Leeks

I am on day 3 of my 12 day REFUEL cleanse with Coach Crystal Bold. It's going great and nothing has been too extreme or crazy for me. I have no doubt it helped that I weened myself off caffeine the past 3 weeks so now going completely caffeine free is not bad at all. The biggest challenge I have run into is learning to cook a few new vegetables-- beets and artichokes to be exact. Overall, the meals are right in line with how I eat through out the week. I am loading up on green leafy vegetables; adding beets, leeks, and artichokes to my diet; making sure all vegetables are organic, and all meat/fish is grass-fed or wild. Fats are limited to avocado, coconut oil, and olive oil. Lastly, all meals are to be cooked at home and no alcohol. Besides learning to cook a few new vegetables, not being able to go out to eat this weekend or grab a drink will be my biggest challenge, but let's be serious, for 12 days anyone can do anything.

My next few posts will provide information on some of my food choices and why they are healthy for you. Today is all about Leeks!

I found amazing tasting leeks at the Farmer's Market this past Saturday. I simply cut them up and add them to the skillet with whatever meat I am cooking. I literally have cooked the entire stalk. I actually prefer them to onions because they're not as strong and pungent and have a slight sweet taste to them. Delish!

5 Benefits of Leeks:

1. Protects the linings of blood vessels
2. Helps cleanse the liver
3. Provides folate
4. Functions as an antioxidant
5. Decreases risk of anti-inflammatory diseases

6 Week Clean-Eating Ladder

If you have stepped foot in a Relentless class, there is no doubt you've heard your coach discuss nutrition. As much as we want to believe that if we workout we can look exactly how we want, this is rarely true for most. My 8am Tu/Th Athletic Training class at Barton Hills is coming together to support each other on their nutrition goals. Below is the plan I mapped out for them to get started. It is a 6 week process and each week builds upon each other.

I know there are those few people who can jump in cold turkey and eat super clean and not think twice about it; however, for the ones of us who need structure and a step-by-step process to change our eating habits, I think balance and small changes over time lead to tremendous success. Knowledge about nutrition is great, but if you have no clue how to implement that knowledge you are spinning a vicious cycle.

1. Week 1: protein packed breakfast with veggies as carbs. No fruit at breakfast. Drink a minimum of 1 gallon of water daily.
2. Week 2: same as week 1 + protein packed mid-afternoon snack. No fruit at snack.
3. Week 3: same as week 1, week 2, + 3 salads per week at lunch or dinner. Salad includes lots of kale, spinach, olives, avocado, chicken/beef/fish, artichokes, mushrooms, olive oil & vinegar as dressing, etc. No fruit or cheese on salad.
4. Week 4: same as week 1, week 2, week 3 + max of 1 dessert a week
5. Week 5: same as week 1, week 2, week 3, week 4 + 3 dinners per week full of protein, vegetables, and healthy fats. No bread, pasta, rice,  or white potatoes at these 3 dinners.
6. Week 6: same as week 1, week 2, week 3, week 4, week 5 + 5 salads per week at lunch or dinner & 5 dinners per week full of protein, vegetables, and healthy fats. No bread, pasta, rice,  or white potatoes at these 5 dinners.
7. Week 7 and on: Maintenance. Apply the guidelines from week 6 and challenge yourself to go an entire 6 days of eating clean for all meals.

Feel free to jump in with my class and take on this 6-week journey. Share your successes in the comments section below. 3, 2, 1 GO. No excuses.

Corn: Grain or Vegetable????

For the longest time I thought corn was a vegetable. Contrary to popular belief, corn is a grain!!! Below are 6 Reasons Why Corn is Making Us Fat. It is quite disgusting to see what the farming industry can convince us to make an extra dollar.

Fructose is Metabolized to Fat

The digestive and absorptive processes for glucose and fructose are different. Unlike glucose, which the body uses, when one consumes large amounts of fructose it is a relatively unregulated source of fuel for the liver to convert to fat and cholesterol. Fructose converts to fat more than any other sugar. It is also known to raise triglycerides significantly.

Most Fructose is Consumed as a Liquid

The fact that most fructose is consumed in a liquid form significantly magnifies its negative metabolic effects. The devastation it has on our biology would be significantly lessened if it were consumed in solid food, but most fructose is consumed in soft drinks and fruit juices.

Fructose Does Not Stimulate Insulin Secretion

In addition, unlike glucose, fructose does not stimulate insulin secretion or enhance leptin, a hormone thought to be involved in appetite regulation, production. Because insulin and leptin act as key signals in regulating how much food you eat and body weight, this suggests that dietary fructose may contribute to increased food intake and weight gain.

Fructose Has no Enzymes, Vitamins or Minerals

Fructose has no enzymes, vitamins or minerals so it takes micronutrients from the body while it assimilates itself for use. However, eating a small piece of whole fruit, which contains natural fructose, is not likely to be a problem for most people because fresh fruits contain the enzymes, vitamins and minerals that are needed for the fructose to assimilate in the body.

Corn is a Grain, Not a Vegetable

Corn definitely does not fit as a dietary staple and mainstay, primarily because it contains high amounts of sugar. When early Native Americans changed their diet to one based mostly on corn, they had increased rates of the following:

• Anemia
• Dental cavities
• Osteoarthritis
• Bone infections and other bone problems

Corn is Everywhere in the American Diet

Corn, and usually highly processed corn, has become a staple ingredient of the American diet. Cheap corn is truly the building block of the ''fast-food nation," as Michael Pollan writes in a New York Times article.

Not only is it in high fructose corn syrup, but animals raised for meat are often fed corn and other grains. Most meat in supermarkets comes from grain-fed animals. On the contrary, grain-free meats not only provide a better balance of omega fats, but also the animals are healthier and more humanely raised, and the risk of acquiring an infection from a healthy animal is very remote.

10 ways to get more Veggies

I hear time and time again how it is so much easier to eat fruits instead of vegetables. Nell Stephenson explains how that excuse "is partly due to being conditioned, as most of us Americans are, to think that breakfast foods don't include vegetables, and just feature a host of grain and dairy-based processed items. Your body doesn't care if it's 7 a.m. or 5 p.m., so there's never a bad time for broccoli! Well, except, perhaps, if you're just about to engage in a bout of strenuous exercise, but you get the point."

Below are 10 ways to get more vegetables in your diet recommended from the Paleo Diet.

• Throw some spinach into the morning's scrambled eggs.
• If you have a juicer, use it to focus on juicing veggies, rather than just fruit. (Keep in mind, I'm NOT suggesting to juice ALL your veggies, as that would result in missing out on all the fiber that vegetables have to offer.
  
  This is just something to use as 'food for thought.' You'll find that a juice made predominantly of green veggies and with a hint of fruit, like apple for sweetness, will create a tasty juice that even picky eaters enjoy. It's a great alternative to sugary orange juice!
• Add easy-to-eat veggies (think COLOR), like carrot and celery sticks and sliced bell pepper, to your kids and spouse's lunch, as well as your own.
• Serve lunch entrees on a bed of leafy dark green veggies that you've sautéed, and let the veggies take the place of bread in a sandwich!
• Bake thinly sliced veggies, such as eggplant, zucchini or carrot at a low temperature to dehydrate them (or use a dehydrator) in lieu of crackers or chips, and enjoy this with homemade salsa or guacamole.
  
  Remember that while cooking does remove SOME of the nutrients from food, eating some veggies in this form is still far better than snacking on potato chips, as long as your eating fresh, raw veggies at other times.
• Use different types of veggies as a base for healthy sauces you might've used on pasta in the past, such as a cheese-free pesto (basil, pine-nuts, walnuts, olive oil, lemon and pepper), a homemade marinara (tomatoes are great) or good old olive oil and garlic. This works great on spaghetti-squash, or finely chopped leafy greens.
• Keep steamed, ready to eat veggies on hand in the fridge at all times so that when you're cooking dinner, or the kids are feeling snacky or you want something easy to re-heat as a part of a meal, you won't have long to wait. For example, have a large bowl of steamed broccoli ready in the fridge.
• Use vegetables as edible serving containers. Remember stuffed bell peppers? Sauté lean ground turkey with your favorite spices and place into a bell pepper. Heat (or not) and let the family enjoy eating the veggie dish! Another example is using Bibb or butter lettuce in lieu of a grain-based tortilla or wrap, served with shredded chicken breast and an Asian themed ginger, sesame, garlic sauce.
• Add your favorite veggies to a salad. Remember, the more color and variety you include, the better nutritionally balanced a meal will be.
• Finally, don't over think it. Keep it simple, and just eat veggies, any time. You can eat a greater volume of veggies and get fewer calories than in many other snacks. See how many ways you can incorporate eating veggies at different times of the day!

Carb?????

Society has placed negative connotations on the word "carb." I often hear people say the following, "I have cut out all carbs and only eating veggies, fruits and leans meats." (insert laugh here). What they don't realize is they are indeed still consuming carbs. Sadly, many individuals do not realize the array of nutritional foods that are a carbohydrate. Nell Stephenson does a great job explaining. Read below.

According to Webster's dictionary, a carbohydrate (one of the three macronutrients) is any of various neutral compounds of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen (such as sugars, starches, and celluloses).

Most people know that a carb is a type of food, and that people who are trying to lose weight may think of a carb as a bad thing to be avoided! I've had a client comment to me that they couldn't believe I don't eat any carbs. I responded, "I eat LOTS of carbs - did you notice all the fruit and veg I eat?" with incredulity. The reply was, "Those are carbs? I thought carbs were bread, pasta and rice!"

It occurred to me that many others share the same impression of what a "carb" is and whether it should even be eaten!

To clarify this, bread, pasta and rice are indeed carbs, but so are fruits and vegetables. The difference is that the latter are more natural, unprocessed and much more nutritionally desirable than the first group of starchy, processed carbs. There is a time and place to eat starchy carbs, though, such as around a workout! Even then, the premium quality of starch supplied to the body via yams or bananas, (or potatoes, for high performance athletes with a heavy training volume) is FAR superior to that of a bagel or pasta. Leafy green veggies, fresh fruits and most other produce are largely carbohydrate, and some have small amounts of protein or fat. There are exceptions, like the avocado, which have a higher fat content. This, however, is a healthy fat that is a great part of a sound Paleo Diet. Overall, most of the composition of many fruits and veggies is largely carbohydrate, and it's clear that carbohydrates are, in fact, an integral part of your healthy eating plan!