You’ve just finished your workout and you know you need to eat something. But what?

Workout nutrition may seem rather complicated but it doesn’t have to be.

Here’s the latest on how to fuel your body before, during and after your workout so you can improve your performance, maximize recovery – and feel better!

Fuel before for your workout

You’d never head out on a long road trip without filling your tank with gas, right?!

Skipping your pre- workout fuel is the equivalent of hitting the road with an empty gas tank. You may get off to a good start, but you’ll likely be running on fumes in no time.

When you feed your body with the right nutrients before your workout, you’ll be able to lift more, run longer & faster, and speed up your gains. Plus you’ll feel so much better while doing it!

So, what should you eat before your workout?

Since our body’s preferred energy source is carbohydrates, your pre-workout fuel should be higher in carbohydrates and lower in protein and fat.

Protein and fat are harder for our body to digest, and this uses up extra energy that you could put toward your workout.

Aim to eat about one to two hours before your workout (depending on the size of your meal) to give your body time to digest and absorb the nutrients.

Here are a few Pre-Workout options that work well for pre-strength or pre-cardio workouts:

• Wholegrain rice cake with 1 Tbsp. of natural nut butter
• Small apple and a handful of raw nuts (or nut butter)
• ½ cup of plain oatmeal (whole oats) topped with hemp hearts and berries

Sports Drinks or Water?

Plain water will do the trick during your workout. Experts recommend drinking between 3-8 oz of water every 15 minutes during your sweat session.

Also, you can hold off on the sports drinks unless you’re exercising for 90 minutes or longer, or are exercising in extreme heat.

Sports drinks help to replace carbohydrates and electrolytes but are not necessary for the average gym goer.

Why not skip the sugary, neon-blue commercial sports drink all together and just whip up your own for longer, sweatier workouts?

Here’s how: Take ½ cup pure orange juice, top with filtered water and add a pinch of sea salt or pink salt. You’ve got a DIY electrolyte replacement drink for a fraction of the cost and infinitely healthier ;-).

What to Eat after a Cardio Session

It is still recommended that you eat your post-cardio snack 30-60 minutes after finishing up.

However, you’ll be using more carbohydrate stores during a sweaty cardio workout (think running or spinning) than you would during your lifting session.

This is why you’ll need to eat a snack or meal that is 3:1 or 4:1 carb to protein ratio – similar to your pre-workout ratio.

Try one of these snacks after your next cardio workout to replenish your carbohydrate stores (glycogen) used and to help you recover faster:

• Sprouted grain toast and natural nut butter
• 5-10 whole grain crackers & 2 Tbsp. hummus or bean dip
• Small banana and a small handful of raw nuts or seeds

What to Eat After Strength Training or Lifting Weights

Once you finish that last rep, pat yourself on the back and then fuel up on the protein!

Aim to eat within 30-60 minutes post workout to help your body recovery and to build those muscles you’ve been working so hard for. This meal should be approximately a 2:1 ratio of protein to carbohydrates.

Here are a few examples of a balanced “post-lifting” meal:

• Grilled chicken breast with roasted vegetables
• 2 hard boiled eggs and whole grain crackers

You’ll also love this smoothie – packed with protein, fibre and the anti-inflammatory benefits of tart cherries!

RECIPE

Very Cherry Recovery Smoothie

1 cup of non-dairy milk of choice (I like coconut milk)
1 scoop vanilla protein powder of choice (unsweetened, less processed)
1 handful of fresh or frozen tart cherries (frozen will have a thicker consistency)
1-2 Tbsp. of chia seeds or hemp hearts
1 handful of greens (spinach or baby kale work well here)
2-3 ice cubes (more if you’ve used fresh cherries)

Blend, enjoy and watch those muscles grow!

REFERENCES

LiveStrong: Post Workout Carb-Protein Ratio

The Washington Post: The Best Way To Eat Before & After Exercise

CBC.ca: Sports Drinks Unnecessary, Counterproductive For Most People

You don’t have to be a health nut to know that soda isn’t good for you. But is it really all that bad?

Is it ok to just have it once in a while? And if you’re going to have it, is it better to have the regular ol’ sugar-filled version or the zero calorie “diet” kind?

Well, let’s weigh-in on the facts:

Regular soda – as bad as they say?

PROS:

• It doesn’t contain artificial sweeteners (aspartame, sucralose, saccharin) that have been the subject of a lot of studies lately to see how these chemicals affect our bodies

CONS:

• The sugar! A 12-ounce can of cola has about 8 teaspoons; almost the daily limit as recommended by the American Heart Association. Remember, you’d be drinking that in addition to any other sugar you’re getting in the rest of your diet.
• Drinking 1-2 cans a day can increase your risk of type 2 diabetes by up to 26%
• Regular sodas are filled with High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) which is linked to obesity, heart disease and fatty liver disease

Diet soda – is it actually better for you?

PROS:

• It feeds the craving for something sweet without adding extra calories or carbs, if you’re concerned about this
• Since it’s sugar-free, diabetics can sip without worrying about the direct hit to their insulin and blood sugar levels

CONS:

• While diet soda may be considered ‘safe’ for diabetics, they are far from nutritious as the artificial sweeteners in diet soda actually cause you to crave more sugar. When we drink it, our body is expecting sugar. Then when it doesn’t get it, it responds with even more cravings – for sugar!
• Diet soda drinkers tend to gain more weight particularly around their belly. One study said that frequent drinkers of diet soda gained up to three times more belly fat than their non-diet soda drinking counterparts.
• Diet soda is now being linked with cancer, heart attacks, strokes and neurological disorders.

The verdict on soda

Neither regular or diet soda are going to improve your health. They are literally devoid of any health benefits. In fact, both are linked to significant health issues.

So what should you choose?

The best bet would be to steer clear of both, if you can. However, if you do decide to have a soda from time to time, the choice is ultimately up to you.

If you’re sensitive to sugar, then perhaps the diet soda may be your best bet. But, if artificial sweeteners wreak havoc on your digestive system, you may want to go with the regular soda instead.

What to drink instead

The healthiest drink you can give your body is plain old water. And while water may not seem as exciting as soda, you can shake it up by adding lemon, lime or berries – or even cucumber and mint for a bit of flavour.

Sparkling waters (sugar free and artificial sweetener free) can also be a great alternative for a soda replacement since they still contain some bubbles and fizz. Many soda lovers have converted to these fizzy healthier alternative drinks:

• La Croix
• Perrier
• Kombucha

If you’re someone who only drinks soda when it’s paired in a cocktail, try switching up your drink of choice so it contains less sugar. Go for sparkling water, add a splash of lime, or even take your drink on the rocks and sip it. It might take longer to drink, but you’re way ahead in terms of avoid additional sugar or taking in potentially harmful chemicals. It’s something to think about.

Recipe:

For another delicious way to stay hydrated, try this refreshing coconut water based hydrator:

Lemon-Lime Refresher Recipe

Ingredients

• 3 cups of water (filtered, sparkling or even better – coconut water!)
• ¼ cup of fresh lemon juice
• ¼ cup of fresh lime juice
• 2 Tbsp. of maple syrup or honey (or stevia to taste for a sugar-free alternative)
• ¼ tsp Himalayan pink salt
• Ice cubes

How to prepare

Combine all ingredients well. Then sip throughout the day and enjoy.

References

Wiley Online Library – Diet study & waist circumference study

CNN – Diet Soda May Do More Harm Than Good

Harvard School of Public Health – Soft Drinks & Disease

American Heart Association – Sugar 101

Healthline – Is Diet Soda Safe for Diabetes?

To help you put this into practice, here are seven simple ideas to help you establish more mindful eating habits and reconnect to your body.

1. Tune in to your body’s signals

Rather than just eating on emotional cues (different for each of us, like sadness, anger, frustration, loneliness, stress or even just boredom) we can learn to tune into and be better listeners of our body’s actual hunger signals.

For example, is your stomach growling, is your energy low, are you feeling a little lightheaded, or even ‘hangry’?

2. Put food on a…plate

Too obvious? Think about this: eating out of a bag is not a very mindful practice. So, get in the habit of placing even snacks on a plate before eating them. This helps you to take notice of exactly what and how much you’re actually eating.

Also, acknowledge the time, effort and passion you put into creating your meal – consider all the ingredients, and the preparation and intention involved in getting the food from stove to plate.

3. Sit….at a table

Now that you’re eating from a plate, continue “formalizing” your eating experience by always sitting at a table.

This helps to pull your attention back to your food and to your eating habits. It has also been shown to dramatically reduce overeating – especially for those who tend to eat in front of the TV. When you have no distractions, you’ll be better able to listen to your body’s cues and notice how you feel when eating different foods.

4. Make the table a NO device zone

Whether you eat on your own or with others, make the table a no device zone so that you can be fully present in your body and with your food. This includes putting away the devices and turning off the TV.

You can designate the first few minutes of a meal for a mindfulness practice by each sharing something that you’re grateful for. When you’re feeling gratitude, your body is relaxed and at ease – the state you need to be in to digest properly.

5. Slo-o-o-o-w down (and chew!)

Slowing down is one of the easiest, and most effective ways we can get our body and mind to coordinate in their signals of what we really need for nutritional purposes.

It can take up to 20 minutes for your brain to get the signal from your body that you’re feeling full – a little glitch in human physiology, which is why it can be easy to overeat. But, if we slow down, we can give our body a chance to catch up to our brain, hear the signals properly, and eat the right amount.

Chewing more, and more slowly, is probably THE simplest and most effective way to begin developing the habit of eating mindfully.

6. Pause between bites

Putting your fork down between bites of food ensures that you chew your food properly. Did you know that it’s ideal for you to chew every bite 25 times, in order to properly break down your food enough to be well digested by your body.

So chew thoroughly, and put your fork down between bites, rather than mindlessly picking at your plate or preparing to shovel in your next bite. Oh, and you’ll actually get to taste your food!

So, there you have it – six easy and actionable ways you can start practicing mindfulness, especially when you’re eating. Your whole body will benefit from slowing down, and being more intentional and present while eating.

ACTIVITY

Tapping into ALL of your senses is a great way to be fully present while eating – because it isn’t just about taste. There are so many things to experience when we eat food — colours, textures, smells and even sounds. Let’s put this concept to the test!

The Mindful Raisin Experiment

Ingredients:

• 3 plump, juicy raisins

How to eat raisins…mindfully:

1. With raisins in hand, begin to explore them with all of your senses. Imagine that you’ve never seen a raisin before. Discover everything you can about them!
2. Turn them around with your fingers and take note of the colours.
3. Observe the texture – any softness, hardness, coarseness, or smoothness.
4. Put the raisins up to your nose and take note of any aroma.
5. Place the your raisins close to one ear, squeeze them or roll them around, listening to any sounds.
6. Now…the really fun part! Slowly put the 3 raisins in your mouth, noticing the sensation of your mouth beginning to water as you start to chew them.
7. Chew the raisins slowly and with intention until they are virtually disintegrated.
8. When you feel ready to swallow, note the sensations of swallowing the raisin – for example, sensing it moving down your throat and into your esophagus on its way to your stomach.
9. Visualize this happening, and the energy and nourishment that this intentional eating is going to provide your body.
10. Take a moment to congratulate yourself for taking this time to experience truly mindful eating!

Low carb diets have been popular on and off since the dawn of the Atkins fame (and maybe even earlier?).

But, what exactly defines low carb? Does eating this way actually help with weight loss? Are there any other health benefits (or risks) to eating fewer carbs?

Let’s see.

What is a carb?

A carb, or carbohydrate, is one of our three main macronutrients. Carbs, along with protein and fat that are needed for optimal health in quantities larger than vitamins and minerals which are micronutrients.

Carbohydrates come in three main types:

• Sugars
• Starches
• Fibre

Sugars are the smallest (molecule) carb. There are many different kinds of sugars, beyond the well-known table sugar (sucrose) or fruit sugar (fructose).

Starches are longer chains of many sugars bound together. Starches are broken down by our digestive enzymes into sugars. These sugars are then absorbed and metabolized in much the same way as if we ate sugar itself.

Fibre, on the other hand, is also a long chain of sugars, but these are not broken down by our digestive enzymes. Fibre passes through our system, feeds our friendly gut bacteria, and then takes food waste out the other end.

Because fibre isn’t digested like sugars and starches, it’s often excluded from the carb calculation.

How we metabolize carbs

When we eat carbs, our body absorbs the broken down sugar into our blood, thus raising our blood sugar. Depending on how high and fast our blood sugar rises, our body may release insulin to tell our cells to absorb that sugar out of our blood and use it as energy now or store it for later.

This is part of the theory as to why eating low carb diets may help with weight loss – by preventing the release of insulin, thus preventing the storage of excess calories.

But, our bodies are a bit more complicated than that!

Low carb for weight loss?

A few studies recently put low carb diets head-to-head against low-fat diets for weight loss.

Guess what they found?

1. There isn’t one universal definition of low carb (see the next section below).
2. It’s more difficult for people to stick to low carb diets than low-fat diets.
3. Both diets work for some people, and neither one is overwhelmingly better for weight loss than the other (surprise!)
4. The number of calories people eat is still considered a huge factor when it comes to weight loss success – more than whether the calories are from carbs or fat.

How many carbs is low carb?

There isn’t one single definition.

The average American eats about 300 g of carbs per day. Some people consider eating under 250 g of carbs per day to be the first threshold of a low carb diet. That’s really not that low in carbs, it’s “lower carb,” rather than low carb. Plus, if you’re new to cutting carbs, this level is easy to maintain and a good start (if you want to cut your carbs, that is).

Taking that a step further, eating less than 150 g of carbs per day is considered a typical low carb diet.

On the extreme side, eating less than 50 g of carbs per day is considered to be very low carb – it falls under the ketogenic diet range. Eating so few carbs can actually change your metabolism into a ketogenic state. Eating this way can be difficult for many people to maintain.

Other health benefits of low carb diets

Low carb diets have the benefit of preserving muscle mass during weight loss. They can also improve heart health biomarkers like cholesterol and triglyceride levels.

Not to mention that eating fewer carbs can improve how our bodies manage those carbs in terms of insulin and fasting blood sugar levels.

There can definitely be some non-weight-loss health benefits to eating fewer carbs. It’s still important to be mindful of what kind of carbs you’re taking in to make sure you’re maximizing the nutritional value of the foods you are eating.

Conclusion

Eating a low carb diet can be healthy, as long as it contains enough of all the essential nutrients. Some people may lose weight eating fewer carbs, and others won’t.

Low carb diets can help to improve how the body manages blood lipids and blood sugar, so it can be a healthy choice for some people.

As with most things in nutrition, there isn’t a one size fits all rule. Low carb diets can be a good choice for many people, but it’s not the magic bullet that some people claim.

Recipe (Low carb): Baked “Breaded” Chicken

Serves 4

2 pounds chicken drumsticks
½ cup almond flour
½ tsp salt
¼ tsp black pepper
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp rosemary or thyme
½ tsp garlic powder

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 450F.
2. Cover a large baking dish with parchment paper.
3. In large food storage bag, combine all ingredients except chicken.
4. Place a couple of pieces of chicken in the bag and shake until coated.
5. Repeat with the rest of the chicken.
6. Place chicken on a lined dish and bake uncovered for 20 minutes.
7. Turn over and bake 15 minutes longer.
8. Ensure internal temperature of chicken reaches 165F.

Serve & enjoy!

Tip: You can roast veggies in another pan at the same time. Just chop, drizzle with oil, and sprinkle with salt and pepper. They might not need to cook as long as the chicken, so check them periodically.

References:

https://examine.com/nutrition/does-low-carb-have-an-official-definition/

https://examine.com/nutrition/is-low-carb-really-the-best-weight-loss-diet/

https://examine.com/nutrition/are-there-health-benefits-of-a-low-carb-diet/

https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/general-food-safety-tips/safe-internal-cooking-temperatures.html

If you’ve heard that red wine is one of the healthiest of all alcoholic beverages, it’s for good reason.

Thanks to the antioxidants found in the skins of grapes from which it’s made, red wine has been widely publicized as being “healthful.” The kind of antioxidants found in red wine, like RESVERATROL, have powerful anti-inflammatory properties.

Inflammation and oxidation are considered the root causes of most disease, so consuming antioxidant-rich foods is a key component in disease prevention.

Moderate consumption of red wine has been linked to improved heart health, along with other health benefits, like decreasing the risk of:

• Alzheimer’s disease
• diabetes
• certain cancers
• depression

Some of the buzz around red wine’s health benefits comes from its prominent role in the well-studied Mediterranean diet.

The Mediterranean diet includes lots of fruit, vegetables, fish, olive oil, and red wine, and is believed to contribute to a long lifespan and low incidences of heart disease and cancer among Mediterranean populations.

The health benefits of red wine are also thought to contribute to low rates of heart disease among the French, despite this population traditionally eating a diet high in saturated fat (think cheese, cream, and buttery croissants!).

How exactly does red wine improve heart health?

But, does a glass of red wine a day really keep the doctor away? Maybe.

Studies have linked regular consumption of red wine with the following positive outcomes:

• Increased HDL cholesterol (the good, protective kind)
• Lowered LDL cholesterol (the bad, inflammatory kind)
• Lowered triglycerides (fat or lipids found in the blood)
• Improved blood pressure
• More stable blood sugar levels

High blood pressure, elevated blood sugar, and undesirable cholesterol and triglyceride levels are all contributing factors in the development of more serious heart disease, like heart attacks and stroke.

Is red wine an essential part of a healthy diet?

The short answer is no.

In fact, a large number of health-seekers are choosing to eliminate alcohol from their diets altogether. Large cities like LA, New York and Toronto are seeing sober night clubs and lounges popping up, and restaurants starting to offer alcohol-free spirits.

So if you aren’t a fan of wine or choose not to drink alcohol, there’s no reason to start drinking red wine for the sake of your health! Plenty of other diet and lifestyle factors, like eating lots of vegetables and fruit, getting regular physical activity, not smoking, and managing stress can provide the same health benefits.

But if you’re not looking to give up your glass of wine, you should know that red varieties have added antioxidants and health benefits, so may be a more health-conscious choice than white. While white wine does contain some antioxidants from grapes, red wine contains much higher amounts.

Like any other alcoholic beverage, it’s also important to remember to limit wine consumption. The health benefits of red wine only apply when it is enjoyed in moderation. Surprise!

When consumed in excess, any alcoholic beverage can negatively impact your health, contributing to alcohol dependence, organ damage, and increased risk of several cancers.

A good rule of thumb for alcohol intake is to limit consumption to one (1) drink per day for women and one to two (1-2) drinks per day for men. The serving size for one standard glass of red wine is 4 oz.

Since the size of wine glasses can vary, use a liquid measuring cup to familiarize yourself with what a 4 oz pour of wine looks like. Then, stick to that serving size!

References

Healthline – https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/red-wine-good-or-bad

Healthline – https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/red-vs-white-wine

Time.com – http://time.com/4070762/red-wine-resveratrol-diabetes/

Recipe:

Skinny Sangria Spritzer

Makes 6 servings

Ingredients:

• 1 bottle dry red wine (use your favourite but consider seeking out an organic variety = no sulphites or other congeners/additives)
• 1 ½ cups soda water (you can use a fruit flavoured variety, if desired – but no sugar added)
• 2 cups assorted fresh fruit, such as sliced strawberries, blackberries, orange slices, chopped apples, pears, or plums (have fun mix and matching your favourites!)
• Ice cubes

How to prepare:

1. Place prepared fruit in bottom of a large pitcher and lightly muddle with a wooden spoon.
2. Pour wine and soda water into pitcher and stir to combine.
3. Add 1 cup of ice to pitcher and stir to chill.
4. To serve, pour Skinny Sangria over ice-filled glasses. Be sure each glass gets a spoonful of fruit!