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. 
As a fitness and nutrition expert for the last 12 years I have seen many people make the same fitness and nutrition mistakes over and over. Many after all these years are still not being properly educated on the things they must do to see the best results in and outside of the gym or workout. Some are receiving the education but not applying it.
Over the next week I will be sharing the “The 5 Mistakes People Make at the Gym” If you take this information and apply it and correct these mistakes you could make some serious leaps with your fitness success. On the other hand if you just read them and think “That won’t work for me” you are probably right……………..because nothing will WORK UNLESS YOU DO.
Mistake #1- Doing only cardio and no resistance training
Ninety –Five percent of the people I work with, who contact me, or I talk to at the gym usually want to do one of 3 things:
1) Lose visible fat (not just weight)
2) Build Lean Muscle (or their words tone up)
3) Look and feel better (about themselves and in the mirror)
No matter your specific goals adding resistance training to your weekly workout is crucial for long term success. A proper resistance training program should be the foundation of any individual who wants to see results and changes in the way their body looks and feels. Resistance training if done properly and is balanced with the right nutrition is great for building and maintaining your lean muscle tissue. Your lean muscle tissue is literally your fat burning engine, without muscle your body can not even burn very much fat if any during your cardio/aerobic sessions. Muscle is an active tissue that can help your body burn calories all day long even at rest.
I am amazed how many people who contact me say they want to lose fat/weight yet they are training to run some 25k race. If your goal is to run that’s great but training for a marathon and losing fat/weight are two separate goals in which you must have two separate strategies and plans in place to be successful and each. One must also realize running long distance is not effective for long term fat loss (not just weight). Studies show excessive cardio can actually breakdown muscle and cause your body to store more fat in the long run. I have never met anyone who lost excessive amounts of fat and kept if off by just doing cardio. Sure you will burn lots of calories by running for 45 minutes then taking a cardio class for another hour afterward, yet it’s a seriously flawed strategy if you’re seeking the best possible results and having a very efficient fat burning workout.
I personally recommend that cardio sessions do not exceed 30-45 minutes if your main goal is fat loss. How much weight training should one do? I personally believe most need 3-4 days of weight/resistance training per week to see the maximum benefits. These benefits include increased lean muscle tissue, increase in metabolism, increased muscle strength and endurance, and increase in bone mass. The 1-2 days of resistance training per weeks is very common and a good start (some is better than none) yet it is not enough. If you go to the gym for an hour 3 times per week then 30 minutes of resistance training and 30 minutes of cardio is using that hour much more efficiently than just do cardio for one hour alone. Lift weight, use body resistance, challenge and protect your lean muscle and your body composition will thank you for it!
MISTAKE #2 Coming Soon!
Your Fitness and Nutrition Coach,
~David Modderman
Filed under Training, fitness, weight loss by on Feb 9th, 2011. Comment.
You must have a goal and focus point to see results!
Are you going to the gym or exercising every day just to maintain your current level of health and fitness? Or are you exercising everyday just to get into shape? If you want to see positive changes in your body just coming to the gym or “working out” probably will not be enough to see results. I see people everyday just working out with no plan in mind. Just because you are doing cardio doesn’t mean you are burning fat, and just because your lifting weights it doesn’t mean your building muscle. Cardio has the potential to burn fat as well as lifting weights has the potential to build muscle, but its not a given. If your nutrition is not in check and your not doing things the right way you can actually prime your body to burn muscle and store more fat! Yikes! All that effort of going to the gym and exercising at home could be in vain!
You should have a specific goal each time you plan to exercise. You should know what you will be doing, how much, for how long, and what you’re trying to accomplish that day, week, month, etc. A written plan of what you will be doing each day or that week could be very helpful. If you don’t have a goal then how will you know when you have reached the point where you are satisfied? If you are going to the gym just to “exercise” and go through the motions of a workout you might not be using your time very wisely.
You should have a specific goal whether it’s to build strength and muscle, strengthen your core, build endurance, or lose fat. These are all good goals but you must also make sure you are following a successful strategy (the Right Exercise and Nutrition) that will help you reach this specific goal. If your goal is fat loss following your typical low calorie diet with lots of aerobic activity could be the worst thing to do. One must build muscle first to effectively lose fat and keep it off. My recommendations are having a program designed specially for you or follow a program that is scientifically proven to get results. If your getting your workout or diet from a magazine or DVD you could be wasting your time thinking this program or diet will give you long term individual results.
Lastly, you must make sure you are changing the focus of your workout regularly, for example I have many of my clients focus on strength for 2 weeks, then endurance for 4 weeks, and fat loss for 4 weeks. Each phase we have a specific workout and nutrition plan designed specifically for this goal. Any program that you’re following the same focus point or goal for too long could be putting your body into a tailspin. The program’s my clients are following are constantly changing so their body cannot adapt to it. To see a summary of my programs please visit: REAL RESULTS PROGRAM
Having a specific goal and focus point is the only way to see continuous REAL results.
To Your Success,
Your Fitness and Nutrition Coach,
~David Modderman
Filed under Lifestyle, Training, fitness, weight loss by on Aug 5th, 2010. Comment.
