Achieve your Goals Towards a Fit & Healthy Body through Proper Nutrition and Living an Active Lifestyle. NutrActive's Nutrition Focused Personal Trainer will help you obtain Optimal Fitness through services offered. Additionally, pages within NutrActive provide you with Helpful nutritional Tools Guiding you to a better understanding of How to Eat Healthy and Incorporate Exercise into your Busy Schedule. If you are seeking to optimize your fitness and know the path requires good nutrition integrated with a solid exercise program, visit the
Services page
for the types of professional nutrition and fitness services offered by NutrActive's Registered Dietitian & Personal Fitness Trainer, Laura Garrett. Learn more about her on the
About Me
page.
What you will find within NutrActive :
* Nutrition and fitness information you can Trust, never misleading!
* Useful health related
self help
resources and tools to lead you towards success
* Recommended safe health supplements and other useful products ... and more!
What you will not find :
False Hope
What is nutrition and Why is nutrition important?
Let's start by defining nutrition. The basic meaning of nutrition put simply is eating a balanced diet with adequate nutrients to promote a healthy body. This is accomplished through the foods you eat and the beverages you drink. The type of food you eat and what you choose to drink hugely impacts your overall health, especially long term. The reason nutrition is important? Many of the common health disorders and diseases plaguing America today are the direct result of bad nutritional decisions.
The importance of good nutrition goes far beyond weight control and maintaining a healthy weight. Good nutrition promotes proper growth and development during the younger years and during pregnancy. Nutritionally packed foods may lower the risk of several types of cancer. On the flip side, nutritionally poor foods like those high in fat and sugar may cause certain types of cancer. Dieases like osteoporosis, coronary heart disease, and the risk of a stroke are very much impacted by eating poorly and not including enough healthy food choices in your diet on a regular basis. Doom and gloom aside, eating healthy foods will make you feel better improving your overall sense of well being. Your quality of life improves when nutrition becomes a central focus in the choices you make.
If you are physically active, nutrition can play an important role in enhancing your performance. Physically active people should think energy when considering nutrition. Nutrition provides calories and calories fuel working muscles. Your car won't run on an empty tank. Why would you try to run on an empty tank?
Here's a video to help you understand some of the most basics of nutrition:
Nutrition for beginners is a high-level lamen approach to introducing the nutritional basics you need to know before digging deeper into what nutritional strategies are right for you. This video is especially good for beginners that are trying to get the conversation started with understanding macros. Covered in this video:
- Macronutrients "macros" - Protein, Carbohydrate, Fat - Essential and non-essential amino acids - Simple carbs vs complex carbs - Fats (monounsaturated fat, polyunsaturated fat, & saturated fat) good fats / bad fats - How many calories you should eat in a day - Establishing a baseline for what your body needs
What determines good nutritional and bad nutritional choices?
Whether a dietary choice is classified as good or bad should be based off the nutrients provided by the food or drink you are considering. But, what are nutrients? Nutrients are the compounds needed by the body to perform its essential and basic functions including energy, building blocks for repair and growth, and substances necessary for chemical reactions. Nutrients are generally classified into 6 groups: carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, minerals, and water. Fiber is often thrown in this list as well.
A good nutritional choice provides vitamins, minerals, complex carbs, fiber, healthy fats, or is a lean protein source. A bad nutritional choice contains a significant amount of added sugar, saturated fat, fatty protein, simple carbs, little to no fiber, and lacks vitamins and minerals. Examples will probably be obvious, but just in case, here's a few:
Good Food Choices
Bad Food Choices
Fruits Vegetables Nuts Fish Brown rice Low-fat dairy
Candy Cookies Cake Ice cream Fried chicken wings Bacon
How to read nutrition labels:
Since December 2016, the Food & Drug Association (FDA) has required most pre-packaged foods display a Nutrition Facts Label. The nutrition information listed on the label informs the consumer of the nutrients contained in the packaged food. It is important when you first look at a nutrition label to note the serving size. The nutrition information provided on the label is based off the serving size listed. What is contained within the package is likely more than one serving. Know how many servings the packaged food or beverage contains.
Now that you know what portion of the item makes up a serving, let's move on to what nutritional information is on the Nutrition Facts Label remembering it is based off the serving size. The amount of Calories per serving will be first on the label. Knowing the amount of calories is especially important if you are trying to lose weight. Next will be Total Fat which is then broken down to show if the food or beverage is a source of Saturated Fat or Trans Fat, both of which are not heart healthy. Another foe to your heart is cholesterol and that is found next on the nutrition label. If there is a significant amount of either saturated fat or trans fat plus cholesterol is also high, this choice would fall into the "Bad Food Choice" category.
Next on the label is Sodium. Sodium intake becomes a concern if you have high blood pressure. The American Heart Association advises keeping your total daily intake of sodium to less than 2,300 mg. If a serving provides more than 400 mg, the food or beverage is considered a high source of sodium. Foods less than 140 mg are low sources of sodium and anywhere between those two numbers is a moderate source.
After Sodium, you will find Total Carbohydrate which is then broken down to Dietary Fiber, Total Sugars and how many of the Total Sugars is Added Sugar. Dietary fiber is a number you want to see high as there are a number of health benefits to eating foods high in fiber. Sugar is quite the opposite, especially sugars that are added. Nonetheless, total sugars may not necessarily be a bad thing if there are no added sugars or if the amount of added sugars is minimal.
Protein will be listed after the carbohydrates section. Most consumers incorrectly believe they need to place emphasis on protein when making food choices. While you should include protein in your meals, only about 20-30% of the calories should be from a protein source. To simplify this visually, when you fill your plate, the protein of choice should be 25% or 1/4 of what you've put on your plate. This probably has you wondering what the rest of the plate should look like... 25% grains (preferably whole like brown rice instead of white rice) and 50% fruits and/or vegetables. Most American's do not follow this model. For a good article on protein needs specifically in regards to active people, go to:
The free resources listed on NutrActive's
Fitness Page
link you to trustworthy sites along with NutrActive approved exercise tips and fitness information. Here's a list of what you'll find:
* Workout Plans to help you develop an active lifestyle
* Fitness communities which assist you in staying committed to an active healthy lifestyle
* Sports nutrition guidelines for being physically active
* Fitness libraries full of exercises and activities to get you moving
* Body Fat Calculator which lets you realistically know your starting point and helps you identify true results
* Concussion advice and guidelines because many sports put the brain at risk
* Interactive fitness and health related games
To discover these exercise and fitness resources, Click the Fitness Button below:
Before you visit our Fitness page, here is a video guide to help you develop your own workout plan and schedule:
This video discusses how to create and design your own workout plan, program or schedule. The video includes different options from full body workouts, workout splits, cardio options and how often to workout.
Looking for professional guidance to hold you accountable and provide you with a more personalized path to success? Give NutrActive's nutrition and fitness
services
a try. See what health services are offered by NutrActive by clicking on the Services button below:
Seeking Weight Loss Help?
The free resources listed on NutrActive's
Weight Loss Page
link you to trusted nutritional sites not affiliated with NutrActive along with NutrActive provided nutritional tips and information geared towards leading you to weight loss success. Here's a list of what you'll find:
* Resources to boost your Self motivation equipping a motivated person to lose weight
* Tools to promote Self discipline overcoming your will power issues
* Keys to the road leading to Long term weight management success
* Proper nutrition guidelines so you are not creating nutrition gaps in you quest to lose weight
Before you visit our Weight Loss page, here is a video where three dietitians debunk 18 weight loss myths:
Business Insider asked three registered dietitians to debunk 18 of the most common weight loss myths. They explain that you don't need to purge your diet of fat or carbs to lose weight, skipping meals can backfire, and fad diets like the ketogenic diet don't often work. Beyond debunking weight loss strategies, they explain that weight loss is not just about discipline. It's about genetics, access to healthy food, and your relationship to food.
To discover these weight loss and nutritionally sound dieting resources,
Click the Weight Loss Button below:
Looking for professional guidance to hold you accountable and provide you with a more personalized path to losing weight successfully? Give NutrActive's nutrition
services
services a try. To view the health services offered by NutrActive, Click on the Services button below:
Laugh Therapy -- proven health benefits!
Would you believe a good belly laugh actually impacts your overall well being in a positive way? It's true! So, to help you tap into this simple yet effective action to improve boost your health, NutrActive has put together a
humor page
with a collection of "funnies" related to nutrition, weight loss or dieting, and exercising in general. Please feel free to share something funny! We'll gladly post it for others to laugh at along with us :)
Sometimes laughter really is the best medicine. Here's a list of the many proven health benefits associated with laughing:
* Improves your overall sense of well being through the body's release of the natural "feel good" hormones called endorphins
* Through the relief of stress, laughter can help lower blood pressure
* Boosts your immunity to diseases by actually lower stress hormones and increasing antibodies
* A really good belly laugh, the kind that almost has you rolling on the floor, will target your abdominal muscles
* Relaxes muscles in the body for up to 45 minutes. Need to relax, have a good laugh!
Ready for some good health related humor that will help improve your health?
Click on the Humor button below:
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Blog themed around:
* Being in control of your fitness goals * Daily actions have direct consequent effect on health * Your current state of health is no accident * No Excuses! Take ownership for what you’ve done that landed you in your current state of health
Click on Blog button for Reading Related to Nutrition, Fitness, and General Health
Recommended Nutrition & Fitness Related Videos
If you find it difficult to discover videos on nutrition and fitness that are not a bunch of bunk, click over the page on this site where we share a list of videos vetted by NutrActive for accuracy of information. The videos are embedded on the page allowing you to simply click on the video and stay on this site. This is helpful because when the video ends, you will be able to move on to another video we've vetted vs. whatever YouTube decides to throw in your face.
Click on the above YouTube icon to view our list of recommended health videos!
If you prefer being on YouTube's platform, but still want our list of vetted videos we recommend, click on the following YouTube icon to be taken to our Nutrition & Fitness playlist:
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The information contained on this Web site is intended to help you better understand issues related to nutrition and exercise and help promote a healthy lifestyle. It is not intnded to replace the advice of a physician. If you read something on this site that contradicts what your physician tells you in any way, always follow your physician's advice. It is advised you consult with your physician before beginning any exercise program, especially if you have any serious medical conditions.
