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.
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
Filed under Lifestyle, Nutrition, weight loss by on Jul 15th, 2010. Comment.
When you’re shopping for foods on a fat loss program there is 3 food ingredients you should be trying to avoid at all costs:
1) High Fructose Corn Syrup- an unnatural sweetener made from fructose and corn. It’s injected into food to increase shelf life and to make it taste sweeter so you will buy more of it.
2) Bleached/Enriched Flour- flour that’s been bleached and stripped of fiber and vitamins and then some of the nutrients are added back in so it can legally be sold as food.
3) Hydrogenated Oils- trans fat the #1 cause of heart disease in a America.
-Foods containing these ingredients are unnatural and your body will easily store them as fat. Foods that are more natural will be used more efficiently as fuel and not stored.
Some foods contain all 3 of these ingredients…so be careful and read your food labels!
Your Fitness and Nutrition Coach,
~David Modderman
Filed under Nutrition, weight loss by on Dec 12th, 2008. Comment.
I cheered him on for every one of his 8 gold medals. He will go down as the greatest Olympian of our time. Yet after the article I read about him today he honestly has let me down.
After winning 8 gold medals the millions of dollars of endorsements are rolling in. Being in such great demand Michael Phelps could choose to team up with any endorsement he wanted and get paid handsomely for it.
I read the Michael Phelps foundation and Kellogg’s are teaming up and working together to promote children being active.
This is great news right?
With the rise of obesity in our children, and our kids becoming more inactive every day I honestly believe helping and promoting kids being active is great. Children are now suffering from Type II diabetes, which used to be an adult only disease. Kids are leaving the doctors office being diagnosed with heart problems, and high cholesterol and they have not even reached puberty yet.
Why are kids suffering from all these issues?
The problem is they do not exercise, and they are not active. Their life revolves around the computer, television, and video games. They eat junk food, and fast food. All these foods contain too much sugar, and they are consuming all this sugar while they are sitting on their behinds.
I am glad that Phelps and Kellogg’s are apparently trying to get kids more active .
However, the article shows Michael Phelps on the boxes of Corn Flakes, Frosted Flakes and Rice Krispie treats.
Maybe Michael Phelps doesn’t have much say in what products his face goes on, but I hate to say it I don’t think Kelloggs is really trying to make our kids healthier. They seem just to be in it to sell more of their foods with a superstar athlete on the box. These foods he will be featured on are unhealthy and full of sugar and high fructose syrup and will do nothing to help our kids get healthier.
Michael Phelps also sold out to MacDonalds. So I now guestion if he so concerned about kids health why would he be promoting MacDonalds?
Phelps diet of 12,000 calories per day that was published in the media a few months ago was nothing but junk food! I didn’t come down on him then because being a Nutritionist I know with him being so active if was eating really nutritious food for training he have to eat 3 times the volume of food he was already eating. Since more nutritious food is lower in calories. This would be the only way to get the calories he needed to perform.
We should all know by now that Mickie D’s food and all fast food is poison to us and our kids.
Michael Phelps and Kelloggs you let me down today.
MacDonalds you let me down everyday!
I would love to get some feedback from everyone out there. Let me know what you think about this story?
Your Fitness and Nutrition Coach,
~David Modderman
Filed under Lifestyle, Nutrition, weight loss by on Sep 30th, 2008. 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.
