Life Time Fitness : Blog List - Nutrition

Big 16 September: Taking simple steps toward good nutrition

gfelder@lifetimefitness.com — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 17:53:20 GMT

Developing good nutritional habits can be difficult when there is so much contradicting information out there.

Fortunately for Life Time Fitness members, numerous nutrition coaches across the country held the Big 16 E.A.T. Smart Seminar at their clubs Tuesday to help members navigate their way toward healthy nutrition.

In Plymouth, MN, Nutrition Coach Paul Kriegler provided 14 members with a few major principles that could help them improve their nutrition dramatically and reach their health goals.

During the seminar, Kriegler stressed seven major points that will help anyone develop healthy nutrition:

Take a multivitamin and Omega-3 Fish Oil each day to provide all the missing nutrients your body needs but your daily diet may not provide.
Keep your calorie intake greater than your resting metabolic rate otherwise your metabolism may slow down quickly.
Eat every three to four hours to prevent overeating and to regulate your blood-sugar level. It also ensures that you eat a variety of foods each day.
Eat lean protein with every meal to help stabilize your blood-sugar level, satisfy your hunger longer, and maintain lean body mass.
Avoid processed foods because they don't provide as many nutrients and won’t satisfy your hunger as well. Also, avoid high-fructose corn syrup — Completely removing it from your diet can help you lose 5 to 10 pounds in two months.
Avoid unknown chemicals found in some foods and try eating organic foods “whenever possible."
Optimize your health with whatever nutritional aids you may need. Don’t take an additional supplement or similar aid unless your body needs it.

“Whatever you learned today, put it into action tomorrow,” Kriegler told his attending members before taking questions and the group heading to the LifeCafé for a healthy meal.

Kriegler said if members take action and incorporate these guidelines into their daily diet with an exercise regiment, they could start to feel results in 4 to 6 weeks.

“Weight loss, health and fitness aren’t something that just happens,” he said. “They’re achieved.”

Stay tuned to Life Time Fitness Nutrition for information about October’s Big 16 Nutrition event.

Big 16 August: Plenty of nutrition between two slices of bread

gfelder@lifetimefitness.com — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 21:18:35 GMT

Who thought a sandwich could be so nutritious?

Across the nation on Saturday, Life Time Fitness clubs held the Big 16 Top E.A.T.s: Sandwich Edition cook-off event where members brought in their, healthy yet tasty sandwich creations.

In Plymouth, MN, Lissa Flaaten wowed with her turkey sandwich creation topped with cheese, lettuce, tomato and hummus. With plenty of the sandwich to go around, the lifeguards at Plymouth’s outdoor pool enjoyed the treat.

Across the country in Palm Valley, AZ, nutrition coach Anika Christ said seven members presented sandwiches to the panel of judges at the Palm Valley Life Time Fitness club.

The winner was Claudia Anderson who brought forth a Chicken Parmesan Pita, Christ said, and the sandwich tasted as good as it sounds.

“It looked awesome,” Christ said. “She did the whole garnishing and everything.”

Created with a whole grain pita, Anderson topped it with diced grilled chicken, fat-free grated Parmesan cheese, pesto sauce, dried cranberries and frozen peas. According to Christ, Anderson threw peas into the mix to get her kids to eat the little green vegetables.

Anderson’s creation was just one of seven sandwiches from homemade recipes, Christ said, recalling a spicy roast beef wrap coming in second place and a turkey alfalfa sprout wrap a close third.

Many spectators also enjoyed the contest as they watched the judging panel choose a winner at the LifeCafé of the club, Christ said.

“A lot people like to come around and just watch the judging part of it,” Christ said, citing about 20 members who watched the contest.

However, Christ said, those seven contestants proved that a sandwich could be healthy and taste great.

The winning recipe of the sandwich cook-off at Palm Valley and winners of the other Life Time Fitness clubs will be compiled and published in an online cookbook that members can download from the Life Time Fitness Nutrition Web site.

Big16 Event Recap: Things aren’t always what they seem on a food label

gfelder@lifetimefitness.com — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 18:00:07 GMT

In Plymouth, Minn., just a head under 20 people politely interrogated Paul Kriegler, a nutrition coach for Life Time Fitness’ Plymouth club, about food ingredients and labels as he guided them through a local grocery store.

Kriegler started off the tour by informing his members about a few important rules to interpreting whether a food is mostly healthy by reading the ingredients on the food label. He made the following recommendations:

You should be able to pronounce each ingredient properly
You should be able to read the entire ingredients list in one breathe
You shouldn’t need to be a chemist to know an ingredient

Anything beyond those tips, he said, meant the food was chocked with extra additives and other ingredients that didn’t make it a wholesome food.

As a former employee of a grocery, Kriegler easily guided his members through store, stopping at the deli, bakery, produce section, butchery and dairy case. He never brought the group to the interior of the store because most of the healthiest items are on the perimeter of the building.

Meanwhile, as Kriegler answered questions and helped members dissect food labels, he also peppered the tour with numerous little nuggets of information and suggestions:

Packaged deli meat usually has more preservatives than those sold at a grocer’s deli
Organic produce may cost more, but it is packed with much more nutrients
The body should gain 40 to 70 percent of its energy from carbohydrates
In meat and poultry terminology, “loin” is synonymous with lean meat
Just because a label for poultry indicates “free range” doesn’t make it synonymous with “wild” where the animals actually roam and feed off grasses, worms, and other natural diet staples.
Beyond popular belief, the yolk of an egg is where most of the nutrients are, so don’t necessarily eat just egg whites

Moving out of Minnesota, many other clubs enjoyed similar turnouts and engagment with their members. One member from the Life Time Fitness club in Johns Creek, Ga., praised the event by saying "Thank you so much for the tour. I really enjoyed it. I did a little shopping afterwards and got some great stuff for the kids. My five year old was so excited this morning! He was showing me all of his muscles from the "healthy breakfast" that he ate. Thanks so much!"

But as members thanked Kriegler in Plymouth for his assistance while they purchased their groceries, it was easy to see that he made grocery stores an easier place to navigate for his members building a healthier way of life.When most of us go to the grocery store, all we’re thinking about is what we may be hungry for that week and how much it’s going to cost us. But for the most part, we have no idea what we’re buying, and essentially, what we’re ingesting into our bodies.

On the contrary, I’m positive that those members who attended Tuesday’s Big 16 Nutrition-Smart Shopping event got a much better idea about what they were buying and throwing down the hatch.

Scientists make fruitful discovery in fight against diabetes

gfelder@lifetimefitness.com — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 22:34:23 GMT

Chances are you have a family member or know someone who has Type 2 (also known as adult-onset) diabetes. Maybe it’s even you.

No matter who it is, a group of Canadian scientists might have made a big discovery this week that could prevent and treat Type 2 diabetes.

According to the Medical News Today, a team of scientists discovered that an ingredient found in grapefruit and other citrus fruits could prevent weight gain and even help to lose it … in mice.

In the test, the scientists fed two groups of laboratory mice the equivalent of a Western diet. With one of the groups, the food was treated with naringenin, an ingredient found in grapefruit.

In the group without the naringenin, the scientists found the mice became obese and developed metabolic syndrome, a precursor known to humans who develop Type 2 diabetes. In the naringenin group, the added ingredient reprogrammed the livers of the mice to burn fat instead of storing it, a symptom of Type 2 diabetes.

The Canadian team of scientists suspects the ingredient could prevent humans from developing Type 2 diabetes and also treat the disorder because it helped balance glucose and insulin levels.

Dr. Matthew Marturano, a licensed naturopathic physician and nutrition coach for Life Time Fitness in Troy, Mich., said the team’s discovery is fairly significant because it reinforces the numerous facts about causes to weight gain and eventually Type 2 diabetes.

Insulin “is like the traffic cop on the corner directing where sugar goes,” Marturano said. When people are not active, he said, the sugar gets directed to the liver and converts into fat. Such repetition, he said, leads to humans being overweight, the body’s desensitization to insulin and diabetes development.

However, the manager of the research team indicated that the human body would need a safe and concentrated supplement of naringenin to be effective because grapefruit consumption alone would not provide enough of the ingredient to make a difference.

Marturano said he suspects, upon completion of the research, that many supplement manufacturers will jump to producing supplements or multivitamins with the naringenin compound in them. He said such a trend tends to occur whenever such a health discovery is announced and consumers are searching to get their hands on such a product.

In this case, according to the American Diabetes Association, it could be more than 26.3 million people with diabetes willing to make such a purchase.

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Sources:

Grapefruit Ingredient - A future treatment for Type 2 diabetes. Medical News Today. 17 July 2009 http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/157943.php

Total prevalence of diabetes and pre-diabetes. American Diabetes Association. http://www.diabetes.org/diabetes-statistics/prevalence.jsp