Great ideas to substitute bread at your breakfast and/or snacks!

I believe bread is a type of food which doesn’t have a lot of benefits, except being easy to use and taste. Bread is related to overweight because of its high carbohydrates presence and calories. So I have some ideas how to substitute bread in a way that you won’t even miss the bread.

–          You can use some vegetable to make sandwich, such as slices of eggplant, sweet potato, bell peppers, cucumber, and zucchini. Slice those vegetables and you can bake, toast, or grill them. Fill with your favorite sandwich fixings.

–          Make your own homemade bread, using flaxseeds or chia flour. Mix 1 egg, 1 tbsp. of plain yogurt, 2 tbsp. of flaxseeds or chia flour (also you can use 1 tbsp. of each flour), ½ tsp. of baked flour. Add olives and cheese to improve the taste or fruits and dark chocolate. Bake it.

Hope you enjoy and try these recipes.

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How to have a healthy and long hair?

If you have been dreaming with a long and healthy hair, you need to start working on your diet. You can spend hours at the beauty salon and all your money in beauty products. However, if you don’t have the right vitamin and minerals consumption, it won’t work well. First advice is increasing water consumption to prevent loss of moisture, around 8 to 10 glass of water per day. Hair is made by protein and you want to make sure you are eating good source of protein, which includes eggs, fish, legumes, yogurt, milk and cheese. Moreover, some vitamins and minerals should be part of your diet, see below all of them:

– Vitamin A and C are responsible for growing the hair, you will find them in orange colored food, such as orange and carrot. You can make a nice orange and carrot juice everyday.

– Magnesium participates of the protein synthesis. You’ll find it in melon, pineapple, walnuts and sea food.

– Potassium: Responsible for improving hair’s elasticy and it is found in nuts, sunflower seeds, grape and lin meat

– Zinc: This last is responsible for maintaining a shiny hair and it is found in mushrooms and eggs

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The Low Carb Diet

Recently, the low carb diet is in focus, followers of this diet affirm the weight loss is real. Why do we lose weight? How does it work? I’ll explain more about the low carb diet in this article.

Firstly, let’s see what carbohydrates are and when they are present. Carbohydrate is a biochemical component formed by carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen, its purpose is to give fast energy for us. There are 3 macronutrients found in food: protein, fat, and carbohydrates; all of them produce energy. However, only the carbohydrate produces energy immediately, it is because its digestion starts right at our mouth during chewing.

Carbohydrates are found in fruits, cereals, pasta, rice, legumes, bread, sugar, desserts and most of the processed foods. When we are doing the low carb diet, we produce energy through protein and fat, instead of carbohydrates.

The main point is about the insulin action, which is the hormone produced during the carbohydrate ingestion. Insulin has the purpose of taking the glucose (simple carbohydrate) of the blood stream and converting it into energy or body fat depends of the body needs. Although, insulin increases body fat, as a consequence of its action. Moreover, each gram of carbohydrate carries 6 grams of water. Thus, we lose water and body fat during the low carb diet.

Does everyone allowed to do the low carb diet? Athletes and people who have high daily expenditure calories could have lower performance during activities. It is because carbohydrate is the main component to give energy during activities.

My opinion as a nutrition professional is: All types of diets need to adapt to each individual and you need to respect your limits. Consult a professional to help you to follow the best plan diet according to your needs.

photo credit: diagnosisdiet

​Five Superfoods that you should include in your day

What is “Superfood”? They are foods who have a beneficial effect on our health, such as preventing heart diseases, diabetes, digestive problems, having extra doses of vitamins and minerals.  Moreover, those Superfoods make you lose weight, sleep better, and prevent aging. Thus, Superfoods have so many benefits that you should include them in your routine. Take a look below in five options:
1. Beans and whole grains: Source of protein and fiber, which lowers cholesterol and increase satiety. It is great for losing weight

2. Avocado: The oleic acid present in the avocado is a great fat that we need to eat. It makes you less hungry and it is also a source of protein and fibers.
3. Salmon: Source of omega 3 fatty acids, which are great to prevent aging and it lowers heart diseases.
4. Wine: Study show that wine reduces belly fat and it is antioxidant that preventing many diseases and aging. The component responsible for those benefits is called Resveratrol.
 5. Kale and dark leafy greens: These dark vegetablecomre full of vitamin A, C, K, fibers, calcium, iron, and others minerals.

Start including those Superfoods in your diet and feel well.
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Exercise and Nutrition

Nutrition and sports walk together and one without the other will never get 100% of its function, you can be a super disciplined athlete, without a good diet you will not have enough energy to improve your performance. Or you can have the best diet, without exercise you will not have the same results.

When you start a restrictive diet, you will start to reduce calories and consequently lose weight, but your body will reduce its caloric expenditure. Over the time the weight loss stabilizes and exercise becomes essential to increase caloric expenditure and lose more weight. There is no magic formula to lose weight; it is simple, calorie intake versus calorie spent.

I always recommend my clients about exercising and the question is: what is the best exercise? There is no right answer, the best exercise is the exercise that you will be able to do for long term and you will enjoy it.

In my opinion the best exercise is lifting weight combined with cardio-respiratory exercise. The benefits of lifting weights include: muscle strengthening, which prevents muscle injuries and osteoporosis; it increases basal metabolism; muscle definition and size.

Leave the excuses aside and start exercising as fast you can. It is better to spend your time taking care of your health than in the future spend your life taking care of your illness. Think about it!

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Increasing Iron intake to improve athletic performance

​Iron is an essential nutrient for everyone, which the body needs to obtain from our diets. However, athletes or even someone involved in high intensity exercise and daily activities should pay more attention to iron consumption. It’s because high intensity activities may deplete your iron stores and put you at risk of developing what is known as iron deficiency anemia. Are you constantly feeling tired, sleeping, leg pain, short of breath, and pale skin? If your answer is yes, you may have iron deficiency and you should go to the doctor to check if everything is okay. Anemia is the condition of haven’t enough red blood cells or hemoglobin to carry oxygen to the body’s tissues. For athletes, the iron recommendation is 1.3 to 1.7 higher than non-athletes.  There are two types of iron found in foods:

– Heme Iron: it is found in muscle meat of animals, such as beef, liver, lamb, pork, poultry, and seafood. Around 20% of heme iron is absorbed and vitamin C increases its absorption. 

– Non-heme iron: it is found in based-plant foods, such as green vegetables, legumes, eggs, cereals, fruits, and nuts. However, only 5% is absorbed. Thus, vegetarians recommendation is 1.8 higher than non-vegetarian.

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​Creatine Monohydrate

Creatine is a compound made from the amino acids arginine, glycine, and methionine, joins with phosphorus to make phosphocreatine. This last has a specific function as storage of ATP. Thus, during high intensity activities, creatine enhances the capacity to maintain high energy compound ATP and delay fatigue. Creatine can be also found in meat. However, normal cooking can easily reduce the preformed creatine. The amount required is 10 to 28 grams per day dived in 4 doses, it depends the weight and height of the athlete. There is evidence of creatine’s saturation after 5 days. Therefore, creatine should be consumed for no longer than 5 days, followed by about a 5-day break in supplementation.
Curiosity: Creatine causes water retention, hence it increases weight. Thus, it is common the association of creatine and muscle gained. However, it is not related to muscle but water.

Bibliography

Benardot, D. (2012). Advanced Sports Nutrition. Human Kinetics.

​Carbohydrate as a supplement: Shall I get it?

Glucose is the main fuel for the creation of muscle energy, which is in the form of adenosine triphosphate (ATP). This last is the primary energy source for intense exercise for short periods. Human can storage 1400 kilocalories as a muscle glycogen, 360 kilocalories in the liver as a glycogen and only 20 kilocalories as a blood sugar. Low blood sugar and glycogen during exercise results in mental and muscle fatigue. Thus, athletes cannot achieve the best performance. Moreover, lower level of glucose results in greater production of the glucagon hormone, which stimulates gluconeogenesis (the manufacture of glucose from nonglucose substances). On the other words, body human uses protein to produce energy. A right level of carbohydrate for athletes is imperative for good results in their competition. The goal of sports gel carbohydrate is packing more energy in a small package without affecting gastric emptying.
Bibliography

Benardot, D. (2012). Advanced Sports Nutrition. Human Kinetics.

It’s not just about protein!

“There is a commom misunderstanding that extra protein intake alone will support a larger muscle mass, and this theory is the main rationale for the large protein intakes seen in many athletes. In fact, additional total calories are required to support a larger muscle mass, and protein should constitute the same relatibe proportion of the extra calories consumed. For instance, if a 75-kilogram (165 pound) man wishes to increase his muscle mass by 3 kilograms (6.6 pounds), he would need to consume approximately 1.5 additional grams of protein for each kilogram of. Of muscle mass desired. This amounts to only 4.5 grams of additional protein to support the large muscle mass. By contrast, 30 grams per kilogram of additional carbohydrate, or 90 grams of additional carbohydrate in total, is required to support the large muscle mass.” Stop blaming the carbohydrate

Retrived from: Advanced Sports Nutrition – Dan Bernardot

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