Eight Nutritional Tips to gain health and loose weight

Nutritional tips are every where. They are hanging around office conversations, news reports, and little booklets at the supermarkets. Several of them are good, and some of them seem to conflict with each other. For example there is a large rift between those that feel you should get all of your essential elements from your daily diet, and those that feel supplements are required. I try not to find myself on the extreme side of any debate, because one thing most of the experts agree on is that extremes in your health plan are anti-productive.

The staying power of many of these conflicts can be attributed to the fact that both sides are correct. For example -- this supplement debate; Those that feel supplements are not optimal and suggest that our diets should be enough to provide us with the essential elements we need, are correct. In fact, if you can change your diet enough to insure you are provided with the proper amount of every vitamin, it is much healthier for you. However, many of us simply can not adjust to that extent, and therefore must rely on dietary supplements. Some of us also have deficiencies in areas, despite our change in diet plans. Pregnancy for example, takes a lot out of the body, and prenatal supplements are highly recommended.

What I have here is 10 tips for nutritional improvement. Some of these tips are for what to eat, and some are for when. If you are able to follow these tips you will find a marked improvement in your health and well-being, and let's face it, if we are stable in these two areas, we can handle just about everything else that comes along.

1. Eat six meals a day. I love this one. Really what I love is the look on a single parent's face (who is working full time and trying to keep two kids in school with after school activities), when they hear this one. Some of us lucky if we ate one meal today, and some of us feel grateful that we might have had a second meal sitting down, instead of walking around the kitchen, buttering toast, filling lunch pales and drinking coffee, while on the phone with the sitter.

Be that as it may, a change in this area can reduce your stress, add to your energy level, and lower your body fat. Eating low calorie diets, but only getting in 3 or less meals, teaches your body to get by on less energy, store what fats it can get a hold of and to lower the general metabolism. This causes us to wake up less alert, and can also add to our feelings of depression and being "overwhelmed".

If you’ve been following the typical nutritional advice of cutting back on calories and consuming no more than “three square meals” a day in the hope of shifting your fat-burning efforts into high gear, you may actually be throwing the whole process into reverse. According to scientists at Georgia State University -- people who eat frequently (about every three hours) accelerate their metabolism and maintain steady energy levels throughout the day.

2. Combine carbohydrates and protein at every meal. Our bodies work better with a balance of carbohydrates and protein. Not only is protein essential for building healthy muscle and maintaining a strong immune system, it stabilizes insulin levels, which leads to steady energy throughout the day. One more benefit: eating protein has been shown to reduce your appetite. So, avoid high-carbohydrate nutrition plans and instead balance your protein and carbohydrate intake.

3. Choose “appropriate” portion sizes. Super-sizing anything should not be an option for us. USDA statistics show that because of increased portion sizes, the average total daily calorie intake has risen from 1,854 calories to 2,002 calories over the last 20 years. Employ a common sense approach, such as using the palm of your hand or your clenched fist for gauging the portion sizes of food. If you are following hint #1 then this one is much easier to take as well. Get out of the mind-set that you may not have a chance to eat again later. Make sure you can, and in fact make it a priority. Also, there is no reason for a "big' meal. We might have grown up with that idea or learned it some how through other cultural training, but there really isn't a reason to put our bodies through that turmoil.

4. Plan meals ahead of time. While I'm not personally an advocate to any diet plan, I am an advocate to planning your diet. Too often we put ourselves in the position of stopping off at burger joint simply because we don't know what else to eat. We are hungry, we need to eat, but we don't know what we want to eat, so eat something that is fast, simply to get it over with and get back to work. Trust me, I understand. While a great deal of good work has gone into the development of some of these diet plans, such as the South Beach diet, I see their main benefit as being a plan to take that indecision point out of our daily lives.

5. Get containers to store your food. In the last few decades there has been a ominous presence put around "brown bagging it", as if bringing your meals to work was something to keep to yourself and not bring up in polite conversation. Budget or not, purchase plastic storage containers, sports bottles, a water jug and a cooler to store and carry your food. Having nutritious meals within reach during a hectic day can keep you on track. Seriously.

6. Drink 10 glasses of water every day. Stay hydrated, this simply can't be stated enough. Water is everything to us, and staying hydrated can be one of the most important tips on this list. In fact, if I was asked to decide on only one tip, this would be the one I would give you.

We are talking water here as well. Coffee is wonderful, I love coffee, but it like diet sodas, teas and several other beverages are diuretics, which rob us of our hydration and essential elements. So have your coffee, but drink your water as well (and a cup of coffee doesn't count as one of your glasses, in fact you should probably add one to make up for the effects).

7. Don’t eat right before or right after you train. If your schedule allows it, exercising or working out first thing in the morning is the best for your metabolism, and will burn the most fat. It is also suggested by many workout coaches and nutritionists not eat for about an hour after working out, so that your body continues to burn the fat. Eating after that point stimulates your metabolism again and your energy level will increase. Eating right before we go to bed isn't recommended by many sources, though I have never found a study that really points to health problem caused by a late night meal. I've heard several sources say it promotes fat storage, but again, never found a real study to back that up. As far as I can tell, its just one of those things that makes sense, so people say it.

8. Strive for consistency, not perfection. Stress is a strange thing, we cause it ourselves, and it does little to help us. It would be a shame to ruin your health, stressing over your diet. While many will promote a militaristic view and drastic change to our diets, I suggest that you work towards a better nutritional lifestyle. Cut down on the sizes of your meals, or make sure you can get in at least three of them a day. Then add one. Get up to the required glasses of water, and then maintain. If you work out at night already, and that's when your schedule allows, then... that's when your schedule allows a work out.

Stay away from the monthly and yearly plans. Plan out your food for the week, prepare what you can in advance and then on a daily basis, follow your plan. For most of us, simple changes, by following these tips will reap huge rewards, and with the increased level of energy and well-being, following the rest of them will probably not seem like such a chore.

Posted by Glenn Hefley in Example -- Health, Glenn's Work