Exercise

Reasons Why People Shouldn't Go Vegan

Reasons Why People Shouldn’t Go Vegan

Published by on July 25, 2023 | Leave a response

There’s nothing wrong with being vegan if you know how to create a well-balanced diet and have the will to get past the restrictions. Those people consuming a strict vegan diet often have studied the nutritional requirements or use an app to help them create their daily diet. While a vegan diet can be healthy, some people shouldn’t go vegan. A vegetarian, pescatarian, or flexitarian diet works better for most people.

What’s the difference in the diets?

There are all types of diets, but the most prominent ones in the plant-based world are pescatarian, vegetarian, flexitarian, and vegan. Flexitarian diets are the most liberal. This type of diet includes all types of food but limits the consumption of poultry, meat, fish, and seafood to the occasional meal. Pescatarians eliminate poultry and meat, while vegetarians eliminate meat, poultry, fish, and seafood. The strictest diet is the vegan diet. Only plant-based food is allowed and all animal products are eliminated.

A vegan diet provides many nutrients, but getting certain ones is difficult.

There are two major drawbacks to a vegan diet. Getting adequate vitamin B12 is one of those. Vitamin B12 is vital for nerve, heart, and muscle health. It boosts your metabolism and helps keep your body functioning properly. Supplementing with a B12 vitamin is often necessary unless the vegan focuses on consuming food fortified with B12. Zinc is another nutrient that’s difficult to get from a plant-based source. Many of the plant-based sources also contain phytates that bind to the zinc and make it unavailable.

Balancing your diet can be a challenge.

The body can create many amino acids, but there are nine essential ones it can’t create. You have to get the essential amino acids from your diet. Animal products contain all nine, but only some plant-based products do. You can combine food with incomplete proteins to achieve a complete protein profile. Combining beans and rice is an example. It takes planning to ensure you get all essential amino acids throughout the day, but some healthy people prove it’s possible.

  • Collagen is a building block for skin, muscle, bones, hair, ligaments, and tendons. It’s missing from a vegan diet. Plants don’t contain collagen but do contain the building blocks of collagen, so the body has to create it.
  • Studies show that people who are vegans often are low in vitamins K and B12, collagen, DHA, and EPA. Deficits in those nutrients create a potential for premature aging. A vegan diet can also cause an imbalance of Omega 3 and Omega 6.
  • Plant-based diets aren’t for everyone. People with IBS, soy, nut, or gluten allergies or intolerance aren’t candidates for a vegan diet. If you’re on a low carb diet, it’s not for you.
  • It’s simply more difficult to eat when you’re on a strict vegan diet, especially if you like to eat in restaurants. Few offer many vegan options. If you’re not good with planning or details we can help make it easier with personalized meal plans.

For more information, contact us today at Body Sculptors Personal Training

Posted in ,
Are All Calories Created Equal?

Are All Calories Created Equal?

Published by on July 5, 2023 | Leave a response

Clients at Body Sculptors in Louisville, KY, understand that cutting calories can help you lose weight. They even understand that some foods are healthier than others. I’m lucky to have such smart clients who also know not all calories are equal. It’s not the actual calories that makes a difference in whether a food will promote weight gain, but the food itself. If you eat 2400 calories, all from healthy fruits and vegetables and a friend eats an equal amount of calories from sugary treats, you’ll get more benefits and lose weight faster than they will.

In order to metabolize some calories, it takes extra energy.

If you ate a stalk of celery, it wouldn’t amount to many calories. Your body would get even fewer calories since it takes calories to digest the celery. Some people think celery is a negative calorie food, but so far, no studies have proven or disproven the theory. Celery is also a diuretic, so if you’re gaining weight from retaining water, it helps you lose it. Eating 100 calories from celery—which would be a lot—has less effect on your weight than eating a hundred calories of cookies—two medium ones.

It’s about thermogenesis.

When you eat, it has to digest. That all takes energy and produces heat. The body has to break down the food by producing digestive juices and sending the food through the digestive tract. There it breaks food down further, removing the nutrients from the food. Those are extra calories used and not available to the body. Fibrous foods, like fruits, vegetables, or other complex carbohydrates, fats, or meat, use many calories for digestion, while simple carbs, like sugar and sugary products, use much fewer. Hence, 100 calories from high thermogenetic foods depletes to fewer calories, while those from sugary treats are available at 100%

The fiber in the food and the toxic elements make a difference, too.

Food with added sugar can be toxic. It can cause inflammation, which can cause weight gain. It can cause insulin resistance that leads to that and diabetes. A few calories from food with added sugar is more than just a few calories, it also can change your gut microbiome. A healthy balance makes your body work properly, but an unhealthy balance leads to disease and even obesity. If you get your calories from high-fiber food, the fiber feeds beneficial microbes to improve health and reduce weight.

  • Let’s not forget the nutrients in the food. Magnesium, vitamin D, vitamin C, carotenoids, iron, and zinc can all boost your weight loss efforts. Studies show that obese people are often deficient in vitamin D. People eat for a number of reasons besides just hunger.
  • Eating other thermogenetic foods, like meat and fat, can keep you feeling full longer. It’s because these types of food take longer to digest. Complex carbohydrates take longer to digest than simple ones.
  • The same food can have a different caloric effect. If you refrigerate a potato, reheating it later, the chilling process changes half the starch into resistant starch. You can’t absorb resistant starch so it passes out in your feces.
  • Calories from junk food are considered empty calories. That’s because they provide no benefit, other than the calories they provide. Choosing food that offers other benefits can make you leaner and healthier.

For more information, contact us today at Body Sculptors Personal Training

Posted in ,
Strength Training Benefits As You Get Older

Strength Training Benefits As You Get Older

Published by on June 25, 2023 | Leave a response

As people age, they often focus on endurance and do some type of aerobic exercise to improve it. They also may include stretching in their daily exercise routine. Far fewer people include strength-training. Many don’t realize all the benefits it provides as they get older or think it could be too taxing for them to do. Some senior women think strength-building is just for men, or worry they’ll become muscle-bound. The truth is, strength training is important for people of all ages no matter what their gender, particularly seniors.

Strength training won’t build big muscles in women, but it will keep seniors mentally sharper.

While the attitude is changing, some women think that lifting weights is just for men and unladylike. That’s not true. Deceased icon, Supreme Court Justice, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, had a personal trainer and regularly lifted weights. She knew it helped her maintain her health both mentally and physically, allowing her to serve with clarity until her death at age 87. While she was a trailblazer who broke the glass ceiling, nobody would ever call her too muscular. The male hormone testosterone increases muscle bulk, and the reason women don’t develop large rippling muscles without a lot of extra work and a special diet.

Fighting obesity is important.

Obesity can lead to serious health conditions that include diabetes and heart disease. Aerobic-style exercises like walking and running burn calories, but the calories come from both fat and lean muscle tissue. Muscle tissue burns more calories than fat tissue does, so the less you have, the fewer calories you’ll burn. That makes losing weight or preventing weight gain harder. Strength training builds muscle tissue allowing you to torch more calories, preventing obesity, the leading cause of preventable death.

More muscle mass means greater strength.

The stronger you are, the less likely you’ll fall, which can lead to the inability to care for yourself. Besides lack of strength and improved balance, when you lack adequate muscle strength, it causes sarcopenia. Sarcopenia leads to a wasting of muscles, which are necessary to maintain bone strength. Strong muscles tug on the bones, causing them to uptake calcium to be strong enough to resist the tug. Lack of strength-building allows the bones to lose calcium, causing osteoporosis. Strength-building leads to stronger muscles and bones.

  • Strength training can slow the process of aging on a cellular level. Studies show that exercising increases mitochondrial activity to keep cells younger. The people benefiting most were 65-80.
  • Unless you workout regularly, muscle loss starts in the 30s, with loss increasing every decade. The older you are, the harder it is to build muscles due to lower hormone levels and more inefficient protein processing.
  • Strength training helps maintain mental fitness. Dementia, depression, and Alzheimer’s all benefit from regular strength training. Many therapists use it as an adjuvant therapy.
  • Weight training can help relieve arthritis pain, back pain, and aching joints. It builds the muscles, ligaments, and tendons to help reduce further pain by providing more support.

For more information, contact us today at Body Sculptors Personal Training

Posted in ,
How Grains Affect Your Health

How Grains Affect Your Health

Published by on June 15, 2023 | Leave a response

What are grains? They are seeds designed for plant reproduction. They are also an integral part of a healthy diet and help you maintain good health. There are downsides to consuming grains. They may create health conditions ranging from mild to serious. One issue occurs because seeds have protection to ensure the species survives. It starts with the seed coat, which is strong enough to resist digestion. Not only does each person react differently to grains, but some also have problems with one grain and not others. Celiac disease, for instance, occurs when sensitive people eat grain that contains gluten, like wheat.

Enzyme inhibitors in seeds protect them.

When consumed, seeds pass through the digestive tract and are expelled whole in the waste, often miles from the parent plant. The new location gives it space, and the fecal material provides fertilizer. Other factors that ensure the survival of the seed and plant can cause health issues in humans. Even when seeds have their own space and fertilizer, it doesn’t mean conditions perfect. It may be too hot, cold, wet, or dry. Enzyme inhibitors in the seeds prevent the seed from sprouting where it’s doomed to fail. That same enzyme inhibitor can affect the enzymes in the body that are necessary to digest food, creating stomach issues.

The lectins in grains are natural pesticides that protect the seed and sprouting plant.

Seeds are almost magical. They contain everything necessary for survival, including pesticides. The pesticide is the lectin in the seed. It’s a pesticide, so it’s only logical that consuming large amounts can cause digestive issues in humans. Grains contain complex carbohydrates and proteins, which are harder to digest. Wheat, for instance, contains gluten, a complex protein. Gluten intolerance has grown dramatically in the last 50 years since hybridization increased the amount of gluten in grain.

Grains contain an anti-nutrient.

Phytic acid is the anti-nutrient contained in grain. It’s how plants store phosphorous. Phytic acids prevent phosphorous, magnesium, zinc, calcium, and iron from breaking down and absorbing. It attaches to those minerals so they aren’t available to the body. One way to reduce the phytic acid in grains is to soak the grain, ferment it, or sprout it. It was how grain was prepared for use in the past. It eliminated both the phytic acid and the enzyme inhibitors.

  • Eating whole grains can help prevent heart disease, diabetes, stroke, and chronic inflammation. Including sourdough bread, which is fermented, sprouted bread, or bread made with soaked flour. Avoid bread made with highly processed and bleached flour.
  • Why choose whole grains? Processed flour is stripped of nutrients. The milling process removes the bran and germ containing the fiber and nutrients. It leaves only the endosperm that is starchy and high in calories.
  • If you have digestive issues caused by grains, identify which grains cause the problem. Pseudo-grains and brown rice flour might be good alternatives.
  • If you go grain-free it can lead to an increased risk of diabetes, heart disease, and lead to constipation, and nutritional deficiencies. It can cause inflammation, weight gain, and affect immunity.

For more information, contact us today at Body Sculptors Personal Training

Posted in ,
How To Burn Fat And Keep It Off

How To Burn Fat And Keep It Off

Published by on June 5, 2023 | Leave a response

In Louisville, KY, people are searching for easy ways to burn fat and keep it off. It’s not just a local phenomenon, it occurs everywhere. Some quick fix programs help you lose weight, but the weight is often water weight that returns almost instantaneously. Other programs may help you lose fat, but those often involve restrictive diets that aren’t meant for long-term use. Again, the fat returns. There is one option that keeps fat from returning. It requires lifestyle changes that become habits that are hard to break.

Start by moving more.

Consistently burning calories means being more active regularly, including an exercise program. Exercise does more than just burn extra calories. It builds muscle tissue. If your body has more muscle tissue, you’ll burn more calories. Why? There are two reasons. First, muscle tissue requires more calories for maintenance than fat tissue does. The more you have, the higher your metabolism 24/7. A second reason is that exercise releases irisin. The body has both brown fat and white fat. Brown fat mitochondria burn more calories. The lumpy, hard-to-lose white fat insulates the body. The irisin exercise releases white fat into brown fat, which increases calorie-burning by 20%. The more you exercise, the more calorie-burning brown fat you develop.

The key to fat loss is your diet.

No matter how much you exercise, you can’t out-exercise a bad diet. It doesn’t matter if you run marathons or workout at the gym, if you’re consuming an unending amount of unhealthy, high-calorie foods, you’ll gain weight in the form of fat. Fat is the way the body stores excess calories. Your body needs micronutrients like vitamins and minerals, phytonutrients like anthocyanin, and macronutrients, which include protein, fat, and healthy carbohydrates.

You need other factors for a healthy lifestyle to make keeping fat off easier.

If you dehydrate or lack sleep, you’ll lose energy and be less active. That can cause a drop in the calories you burn, plus put stress on your overall health. Lack of sleep also causes the body to produce more ghrelin, the hunger hormone, and less leptin, the hormone that makes you feel full. That makes it difficult to resist temptation, plus causes you to crave sweets to get the burst of energy it provides. Food high in sugar causes blood glucose levels to rise quickly. Just as quickly as it rises, it drops dramatically, making you crave more sugar. It becomes a cycle of destruction.

  • Eliminate food with added sugar. The high glucose level caused by increasing sugar in the diet also causes a high insulin level and inflammation. Both can cause an increase in fat, particularly around the midsection.
  • Just working out may not be enough. An active lifestyle outside the gym helps. People sitting at a desk all day need to take five minutes every hour to get up and move to preserve the benefits of regular exercise.
  • Learn portion control. Healthy eating doesn’t mean giving up everything you love. You can still eat your favorite food, but not as often, and with portion control in mind.
  • Living healthy also means getting adequate sunshine. Sunshine provides you with vitamin D. More recent studies show that a higher percentage of obese people have a vitamin D deficiency.

For more information, contact us today at Body Sculptors Personal Training

Posted in ,
How To Start A Low Carb Diet

How To Start A Low Carb Diet

Published by on April 25, 2023 | Leave a response

In recent years, the low carb diet has gained popularity. Even though eating healthier is a simpler solution that doesn’t require calorie or carb counting, it’s true that carb counting does work. One of the main reasons it works is that low carb foods are often low calorie foods. Low carb foods are often whole foods that don’t contain added sugar and are part of a program focused on healthy eating.

What is a low carb diet?

Carbohydrates are macronutrients, just as protein and fat are. A low carb diet limits carbs, which are found mostly in plant-based foods. Not all carbs are bad. There are three types of carbohydrates: sugar, starch, and fiber. Those three types are all necessary for the body to be healthy. Healthier carbs like fruits, vegetables, nuts, milk, grains, and beans, should be part of your diet, but food with added sugar and highly processed foods shouldn’t. That often eliminates special diet foods that are low in fat, since sugar often replaces the fat to provide the flavor lost when the fat was removed. Pasta and bread are normally missing in a low carb diet, too.

How a low carb diet works.

The belief behind a low carb diet is that the diet will change the way the body gets its energy or calories. It will stop getting its energy from carbohydrates and get it from fat and protein. When the body gets calories from carbs, the body changes the carbs’ glucose to glycogen, then it stores the glycogen in the liver. When the liver is full, the glycogen converts to fat. When you limit carbs, the body must get its fuel somewhere else, which is body fat.

The pros and cons of a low carb diet.

Low carb diets can help reduce insulin resistance, a precursor of Type 2 diabetes. It lowers the levels of insulin released. It also aids in lowering the bad LDL cholesterol levels and increases the good HDL levels. It helps stabilize both triglyceride and blood sugar levels. Extremely restrictive low carb diets have side effects like constipation, headaches, lethargy, heart palpitations, and irritability. It can cause undue stress on the kidneys.

  • Extreme low carb diets like the keto diet can lead to nutritional deficiencies. Studies show that extreme low carb diets didn’t provide enough of 15 of the 27 vitamins and minerals the body requires for good health.
  • Often people mistakenly overeat high fat foods like bacon. While bacon will set the body into a state of ketosis, it’s not the healthiest way to do it and can add too much sodium to the diet.
  • You can get many of the same benefits of a low carb diet by simply giving up food with added sugar, highly processed food, pasta, and bread. Always talk to your health care professional first before starting any diet.
  • At Body Sculptors, we provide personalized nutritional plans. It contains menus, shopping lists, recipes and helps you track your nutritional intake, making losing weight and getting fit easier.

For more information, contact us today at Body Sculptors Personal Training

Posted in , ,
Healthy Habits = Healthy Life

Healthy Habits = Healthy Life

Published by on April 15, 2023 | Leave a response

Living a healthy life in Louisville, KY, is all about having healthy habits. It isn’t about eating a salad once in a while or buying a gym membership and using it once or twice. It’s about the things you do every day that make a difference. Developing habits take a while, and many people start with one change and after a month or two, add another. The changes can be as simple as drinking tea or coffee without sugar to something more involved like a program of fitness. It doesn’t matter where you start. The important part is getting started.

A healthier diet should be a goal.

If you’re slamming down quickie burgers like there is no tomorrow, there may not be one for you. To have a healthier body, you have to have a healthy diet. A healthy diet doesn’t mean dieting but making smarter choices. Choose more greens, several selections of vegetables, and lean meat, fish, or poultry. Instead of high-sugar, high-calorie pastry, opt for fresh fruit as a dessert. If you’re overweight, changing your eating habits is necessary to lose weight. The sad truth is that obesity is on the rise in America and many of the obese are also malnourished.

Get moving.

Consider all the changes that have occurred in the last fifty or sixty years. Everyone used to be more physical. Adults would spend time playing tennis, roller skating, or bowling and kids loved playing games outside. Today, everyone is stuck in front of a screen and the only active muscles are in their hands. You’ll rust out before you wear out, so get up and move. Start a program of regular exercise. Make it a habit, so schedule it at the same time every day to ensure it becomes a habit. You don’t have to workout at the gym every time, you can take walks or do other activities.

You probably don’t get enough sleep.

Burning a candle at both ends has become a badge of honor in the US. Unfortunately, that’s bad for your heart and can even make you pack on pounds. Lack of sleep can cause a hormone imbalance between leptin—the satiety hormone—-and ghrelin—the hunger hormone. If you don’t get enough sleep, the body produces less leptin and more ghrelin, so you want to eat more and you gain weight. Lack of sleep can affect your memory, increase the risk of diabetes and negatively affect your immune system. Create a sleep schedule and stick with it until it becomes a habit.

  • If you want an easier way to ensure you eat healthier, our fitness plans are perfect. We provide a personalized menu, a grocery list and recipes. All you do is buy the food.
  • Don’t forget to drink plenty of water and hydrate often, especially in hot weather or when exercising. Even mild dehydration has side effects. For instance, it can make you feel sleepy. The next time you’re tired, drink a bottle of cold water and you’ll probably feel more awake.
  • When you make a change, focus on staying with that change for a minimum of nine weeks. Studies show the average time for forming a habit is 66 days.
  • Eating healthy includes what you drink. Soft drinks or fancy coffee drinks are high in sugar, calories, and ingredients that can be harmful to you. Don’t forget to include snacks in your meal plan.

For more information, contact us today at Body Sculptors Personal Training

Posted in , , ,
Diet And Nutrition For Constipation

Diet And Nutrition For Constipation

Published by on April 5, 2023 | Leave a response

Your diet dictates the nutrients your body receives, but it also affects other areas of your health besides nutrition. It can cause digestive issues, like diarrhea and constipation. Constipation is a problem many people have, but few want to discuss it, especially with friends. Instead of addressing the underlying issue, many resort to taking laxatives, which can lead to laxative dependency, particularly if you take stimulant types of laxatives.

A lot of things play a role in developing constipation.

The amount of fiber in your diet, your level of hydration, and how active you are all play an important role in keeping your colon healthy and normal bowel movements. A simple change like riding a bike for a half hour a night stimulates your elimination system to provide bathroom success. Another important factor is hydration. Even minor dehydration can affect bowel movements, leaving your waste dry and hard to pass. Increasing the water you drink daily can keep your system at peak performance.

Changing your diet to include more whole plant-based foods can also change your potty pattern.

Whole foods, like whole grains, or fresh fruits and vegetables, contain fiber. There are two types of fiber. The first type is insoluble fiber. That is found in whole grains, bran, and vegetables. Insoluble fiber provides bulk to the stool to help it pass through the colon. The second type of fiber is soluble fiber. Soluble fiber absorbs fluid and keeps the waste soft and easier to pass. It’s found in lentils, fruits, vegetables, nuts, oat bran, and peas. Soluble fiber binds with toxins and excess cholesterol, then it’s removed from the body with other waste. Soluble fiber also helps feed beneficial bacteria, which also helps with constipation.

Just because you don’t go every day doesn’t mean you’re constipated.

Some people go as often as three times a day, while others may only go a couple of times a week. Normal bowel movements vary. How can you tell if you’re constipated? The first sign is that you feel like you have to go, straining on the toilet, but don’t have a productive session. You are bloated and if you go, only small hard pellets come out. It’s not about the number of days, but how you feel.

  • Eating food high in omega-3 fatty acids can help keep your bowel movements consistent. Foods that contain it include salmon and other fatty fish, krill oil, and flaxseed.
  • Eating juicy fruit and vegetables will help you in two ways. Both provide fiber and increase your intake of liquids, which helps counter dehydration.
  • If you’re adding fiber to your diet, increase it slowly. Increasing it too rapidly can also cause bloating and constipation. When you increase fiber intake, make sure you increase your intake of water, too.
  • Prunes are known for their constipation-busting benefits. Not only are prunes high in fiber, but they also contain sorbitol, which is a natural laxative. The sorbitol in prunes is often used in chewing gum and candies, which may also cause digestive issues.

For more information, contact us today at Body Sculptors Personal Training

Posted in ,
What's The Difference Between Portion Size And Serving Size?

What’s The Difference Between Portion Size And Serving Size?

Published by on March 25, 2023 | Leave a response

Whether you’re eating in a restaurant or at home, portion sizes will vary. However, it doesn’t matter where you eat, at home in Louisville, KY, or in a restaurant in Chicago, IL the serving size remains the same. It’s the same across the country for all food. All nutritional facts are determined by using that serving size. Potato chips are a good example. A one-ounce bag is about 15 chips. That’s the serving size, whether you’re eating from a family-size bag or not. Most people create their own portion sizes when eating snack foods like chips, which can be more or less than the serving size.

When you eat in a restaurant, the portion sizes may far exceed the serving size.

Ironically, the most expensive restaurants often have smaller serving sizes. They tend to focus on more exotic ingredients and presentation. However, mom-and-pop restaurants that compete for most of the restaurant business have to find a way to stand out from the rest. Besides great cooking, serving larger portions can make them more popular. Commercials and advertising gimmicks train us to believe more is better. Super-sizing your meal has become an all too familiar draw. In reality, the portion sizes served are often more than double the actual serving size.

Besides oversized servings in restaurants, you can overdo them at home too.

Unless you know what the serving size is for that particular food, you’ll probably eat too much. If you’re at home or in another serve-yourself situation, learning serving sizes is important. It doesn’t have to be difficult. For instance, a serving size of meat is about the same size as a cassette tape or deck of playing cards. If you stack four dice, you’d get the serving size of 1 ounce of cheese. The serving size for a cup of most food is the size of a fist.

Some easy tips to remember when eating in restaurants.

For most leafy vegetables, don’t worry about serving size, unless you’re worrying about not eating enough. For most vegetables, the serving size is often underestimated. If you’re eating chopped veggies, the serving size is a half-cup. For raw leafy greens, it’s one cup, and for vegetable juice, a half cup. The USDA recommends eating two and a half to three cups of vegetables or about five to six servings a day. Potatoes aren’t included in the vegetable group. In most cases, eating more than the recommended minimum servings is a good thing. Just be careful with sauces and dressing.

  • If you’re making a salad, include other types of lettuce besides iceberg, they’re more nutritious. Baby greens, baby kale and baby spinach are extremely nutritious.
  • If your favorite restaurant has large portion sizes, share a meal with a friend or eat half and ask for a carry-out container to take home. Some people opt for an appetizer as their main dish and add a salad and vegetables as sides.
  • Your favorite snack or meal might come in larger portions and be several serving sizes. You can help yourself and prevent overeating by repackaging the food as soon as you get home to individual serving sizes.
  • If you’re still unsure how to achieve a healthy diet that helps you reach your goals, our staff at Body Sculptors can help with a customized diet and nutrition training.

For more information, contact us today at Body Sculptors Personal Training

Posted in , ,