Paul's Body Engineering: Sugar & Snacking

In simple terms, sugar is a part of everyday life. Sugar can be found in nearly everything we eat and drink, and is a major contributor to the current obesity epidemic. Sugar can impact our lives in so many ways, especially when consumed in excess.

 

So how do we reduce our sugar intake?
It is harder than one would think. A simple diet with the reduction of sugar is not that easy to maintain. For years and years, without as much knowledge as we have now, we have consumed copious amounts of processed sugar in our foods and drinks. Through years of this consumption, we have developed, over time, a primal addiction to sugar. Trying to simply cut it out of one’s diet completely is very difficult to do and even more difficult to maintain over a longer period of time. Therefore, simple reductions and changes in one’s diet is the best approach to reducing your sugar intake.

 

For example, cutting down on soft drinks, chosing clean cereal options over packet cereal, including more fruits and vegetables in your diet and less canned produce.
Another example, if you are a coffee drinker and have two cups on average per day with one teaspoon of sugar per cup, that equates to 14 teaspoons of sugar per week. Swap each teaspoon of sugar for a natural sweetener and you have immediately reduced your sugar intake by 56 teaspoons per month. It is the simple changes that you can make in your diet that will inevitably create a healthy and more energetic lifestyle.

 

We all fall victim to searching for those late night or mid-morning sugar hits (i.e snacks) and it is these snacks that cause our sugar intake for each day to exceed any limitation we may have intentionally set for ourselves. Therefore, in order to avoid these temptations follow some simple rules;

• When you have finished dinner and any desert brush your teeth.
• If you feel the need to snack and don’t have a healthy option available have a big drink of water, cup of tea or coffee and go for a walk.
• Always distract yourself with chores, tasks etc when you feel the need to snack.
• Always swap chocolate, chips etc for healthier options such as rice cakes, greek yoghurt, homemade protein balls etc.
• Support a healthy diet with regular exercise. If you should indulge do an extra session to make up for it.

 

Education is key when it comes to sugar.

 

Sugar is a carbohydrate. On all packaged groceries bought from a supermarket is a nutritional chart that identifies how many carbohydrates are in each product. To ensure you buy the healthiest version of the product you desire, look over each of the nutritional charts to see which one has the lowest carbohydrate content. Obviously quality products should supersede the ‘cheap and nasty’ however once you have done this a few times with your regular shopping you will start to learn what products are cleaner than others thus removing excess sugar from your weekly diet.

Again it is the simple changes that can be made that will make a huge long term difference in your diet and your family’s diet. The less sugar in your diet now, the better your health long term.

Paul Hooper
Paul's Body Engineering

Email: paul@paulsbodyengineering.com

Phone: 0466 587 643

Facebook: www.facebook.com/paulsbodyengineering

Website: www.paulsbodyengineering.com

Instagram: @paulsbodyengineering

MAB Personal Training and Adventures: Introducing Amy Woods

Name: Amy Woods
Business: MAB Personal Training and Adventures
Age: 33 Years
Years In The Industry: 12 Months
Qualifications: Cert III & IV in Fitness
Interests: Lifting weights, cooking yummy food, art, being creative
What Makes Me Passionate About The Fitness Industry: Knowing that people can overcome depression, addiction, sickness and everything that goes with that through fitness and looking after their bodies. I love seeing someone working hard and achieving results, its amazingly rewarding in that respect.

Being a busy mum of 4 kids, I understand how hectic life can get some times. After getting everyone ready for school, doing the school run, cleaning up, washing, folding, working, cooking, somehow squeezing 25 hours out of a 24 hour day, I understand the last thing you think you have time for is exercise right?

Well think again. Everyone has the time to exercise it just needs to become a priority. Think of it like brushing your teeth, you wouldn’t go to bed without doing it because it keeps your teeth healthy, well guess what? Exercise is vital to keep our bodies healthy.

Getting up at 5am in the morning to train is not everybody’s cup of tea. It’s early, it’s cold, my bed is really comfy and quite frankly the desire to just curl up into a snug ball and fall back to sleep is incredible. So why then do I get up?

Because I have promised myself to make no excuses, I have made my ‘why’ stronger than my ‘why not’ and I just don’t have time to beat around the bush about it all. Just do it.

Sometimes the only time I have to train is in the middle of the day, outside, when my son is asleep. It’s stinking hot, I don’t have a home gym and I have limited room but I do it, because that is my time for me so I can be the best mum that I can be.

If, like me, you only have a small amount of time to train daily, try these tips:

• Do some high intensity training – eg 5 minutes of burpees.
• Go for a walk at night after dinner. Take the whole family.
• Find your fun, something you love doing and just do it.
• Get up 30 minutes earlier – even if it is cold or set aside 30 minutes each night for exercise.
• Exercise while your watching TV at night.
• Have heaps of sex – yep that’s right, it’s classed as exercise
• Make exercise a priority.

Remember that each and every one of you deserve to be happy and healthy. It is your right to take time out of your busy days and do something for yourself. Make exercise a priority. You are all awesome and deserve awesomeness in your life.


Amy Woods
MAB Personal Training and Adventures
Website: http://www.mabpersonaltraining.com.au/
Instagram: @mabptadventures
Email: amy@mabpersonaltraining.com.au 

AmSo Fit and Healthy (Danica): Protein

Protein. It seems to be common knowledge now that if you train, you need protein. But what doesn’t seem to be understood is what we need it for, how much we actually need and where we can get it from.


Why is protein important?
Protein is made up by long chains of amino acids, some of which the body can make itself, but others must come from foods and are consequently known as ‘essential amino acids’. The body takes these chains of amino acids, breaks them down, separates them and restructures them to become body proteins and uses them for a number of things, including:

• Transporting oxygen around the body (heard of haemoglobin?)
• Building bones, tissue and cartilage
• Creating hormones and enzymes
• Repairing tissues
• Source of energy

How much protein is enough?
You’d be surprised to know, based on the current hype around protein, that you don’t really need a lot. An 80kg male needs little more than 65g of protein each day and a 65kg female less than 50g. Now these amounts are based on every day healthy adults (19-70years) and requirements will increase based on the amount and type of exercise you’re doing but with most people meeting or exceeding their daily requirements already, it’s not that much extra. Think about the rump steak you’d have at the local pub, sometimes around 300g yeah? Well that one steak, without anything else, will give you over 70g of protein. More than enough for the average person for the whole day!

Now you’re probably thinking that eating more protein, especially after a high intensity strength session, means more gains and bigger muscles. This isn’t the case. After a session, the body can only use 20-25g of high quality protein to repair and build muscle, any more than that provides excess energy which can lead to excess weight gain.
But this doesn’t mean that you have one protein filled meal/snack after your workout and then forget about it. After a high intensity workout, body protein breakdown is elevated within the next 24 hours while the building of body proteins remains priority for 48 hours. What this means then is that if you’re doing regular strength sessions, your protein intake should be well distributed throughout each day for the whole week.


Where do we get protein from?
Protein shakes yeah? Well if you’re an elite athlete and you’re struggling to meet all you requirements from food alone then yes, protein shakes are for you. But for the everyday person, why spend loads of money on supplements that often taste like sh*t when you could just eat delicious real food?!

Instead of getting your 20-25g of protein after your workout from a scoop of protein powder, you could have a bowl of Greek yoghurt with nuts, seeds and fruit. Or a delicious peanut butter and banana smoothie. Or even a tin of tuna on crackers. All will give you the required amount of protein but plenty of other useful nutrients. People often forget about carbohydrates in their post-workout snack but it’s important to replenish the glycogen stores that are burnt for energy in exercise and eating carbohydrates can do that. 


Take home messages
Protein is a controversial topic these days and one that could be discussed at length for hours. Keep an eye out for future AmSo Fit & Healthy blog posts that will dig a little deeper but for now, remember:

• Protein is essential for more than just building and repairing muscles
• Most of us are already getting enough protein on a daily basis
• More intense exercise will increase the need for protein but not by a lot
• Protein supplements are okay to have if you can afford them, if you like them and if you’re not already meeting your daily protein requirements

 REMEMBER: excess protein = excess energy = excess weight gain

- Danica

AmSo Fit & Healthy - Student Dietitian

0458 001 848 | danica@amsofitandhealthy.com.au

www.amsofitandhealthy.com.au | facebook.com/amsofitandhealthy

Instagram@amsofitandhealthy

DISCLAIMER: Recommendations for requirements made in this blog post are based on Nutrient Reference Values for Australia and New Zealand (NRVs) and are designed for healthy adults. Requirements will change based on a number of factors. Contact Danica for more information or a Sports Dietitian for your individual needs.