Stay Hydrated While Exercising

Too many people wait until they are dehydrated to grab for their water bottle. By this time your energy levels have taken a hit and your exercise coordination could also be feeling a little shaky.

The best way to combat this is by drinking 8-16oz of water an hour before your workout. You can also help improve your performance by sipping on water throughout your workout or making sure to replenish every 10 -15 minutes.

Try to steer clear of coffee, tea, or sodas as substitutes for water, since they can contain caffeine. These types of drinks can act as a diuretic and cause your body to become even more dehydrated.

Finally, after your workout is complete aim to drink another 8-16oz of water to replace all that water you lost through sweating. If you find that your workouts run longer than an hour or your clothes are particularly stained with salty sweat, you might want to look into a sports drink that contains electrolytes.

Try incorporating some of these tips into your exercise routine and you may just find you have more energy to push out that extra 10 minutes!

Do you eat healthy or just think you do? - Part 2

Yesterday I discussed a few of ND's great nutrition tools, relevant to health and weight loss goals. Today I'm covering a few more that you may find particularly helpful.

Once a food item is looked up there are other useful insights about food that you can investigate by using the Nutritional Target Map which appears in every ND food analysis (including the ND's Total Consumption Report). This Target Map reviews the foods in relation to its' ability to support your current nutritional goals.

For example you can see what percentage of fat, carbohydrate, or protein is contained in that food. This tool is the Caloric Ratio Pyramid. You look up salami and you can easily identify that it's not exactly a good protein source because it's actually 63% fat! (Now that's an eye opener!) And it's mostly that heart clogging saturated fat. That wouldn't exactly fit into a low-fat food plan.

Another useful guide ND Nutritional Target Map has is a Fullness Factor guide. It uses a scale of 0-5 predicting how satisfied you will be after consuming a particular food. The higher the FF numbers indicate how a lower calorie serving of that food is likely to fill you up compared to foods with a lower rank number.

I encourage you to review this information as you are looking up foods to ensure you are making the best possible choices for your health goals.

Do you eat healthy or just think you do? - Part 1

One of the first things I examine with a new client is how they currently eat. Many will say, "I eat pretty healthy." But the sad truth is that many really don’t eat that well. It's not that they lie, it's just that they don’t really know they aren't eating healthy (although some do of course). It isn’t until a person closely looks at what they are eating for a few days do they realize what they are consuming, what amounts they are consuming, and what the quality of food is. I have also found balance to be really lacking in most food plans.

Let's take one step at a time here though. ND has some wonderful tools that you can use to determine how healthy your food intake is. Today I will familiarize you with just a few.

Use ND's Pantry to track your food intake. (The Pantry also stores all your favorite recipes so you have  easy access to them. Dana has an archive of delicious recipes to choose from.) You also need to get a close estimate of how many calories you actually need to lose weight or maintain, by using the Daily Needs Calculator. It's one thing knowing what you are eating but it's also important to know how many calories you burn every day according to your current age, weight, height and activity level.

This is only a tiny sampling of what ND can offer you. Tomorrow I'll point out a few more but start with these few basics. Naturally you first have to get a reality check as to what you are actually eating.

Poll: Do food logs help you eat better?

Whether you're trying to improve your nutrition or watch your calories (or BOTH), tracking and analyzing your diet is the best way to get handle on what you are actually getting from your food.  I won't kid you: it takes a bit of effort to log in what you eat. But even if you only do it for a few days or a week, I guarantee you will learn a lot and probably make some lasting changes based on what you learn.

We've also just added a new feature that makes it a bit easier to get started.