My Diet Modification

Even with being a personal tainer I have a lot of room for improvement in my personal diet.  For the most part I eat healthy but I will be the first to admit that I have a sweet tooth that can at times get the best of me.  My wife who is either all on track or binge eating is also someone that needs a modification so we have decided that we need a complete diet make over.  

We are independant distributors with AdvoCare and have decided that we will be participating in the All-In 24 Day Challenge that begins on January 7, 2015.  We were actually discussing this today on what steps we need to take to be successful not just during the 24 Day Challenge but also to be successful after we are done.  The biggest thing that we fail at is preparation.  So we have vowed to keep each other accountable and that we would do our food preparation together.  

www.24daychallengemovie.com

Our first step is to order our challenges.  What does the AdvoCare 24 Day Challenge consist of?  It is a 10 day cleanse and a 14 day burn phase.  

During our cleanse phase we will refrain from eating fried foods, drinking alcohol, and eating processed foods.  The challenge starts to get a little stricter during days 11 through 24 as you have burn days and refuel days.  Burn days you do not eat any starches or carbohydrates and on your refuel days you add in the starch/carb.  This program is designed so you get your proper nutrients into your body after cleansing all the toxins.  

My wife and I have decided that we will create a meal plan on a weekly basis and do our grocery shopping for the next week on Sundays and do all of our meal preparation.  That is our biggest failure is working all day and coming home and not wanting to cook so we go out or we order food that is less that good for our bodies and definitely not well balanced.  We want to incorporate what I have learned in this class to help plan our meals and I foun that choosemyplate.org has wonderful information for us to use to create our meal plans.  Not only will we be eating healthier but our pocket books will thank us as we eat out quite often since neither one of us want to figure out what to cook for dinner.  Since we will be planning our meals out there is no excuse to not knowing what we are having for dinner that evening.  

I have also decided that tracking our progress either via a written blog or a youtube blog will also help us to stay on track. 

Nutritional Requirements Across the Lifespan

Proper nutrition is extremely important at all stages of life.  This starts from the very beginning of life, during pregnancy.

Pregnancy:
It is extremely important that our bodies are fueled with the proper nutrition when we are in the womb.  During the pregnancy stage babies rely on their mothers to feed them correctly.  Food is not only an important aspect of pregnancy but so is taking vitamins so your baby is given the important nutrients needed to grow.  Excercise is another important aspect of being pregnant.  When pregnant you really are feeding two however this is not a free pass to eat anything and everything in sight. During the first trimester of pregnancy the increase in food is not as important as increasing the nutrients and vitamins which is usually obtained from taking a multi-vitamin recommended by the doctor.  During pregnancy all alcohol and cigarette smoking should stop as this can cause the baby to have many health issues.  During the second trimester mom shoud really only increase her caloric intake by 340 additional calories and during the third trimester it should increase by 450.  Mothers should eat a well balance diet that includes all the food groups, this way mother and baby can get all the important vitamins and nutrients and excercise to help the baby develop appropriately.

Infants:
Breastfeeding is super important if possible for babies until they are about 12 months old.  Breastfeeding provides the infants with the appropriate amount of vitamins and nutrients.  According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) "There is now overwhelming evidence of the health advantages of breastfeeding as indicated by lower infant morbidity and mortality than for bottle-fed infants"  (Food and Agriculture Organization, n.d.).  Breastfeeding helps the babies develop and grow and around six months old you start feeding the infant baby cereal and age appropriate baby food.

Childhood:
Children need approximated 1800 calories daily and should incorporate all five of the basic food groups; fruits, vegetables, proteins, grains and dairy.  If you start teaching children to eat properly it helps them succeed with eating properly as they enter into adutlhood.  Teaching them good habits will stay with them when they are making food choices.

Adolescense:
Teenagers are usually very active.  Eating a well balance diet will help give them the energy they need to be active.  Teens usually have a higher metabolism.  If you teach them during childhood how to properly fuel their bodies with the appropriate foods this will help them when they are teenagers. Eating correctly will help teens not develop health problems like diabetes or heart diseases.  Making healthy choices will also help them to maintain a healthy weight range.

Adulthood:
According to the FAO "Older people, like all others, need a good diet that provides for all their nutrient needs" (FAO, n.d.).  As stated in everything above eating a balance diet is the key to living a healthy life.  When we get older it is also important to take a multi-vitamin because no matter how clean you eat you cannot get the proper nutrients from your food because of the way it is grown, picked and processed.  Water is extremely important in all stages from infants to adulthood.  If you are taught when you are child to eat properly when you reach adulthood these good habits are easy to maintain.  Adults need to be very careful with eating processed foods because of their high sodium content.  Excercise again is also very important in all stages of life

References:
Food and Agriculture Organization.  (n.d.).  Human Nutrition in the Developing World.  Retrieved from:
     http://www.fao.org/docrep/W0073E/w0073e03.htm#P1188_158364

Role of Diet

The role of diet in preventing underweight, overweight and obesity is very important.

Being obese, underweight or overweight can pose dangerous health situations for people.  It is extremely important that we as a society combate these risks and maintain a healthy weight range.  

There are many health risks involved when you have too much or too little body fat as well as too much or too little body weight.  As they say a picture is worth a thousand words.  This pictures puts everything into a perspective that I would have never had thought about:

Underweight:
When a person is below their normal weight range we call them underweight.  When you are underweight not only is your weight below normal range you also have too little body fat.  When you do not have enough body fat you cannot fight off illnesses or diseases as easily as if you could when you are at a normal body weight range.  When you are underweight you also lack energy because your body is not receiving enough nutrients to help your body run at an optimal level.  When you lack energy it is hard to do any kind of physical activity to make your body strong.

Overweight:
Just like being underweight, being overweight can cause health issues.  Sizer and Whitney defines overweight as "a body weight above a healthy weight" (Sizer and Whitney, 2011).  Approximately tow-thirds (almost 61%) of American adults are overweight or obese according to Cspinet.  This is a huge epedimic in our society and we need to do our best to educate and help people to get into their healthy weight range.

This video below has a message on being underweight and being overweight:

Obesity:
Obesity is defined in our textbook as "overfatness with adverse health effects, as determined by reliable measures, and interpreted with good medical judgement" (Sizer and Whitney, 2011).  When a person is obese their bodies are more susceptible to chronic diseases such as cancer, diabetes, heart diseases, etc.  It is hard on your body to carry so much extra weight.  Your body starts to fail, your heart cannot handle the extra weight, your legs, knees, joints, etc.  Your body just starts to shut down and obesity can lead to death.


We as a society really need to take drastic measures to make sure our bodies are functioning at the appropriate weight range.  We need to eat a balanced diet, we need to excercise on a daily basis and we really need to educate families on these particular things.  This doesn't mean that you cannot indulge once in a while it just means finding that proper balance.

References:
cspinet.org (n.d.)  Nutrition Policy: Why Good Nutrition is Important. Retrieved from:
     http://www.cspinet.org/nutritionpolicy/nutrition_policy.html

Sizer, F. & Whitney, E. (2013).  Nutrition: Concepts and Controversies (13th ed.).  Mason, OH: Cengage Learning.

Digestion

The digestive system is a very important system as it takes the food that we eat and turns it into energy that our bodies need to survive.

The digestive system is distinctively built to perform its function of making energy out of food by absorbing the nutrients and binding the remainder for waste removal.

The digestive system, however unique, is a complex system made up of a few parts; the mouth, esophagus, stomach, small intestine, pancreas, liver, gallbladder, large intestine, rectum and the anus.

The mouth is where digestion starts. As soon as you take your first bite the chewing helps starts the digestion process. When you chew your food it is broken down into pieces while your saliva combines with the food to get into a form that your body can absorb for digestion. 

The esophagus is the next part that the food passes through. After the food is broken down in the mouth it is distributed to the stomach via the esophagus. The stomach acts like a storage container for the broken down food. While in the container the food mixes with enzymes which help the food to further break down for use. “Cells in the lining of the stomach secrete a strong acid and powerful enzymes that are responsible for the breakdown process. When the contents of the stomach are sufficiently processed, they are released into the small intestine” (Cleveland Clinic, 2013). 

Next stop is the small intestine. After the food is done in the stomach it is then discharged into the small intestine. The small intestine is a powerful tube built that is 22 feet in length of muscle. The small intestine breaks down the food even more with the help of the pancreas and the liver. The small intestine is made up of three sections; the duodenum, jejunum, and ileum. “The duodenum is largely responsible for the continuous breaking-down process, with the jejunum and ileum mainly responsible for absorption of nutrients into the bloodstream” (Cleveland Clinic, 2013). 

The pancreas, which helps the small intestine, discharges enzymes into the duodenum, the first section of the small intestine. These enzymes help to break down fats, carbohydrates and protein and it also helps to produce insulin which is discharged into the bloodstream. The gallbladder collects and distributes bile into the duodenum to help digest and absorb fats. The main thing that the liver does is it absorbs the nutrients from the small intestine. It also helps to detoxify potentially dangerous chemicals and also breaks down and discharges many drugs.

After the small intestine absorbs the nutrients our body needs and it packages the rest for waste it then transfers the waste into the large intestine where the process of elimination begins. The left over waste from the digestive process is called stools. Stools are made up of mainly food remains and bacteria. When the colon, or large intestine as it is known, is full and ready to empty it flows into the rectum. The rectum is eight inches in length and it connects the large intestine to the anus. The rectum receives the stool and is the holding cell until the brain tells us that there is waste that needs to be removed. The anus is the final part of the digestive system. It is two inches in length and consists of pelvic floor muscles and an internal and external sphincter. 

The mechanical process involved with the digestion of a piece of chicken involves all the parts of the digestive system explained above. When you take your first bite of a piece of chicken the mechanical digestive process begins. Your mouth is the first point of the physical breakdown of your food. Your saliva inter mingles with the chewed food to help break it down even more for transportation to your esophagus. When the food enters the esophagus the process of peristalsis begins. Next the food enters into your stomach by way of the esophagus. Once in the stomach enzymes and acids break down the chicken even further to get it ready to enter into the small intestine. Next the chicken enters into the small intestine where the pancreas and the liver helps break down the chicken even further. The gallbladder also helps with mixing bile. The small intestine then sends the waste matter after it has absorbed the nutrients needed from the chicken to the colon, also known as the large intestine. From the large intestine the waste of the chicken is transported to the rectum and is ready to be discharged from the anus. This process takes approximately 36 hours from when you eat chicken.

References:

Cleveland Clinic (2013).  Digestive System.  Retrieved from:

http://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases_conditions/hic_The_Structure_and_Function_of_the_Digestive_System

 

Essential Macro- and Micronutrients

There are six essential nutrients that your body needs on a daily basis.  They are proteins, fats, carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals and water. 

“Essential nutrients refers to classes of nutrients found in food. Essential nutrients are simply those that are vital for the normal growth, maintenance and development of the body” (foodpyramid.com, n.d.).  

     

Proteins are needed for your cells.  

They form most of your cell structure and they store information in the cell in the shape of DNA.  Fats help produce steroids and hormones; they are also the cleaners for hormones and fat-soluble vitamins.  

Carbohydrates help to store food in your body which is used for energy.  When you have too many carbohydrates it turns into Glycogen and is stored in your liver.  Carbohydrates are essential for fat oxidation and it can also turn into protein.  

Vitamins are vital for normal operation of enzymes.  “Vitamin C and E are antioxidants, while Vitamin K is required for blood clotting. They cannot be synthesized in the body, so must be taken in the diet” (foodpyramid.com, n.d.).  

Minerals while needed in little amounts help to make co-factors, which are inorganic ions crucial for activating enzymes.  Even though the first five nutrients are essential I believe the sixth essential nutrient is one of the most important, water.  

Water helps to supply nutrition to cells and it removes waste through urine.  

It helps to control body temperature and helps the ionic balance of the blood.  Water is vital for your body’s metabolism.  As you can see these six essential nutrients are a crucial part of your body to help with normal growth, development and maintenance of your body.        





References:

FoodPyramid.com (n.d.).  The 6 Essential Nutrients.  Retrieved from:

            http://www.foodpyramid.com/6-essential-nutrients/

Factors That Drive Our Food Choices

Factors such as social, psychological, philosophical and physical play an important role in our food choices.

Social and philosophical factors really really go hand and hand.  Social factors mainly pertain to our culture or traditions.  It can also include social functions like birthday parties, company parties, etc... An example of a social factor and culture is my father is Mexican from Mexico and in our household we ate Mexican food.  My mother cooked with a lot of lard, as that is what creates the amazing flavors in Mexican food.  Lard however is extremely bad for you.  My wife grew up in Hawaii and you would think that eating fish for most of your meals would be a great food choice and it is however a lot of Hawaiian food is high in fat and calories.  Peer pressure can be another situation where you are making the wrong food choices.  When you are pressured to go out many times you will eat poorly or drink excessively.  Another social factor to food choices is money.  Struggling to pay bills leaves no room for buying good food at times.  Many families or individuals survive eating ramin which is horrible for you.  But its cheap and sometimes you have to do what you have to do. One major philosophical factor in food choices I belive is advertising.  When you turn on th television there are so many commercials that are advertising food that is not the best.  The only way to change these social and philosophical factors is by educating people to eat properly. 

Pyschological factors really depends on a person and how they are feeling.  If you have had a long hard day at work chances are you do not want to come home and slave in the kitchen to make a nutritious meal.  Being a personal trainer I train many people who are emotional eaters.  For instance when people suffer a breakup it is an emotional strain that leads many people to eat.  They will eat things like potato chips, ice cream, etc to comfort themselves.  Many pepole eat because they are bored which is definitely a bad time to eat.  Bing eating is another pyschological factor is food choices.  Example is my wife and her struggles with food.  She grew up in Hawaii and was allowed to eat anything and everything.  She was also made to stay at the table to finish everything that was on her plate.  She is the type of person that bings eats and then she will turn around and eat healthy and workout and then bing eat.  It is like she is either all about eating food that is not so good for her or she is all about eating healthy and working out.  There is no in between and it is something that she struggles with on a daily basis.  We are working on education and making the right choices without feelind deprived.  The video below explains the cycle of emotional eating and the things that can trigger emotional eating:

Physical factors such as being too thin, being obese, etc can definitely drive our food choices.  An overweight person chooses to eat poorly either because that is all he or she knows or its comforting to them.  A person that is too thin or is starving themselves will maybe eat an apple and is full.  An obese person may eat twice the amount they are supposed to because they do not feel full.  Many times when we choose to eat poorly we eat more than we should to get that feeling of satisfaction.  

These factors are just the tip of the iceberg.  But they are very important factors in how we choose our foods.  We need to reprogram our brains for example when you have a stressful day at work instead of going out to eat food you would not normally eat go for a walk or run or go to the gym for even just a half an hour.  It will help relieve stress and will help you to become healthier.  

Here is an awesome movie to watch about food choices.  It is very imformative and intersting:

http://www.foodchoicesmovie.com

Healthy Diet & Choosing the Right Food

     There are five characteristics of a healthy diet; portion control, fruits and vegetables, whole grains, limiting fats and limiting processed foods. 

     

Portion Control

Portion control is a must in the basis of a healthy diet. Portion control helps you to get control over your serving sizes and eat in moderation. 

Many people eat too much food in one sitting; this has a lot to do with how our society has changed its serving sizes in restaurants so people have no grasp on what a proper portion size is. Portion control will help an individual enjoy their food and is easy when you use normal visual prompts. For example a baseball is the same size as a green pepper, which is one serving of a vegetable. Not all foods are created equal but this example will help to control portion size when you do not have everyday measuring tools. Another great way to visually control portion size is to mentally divide your plate into quarters. One quarter should have a complex carbohydrate, another quarter should have a protein, and then the last two quarters or half of your plate should have vegetables.       Choosemyplate.gov is an excellent resource to help you figure out portion control.  Some challenges that people face with portion control is that our soceity is so used to eating bigger portions when eating out.  One tip I have for people is to take your plate and before you start eating ask for a box and box up half of your meal, this way you are eating a better portion size and you will also have a meal for lunch the next day or even dinner.

Fruits and Vegetables

Fruits and vegetables should be a key part of your diet because they are full of vitamins, minerals, fiber and antioxidants and they have a very low calorie count. 

Fruits and vegetables also can help to reduce the risk of chronic diseases such as cancer and they provide your body with nutrients for better health. “Plant foods are also filling because of their high fiber content, so they stave off hunger and reduce the temptation to binge eat later” (Carpenter, n.d.). 

     

The challenge with choosing the right fruits and vegetables is keeping it fresh and not so boring.  You can add fruit to your breakfast, you can cut up your fruits and vegetables so it is ready to eat for a snack.  Try eating fruit with a low calorie/low fat dip or your vegetables with humus.  I think one of the major challenges that keep people from eating more fruits and veggies is that we are a society on the go and many times it is not convenient.  However, this is where cutting up your fruits and veggies ahead of time can make it convenient for people to take with them on the go.

Whole Grains

Whole grains are known for helping to lower the risk of certain cardiovascular diseases, such as heart disease and strokes. Whole grains are foods like brown rice, oatmeal, certain pastas and whole wheat flour. Incorporating whole grains into your diet will also help prevent gum disease, high blood pressure, developing asthma and inflammatory diseases.  

Did you know that popcorn is a whole grain?  It is a great healthy snack to have as long as you make it with little to no butter or salt.  

Challenges to eating whole grains is that many of our food that we think contain whole grain actually contain enriched flour and such.  It is very important to read food labels.   Here is a great chart from choosemyplate.gov that shows you what to look for on the labels under the ingredients:

Whole grain ingredients

• • brown rice
  • buckwheat
  • bulgur
  • millet
  • oatmeal
  • quinoa
  • rolled oats
  • whole-grain barley
• • whole-grain corn
  • whole-grain sorghum
  • whole-grain triticale
  • whole oats
  • whole rye
  • whole wheat
  • wild rice

Fats

Fats are an important component to a healthy diet, however, there are certain fats that you should avoid. Saturated and trans fats should be limited or completely avoided if possible because they can increase your cholesterol and it is known to increase your likelihood of developing Type 2 diabetes. Healthier fats such as monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats should be included in moderation to your healthy diet. You can find these healthy fats in foods like avocados, nuts, fish and even olive oil. Challenge with fats is knowing what good fats are compared to bad fats.  If you just maintain the knowledge of where to get your good fats from the challenge becomes a little less.  

Processed Foods

The last characteristic of a healthy diet is limiting processed foods. Sodium is one of the biggest contributors to high blood pressure which leads to developing a coronary heart disease and can also contribute to having a stroke. “Up to three-quarters of the salt in an average American's diet comes from processed foods” (Carpenter, n.d.). Salt is used in many processed products like canned soup, snacks, frozen meals, cereal, breads and pastas. Manufactures use salt to help sustain the shelf life of a product. Staying clear of processed foods high in sodium will help reduce the risk of developing life threatening diseases.  Challenges associated with processed foods is that most of the food that you buy is processed.  Many people eat frozen dinners for lunch and such because they are easy to grab and heat up for lunch.  It is very important to read the labels and look at the sodium content.  It really is not that much harder to make yourself a good healthy lunch that you can pack for work.

References

Choosemyplate.gov.  (n.d.).  Welcome To the Five Food Groups.  Retrieved from:

     http://www.choosemyplate.gov/food-groups/

Carpenter, Poppy. (n.d.)  Healthy Eating.  Five Important Characteristics of Healthy Eating.  Retrieved from:

http://healthyeating.sfgate.com/five-important-characteristics-healthy-eating-5892.html

Connection between nutrition and disease

     Recommendations to help prevent death and disability from major nutrtion related chronic diseases, is considered off population nutrient intake and physical activity. Goals should be developed on national guidelines that help reduce many burdens of diseases related to Diabetes, Obesity, Cardiovascular, several forms of cancer, and osteoporosis.

        Obesity: "the imbalance between deciling energy expenditures due to physical activity and high energy in the diet"(World Health Organization, n.d.), so by increasing physical activity and reducing fattty foods as well as really high sugar content would help reduce the risk.

        Diabetes: "excess weight gain, overweight and obesity and physical inactivity account for the escalating rates of type 2 diabetes worldwide"(World Health Organization, n.d.), so an increase of physical activity and eating proper foods would definitely help with maintaining a health weight. Diabetes as we know it leads to the risk of heart disease, kidney disease, stroke and infections as well.

        Cardiovascular disease: "cadiovascular dieases, the major killersworldwide, are to a great extent due to unbalanced diets and physical inactivity" (World Health Organization, n.d.), cardiovascular disease is the main risk of heart disease, stoke disease, This comes from a large intake of trans fats, saturated fats, and polyunsaturated fats as well. So by reducing the intake of salt can reduce high blood pressure which is the leading cause of cardiovascular disease.

        Cancer: "tobacco is the number one cause of cancer , but dietary factors contribute significantly to some types of cancer" (World Health Organization, n.d.), so by having a good and sustainable weight can reduce the risk of cancer in the oesophagus, breast, and kidney. By limiting alchohol consumption could reduce some of the risk of cancers of the mouth, throat, oesophagus, liver ans stomach cancer.

     These are just some examples of how healthy eating and physical activity reduce some of this risk factors,  looking at physical inactivity is already a major health risk and is prevalent in both industrialized and developing countries, among the urban poor in those crowded major cities. There have been measures and policies put into place that require healthier food consumption, and also facilitate physically active life that share common ground and mutually interactive in determining healthier behaviours.
   
     I believe that healthy diets and physical activity are the key components to good nutrition and necessary for a longevity  healthy life style, By eating nutrional foods and eating balancing energy intake with the physical activity that will help maintain a healthier weight which is essential at all stages of life. The amount of energy consumed along with physical activity , and the quality of food are key determinants they may help with chronic disease. In order to achieve best results in preventing nutrition related chronic diseases, The key role would be both diet and physical activity to determining good nutrition along with optimal health.




References

World Health Organization. ( n.d.)  Diet, nutrition and the prevention of chronic diseases.  Retrived from:
       http://www.who.int/dietphysicalactivity/publications/trs916/summary/en/