 5-6 hours and start the process all over again.
The best way to combat hunger and bad food choices is:
- Eating every 2-3 hours
- Eating a supportive meal (lean protein, fruit or vegetable, and a starchy carb)
- Eating natural non processed foods
So stop waiting till your hungry to eat! Look at the clock and start eating because it’s time to eat!
You can do it! You just have to plan ahead! 
~David Modderman
Filed under Uncategorized by on Aug 8th, 2008. Comment.
