am i melting?

do you feel like you are melting??

Tis the season when Mother Nature cannot decide what to do with the weather.  One day it is 50′s the next it is 80+.  As an athlete, you need to know what to do if you are subjected to 80+ temps with heat and humidity and did NOT have time to acclimate.  you ask, “am I melting?”

My athletes come in for hydration and fueling advice.  Many will come in saying ‘I hate the heat.  I feel like I am melting.”  We can help you get over that issue with the proper use of electrolytes – both capsules, drinks and maybe even real food!  I had a client come in last week where we reviewed the daily intake and what products to try for her weekly rides – most of which were less than 40 miles.  This week I got an email saying that was “the best i have ever felt in this muck!”  And …”i am only starting with your brilliant advice”.  Yes we got sudden dose of heat and humidity, so my recommendations of just adding Endurolyte FIZZ to her water bottle worked wonders.  She was only out for about 60-90 minutes with hills.  Who knew it could be so simple?  But it made for an enjoyable experience, without the ‘I am melting’ feeling.  That is what I do with my clients – allow them to enjoy their outdoor activities more often and for longer!

So what is my quickest recommendation?  Eat lots of green and leafy green vegetables.  In terms of products, you want to consider Hammer Nutrition’s Endurolytes capsules and Endurolyte FIZZ tablets.  I

sometimes water is not enough

particularly like them because they DO have all of the necessary electrolytes you sweat out.  They are like coping pills for heat and humidity.  They include sodium, potassium, calcium and magnesium – all of which are in your sweat.  Bob Seebohar’s posted specifics on electrolytes but you need to replace all of them, not just potassium and sodium as most ready made products assume.  I find that just adding the Endurolytes or the FIZZ to any drink makes it more effective.  In the summer, I use 2 FIZZ tablets per bottle and still carry extra Endurolytes for when I need them.  I personally have taken 6 just for a 5K portion of a triathlon when it was over 90 degrees!  It is not just about survival, but optimum performance.  I also like these since they have no calories.  Most drinks have sugars or artificial sweeteners which is not going to help enough. Can you use other products?  I am sure you can, but for me, these have worked best and easiest and have no artificial sweeteners or colors. My goal is to help you use your products better not just what works for me.  And I find these safe for teens to use, too.

how did you feel at your last event at the finish line?

So when would you need more electrolytes??  Here are some symptoms you may experience when dehydrating (challenge is to notice to the signs when endorphins from exercise negate your abilty to feel dehydration):  slight nausea, slight headache, tight muscles, cramped muscles, wind knocked out of sails feeling, heavy legs, stiff hips, difficulty breathing, thirsty, stop sweating, chills, pee frequently or have diarrhea.  You can have all the symptoms, or one or two.   And they are different for each person.  My rule of thumb is, you dehydrate before you run out of fuel.  I usually suggest starting with 1-2 Endurolytes per hour (or 1 FIZZ per bottle per hour).  If  you experience any of these issues, take 2 Endurolytes and if nothing happens, you know it is not an electrolyte issue.  If they help, then add 2 more per hour from that point on.

With this little bit of advice, you should be able to enjoy your summer activities that much more.  If you need specific advice on how to adjust your sports nutrition to your schedule and your body, please schedule your own Race Day Nutrition session with Joanna.  As an athlete who is extremely sensitive to heat and humidity herself, she can  help you recognize where your adjustments need to be made so you can ride and run longer and stronger.  She can also provide real food options to increase your electrolyte stores naturally.  That “I am melting’ feeling does not have to be part of your experience.

Joanna Chodorowska is a sports nutrition coach at Nutrition in Motion, LLC.  She helps athletes use real foods to increase their performance.  She can be found at www.n-im.net and on twitter and facebook.

Today from one …

Today from one of my clients who used FIZZ for first time:
“Used 2 at lunchtime for hour-ish hilly ride in this muck (heat n humidity) and felt better than EVER before in the heat. I am a happy girl and just getting started with experimenting with your brilliant plan!”

A Race Day Nutrition session can really help get your game ON! even with the heat. 

Schedule your session today using the special at http://www.nutrition-in-motion.net/specials.html for $62.50 (reg $75).  It may help you have the best summer training and racing yet!
For your 15% off on Endurolytes FIZZ, go to http://www.hammernutrition.com and use 213393 as your discount code!  Or contact joanna as she always has it in stock! http://www.n-im.net

no carb riding – not recommended with diabetes

The one thing I keep hearing from people with diabetes is that they don’t (or think they shouldn’t) take on any carbohydrates when they’re riding.  They’ll go out for a 3, 4, 5 hour ride of anywhere from 50-100 miles and they won’t eat anything!  They’re conditioned to be afraid of carbs – but you need fuel on those efforts.  It’s a matter of knowing how much to ingest and how often, as well as which kind of carbohydrates to take in.  No carbs is not an recommended whether you have diabetes or not. Follow this link to read more!

or click here: http://teamredphilly.blogspot.com/2013/04/how-to-fuel-during-long-cycling-efforts.html

I started a team for the June 1 cycling event in Ambler PA.  I am looking for team members and donations, too for the cause.  For more information on how to join the team, go to www.diabetes.org/tourdephilly and search for Nutrition in Motion under Join a Team.  I am only half way to the number of riders (10) and obviously am also down on donations   So please help any way you can by riding or donating!  Thank you!

are you a meal skipper?

Half of the clients that I see come in for sports nutrition and for weight loss, or losing body fat ideally.  Athletes want to be lean.  They train hard, they eat what they think is healthy but most have one thing in common when they want to ‘lean out’…..they skip meals.  This may be one of the reasons that despite the hard efforts riding, running and swimming, they seem to retain the belly fat.

When I work with my clients, one of the first things we discuss is balancing blood sugar.  To balance the blood sugar throughout the day, you need to eat regularly spaced meals with the right proportions of proteins, carbohydrates, vegetables, and fats- in each meal.  You eat mini-meals throughout the day rather than a huge breakfast, little snack, big lunch, little snack, big dinner.  Or for some, it tends to be no snacks and just really large meals, where you over-stuff yourself as you try to satisfy the insane hunger.  You feel like the bottomless pit inhaling food.  And then you really are not hungry for anything for another 6 hours.  This is what we call the sumo wrestler diet.  You gain a ton of weight with too many calories in too few meals.

Think of your body as a wood-burning stove.  You need to put the right kind of logs into your stove to keep the fire burning well throughout the day.  if you skip a meal, it is like running on embers – not much heat coming off that!  if you over stuff it with too many longs, like a huge meal, it takes awhile for that fire to get going.  If you throw stick, twigs and newspapers into the fire, you get a quick burn but nothing long sustaining.  Sticks and twigs are like your pretzels, crackers or candy – the simple ‘carb’ meals that spike the blood sugar but do not last.  Then you are hungry again 90 minutes later and again crave more simple sugars like cookies, soft pretzels or crackers.  Sometimes you will also drink coffee as you feel tired.  You may be in fact tired, but this is just a sign of low blood sugar, not true fatigue.

The trick to burning fat and building lean body mass is to balance the blood sugar.  Eat balanced meals every 3 hours or so with the right balance of proteins, carbohydrates, vegetables, fiber and fat, and you will find that your muffin top will slowly shrink and disappear.  And it didn’t take you being on a diet to do so!

For more information about balancing your blood sugar and how to lose body fat and other sports nutrition related topics, please visit http://www.nutrition-in-motion.net for sports nutrition programs, lectures and upcoming events.  Joanna K Chodorowska, BA, NC, TPTH is a sports nutrition coaching helping athletes improve their performance, reaction time and faster recovery  using real foods.  She provides realistic options to ameliorate their already busy lives.  As an athlete herself, she understands the needs athletes have including planning meals  She does called Nutrition Response Testing to test whether supplements or foods are aiding in athletic performance or creating weakness and malabsorption.  Joanna helps make healthy eating
realistic and a part of every athlete’s nutrition program.

schedule it in

Last post was about being realistic with healthy nutrition.  I had a new client come in today and say how he liked my realistic approach!  How else can you really follow a new plan if we do not accommodate your needs and schedule?

In this case, the issue was more about planning,  He can schedule his clients as he wants, and usually they are on an hourly basis and on the hour.  But some afternoons he has 6 clients all back to back.  Hmmm.  I asked him if he could move some of his clients after the  3rd client to 15-30 after the hour vs on the hour.  That would allow him to eat for 15-30 minutes and then be able to proceed with the next 3 hours of clients afterwards.  He admitted, he had a lot of trouble concentrating during those latter sessions and often grabbed a soft pretzel and coffee as a tie-me-over.  But usually just ended up being so hungry after those 5+ sessions with clients with no food, that he would basically eat everything in the kitchen.  (and now we no longer wonder why weight loss is not so easy)

My client did agree that he could make that schedule adjustment as it seemed like a reasonable and realistic solution.  He used to schedule clients like that, so now it makes sense to do that again from a nutrition and brain power perspective. 

The next challenge was to bring healthy options for snacks.  I did provide a list of Healthy Snacks and other meals which each of my clients receives during their sessions with me (some Gluten Free items) This should help with options to bring and help with his planning for the day.  It may require a little work to make more at dinner for leftovers, or making another smoothie for the afternoon  hours, or making an extra garbage salad for two meals.  Try to make it something you can actually eat in the time frame you planned.  But remember to bring more than you need as sometimes, what you brought is just not what you wanted!  You definitely need options!

I know we all want to be productive and work as many hours as we can in a day, but if you allow that blood sugar to drop, then your brain activity is limited.  You become less productive, make more mistakes and end up working longer, not better.  Then the hunger demons will strike again causing you to binge on anything and everything that is not on your list of healthy options. Then you put on weight (or for some, do not lose weight). If you want to eat better, a little planning is definitely recommended, and maybe putting your meals on your calendar will help remind you when to stop and enjoy some healthy vittles.

Joanna Chodorowska, BA, NC, TPTH is a sports nutritionist working with real foods to help athletes perform better!  Athletes will perform better at work and on the field (court, etc) with a realistic nutrition plan using real foods.  For more practical nutrition options and sports nutrition plans, please visit http://www.n-im.net or visit Nutrition In Motion on Facebook.

put the realistic into eating

I work with clients daily on helping them make better choices with their nutrition and how to incorporate it into their daily routine.  The challenge is always to make it realistic as we do NOT live in a bubble and well, life kinda gets in the way.  There is no such thing as ‘perfect’ eating.  We just need to be able to do the best we can as often as we can.

I had a client that came in wanting to lose body fat.  I know, we all want that!  But he was frustrated as he was working out regularly and lifting weights, yet his diet seemed to be off enough that he was not getting the results he was looking for based on the time he spent working out.  So he came in with already eating regularly spaced meals.  But he was also not able to quite get the balance of his meals with the right macro-nutrients during his afternoon meal both before and after his workouts.  He was eating like a body-builder, yet his body needed more balance than that.  We worked on that one issue so that he stops acidifying the body with too much protein, but adding back balance into those meals so he gets his necessary carbohydrates before and after workout sessions.  This would also help curb those after dinner cravings for sugar and sweets.  I also found he was consuming artificial creamer in his coffee in the mornings which also adds fat around the belly.  We worked on how to make that choice better – not to avoid the coffee, but maybe he should drink it at home where he could use almond milk instead of the creamer and use raw sugar instead.  He texted me a day later asking what can he put in his coffee while at the convenience store!  Knowing the choices, he could still keep his flavored coffee, but now he could use regular sugar (1 packet)or honey and use either milk or half and half if he was able to tolerate dairy products.

I had another client come in whose schedule is not optimal for eating every 3 hours.  He is a personal trainer, and some of the days are so crammed from 4-8 PM that there is no time in between to get a meal in unless it is in the form of liquid something.  So we helped him work on eating breakfast first off and provide several options so it is not the same thing every day.  Then we worked on the schedule of when to eat.  I suggested that he also try to move his schedule after he has 3 back-to-back clients on the hour, to then seeing clients on the 15 min intervals.  This way he could take that 15 minutes to eat as needed and proceed with his otherwise full day!  His afternoon meal would be a healthy smoothie he made at home either in the morning or the night before with some healthy spinach or kale, too for added nutrients and energy.   Adding that afternoon meal when he was booked with clients is a huge help!  And now he will not overeat when he gets home as he will not be starving anymore.  He was eating probably 3 meals in one from that hunger, and this was not helping him with keeping lean.

I have had clients come in with all sorts of issues and all sorts of scheduling conflicts.  The beauty of working with me, is that I can take that whacky schedule and create a plan that is both realistic and doable!  And we keep it interesting as well so you cannot get bored with your food.

If working with a nutrition professional scares you because you think it will be too challenging and too strict, then you have not worked with me who makes it much more reasonable and realistic.  We still use real foods as often as we can, but we create nutrition programs that are entirely based on your needs and your situation.  Put the realistic into your food plan.  If you cannot do your healthier eating plan daily, then you are not on the right eating plan!

For more information on sports nutrition coaching plans with Joanna Chodorowska, BA, NC, TPTH, visit www.n-im.net or on Facebook find Nutrition in Motion!  To your realistic health!

hard to lose weight? it might be the ingredients

As athletes, we spend the winter hibernating (some of us anyway).  Then we obsess about how we will lose the winter weight in the spring.  There are a number of reasons the body puts on weight – less activity, more ‘comfort foods’, more ‘carbs’ and more conveniently wrapped packages of food.  Although processed foods are convenient, their ingredients are not going to help with the battle of the bulge.  When looking to lose weight, we need to balance the blood sugar, eat ‘clean’ and most certainly we have to read the ingredients list!

Why are ingredients so important?  Well, the products we buy may be convenient, but they are not usually healthy.  Our bodies do not work well on foods with ingredients that impair our metabolism, zap our energy or ones that cause us to crave more and more food like ‘carbs’.    Here is a quick list of ingredients to avoid – and you might spend a bit more time initially looking at the ingredients list, but after awhile you will realize that you will spend less time reading as you get used to what to look for!

1 – Trans fat = hydrogenated fats.  This is only in processed foods. Hydrogenated fats are fats that have an additional hydrogen molecule added to extend shelf life – the fat won’t naturally degrade quickly like most fats).  No nutritional value.  It can be in crackers, peanut butter, non-dairy creamer, baked goods or anything that needs to have a longer shelf life.  It does not matter whether it is partially hydrogenated, or fully hydrogenated – you need to steer clear of it.

You may remember I wrote a blog about including Pumpkin Spice creamer into my coffee during the holidays – one main ingredient is partially hydrogenated fat.  Within a week or two, I not only gained weight (unintentionally) but I gained it all as a mushy muffin top.  YUK!  And the pain in my hip got worse, too.  So even a little bit in your coffee or a little margarine on your toast will cause you to hold on to weight (by way of increased inflammation).  So try to avoid this ingredient.  It will help you drop weight and fit into those tight cycling shorts.

NOTE on Low Fat or Non-Fat products.  Ever read the label on yogurt, cookies, or mayonnaise?  Read the regular mayo for example, just 6 ingredients: oil, mustard seed, vinegar, egg yolks and seasonings.  Now read the lowfat or non-fat version and you will see a few additional items all to help replace the fat ‘feeling’ in your mouth.  But most of these ingredients are toxins or chemicals not normally found in mayonnaise!  Some of these include modified food starch, phosphoric acid (this is like your Lime Away for lime scale – yuk!), propylene glygol alginate and preservatives.

2 – Chemicals and preservatives. I listed a few of the chemicals above, but there are others!   Doritos corn chips have diisocyanate.  If it sounds like a chemical or you cannot pronounce it, you should stay away from it.  You can replace Doritos with organic corn chips or Garden Of Eatin’ brand which has loads of flavorful varieties.  You will have to eat them within the shorter shelf life date as the fat they use will go bad after that.  (this is actually what you want – you want your food to spoil in less then 3 months!)
Preservatives include EDTA, sodium nitrate, sodium nitrate, calcium disodium EDTA, citric acid, sodium benzoate and potassium sorbate.  All made to increase the shelf life of your foods, but your body does not know what to do with these chemicals.  So it stores some of them in fat cells and some in the liver!  (I am not sure of this, but I think your body will create a few extra fat cells just to store the extra toxins!)

3 – Artificial colors.  These are particularly a problem when it is colors yellow, red and blue. Some will get over-excited from the toxicity of these colors.  For children who have ADD and ADHD, this is one of the more important things to eliminate to keep children calm and able to sit still.  here is a link for the dangers of artificial colors.
Check your sports drinks as many of them will include red dyes instead of beet juice to make things red. If it stains your water bottle orange, you may want to find something that is colorless.

4 – GMO grains, corn and soy products.  This might be the harder ingredients to avoid.  Truth in food labeling does not ensure that products to be labeled as GMO.  Only those companies who want to list GMO free products do so.  But those who do not want to list their GMO products, do not have to.  I personally would like to know this information!  So I tend to avoid soy, corn, wheat and dairy as a result of this GMO byproduct effect.  GMO stands for Genetically Modified Organism.  Anything that has been altered from its original state is considered GMO.  Tomatoes also fall into this category!  So what does this do?

The body is designed to eat foods in their natural states.  For centuries we have eaten corn, grains and various fruits and vegetables that were in their original state.  Enter the industrialization of foods, and companies like Monsanto use their labs to create products that grow faster, that are resistant to pesticides and certain pests.  This now becomes a lab experiment and we are the human guinea pigs.  These foods alter our genetics unintentionally.  They are hormone disruptors affecting our thyroid, adrenals and digestive system.  We are getting sicker because of these foods!  Here is a link to dangers of GMO to our health.  And yes, they (the industrialized farmers) are using these modified grains, corn and soy to feed their cattle and chickens.  If you saw the movie Food Matters, you would see how the removal of these items in the feed, allowed for healthier animals.  If the cattle do have the genetically modified products in their system then you are ingesting them.  If the cattle are constantly sick and being injected with antibiotics, how will that help you??  It doesn’t.  It just makes you sick and tired, and fat.  Choose organic whenever possible and if you can get products at a local farm, you may be able to lose some of those extra pounds because the food is not going to make you gain weight because it is genetically modified.

5 – Artificial sweeteners.  Although some will disagree about what these artificial sweeteners will do, they are really chemicals.  And we do not want chemicals in our bodies.  There was nothing ever wrong with sugar – we just need to eat the raw, organic sugar and eat it in moderation.  When baking, use half the amount of sugar in the recipe.  When you use artificial sweeteners, you tend to crave more sugar as a result.  Have you ever noticed when someone uses artificial sweeteners (Splenda, Equal, etc), they use 2-3 packets of sweetener.  If the sweeteners are all 600 times sweeter than sugar, shouldn’t we be using barely a sprinkle?  There is an addictive effect and we consume more and more sweetened foods like pastries and desserts brought to the office.  This will cause inevitable weight gain and will not help your waist line!

Some sweeteners, when digested, break down to formaldehyde and methanol!  Eew!  Avoid the low-calorie versions of foods that use the artificial sweeteners.     You can save yourself plenty of health issues associated with artificial sweeteners if you just use real sugar.

if you are struggling to lose some weight, it might be time to start looking at the ingredients of the products you purchase.  If you are trying to be more healthy, and achieve your optimal weight, the above list is a good place to start with ingredients to avoid.  Increasing your daily intake of fresh vegetables, nuts, seeds and good oils along with root vegetables and high quality grass fed meats, you will be able to attain the healthy weight you should be at without cravings and fighting your own body’s reaction to the foods you eat.  Eat real food.  Eat less processed foods.  Pretty simple but highly effective.  Yet sometimes you need some help knowing where to start.

If you need a more personalized  approach to sports nutrition and health, please visit http://www.n-im.net or email joanna@n-im.net for information about nutrition topics.  Healthy living for every day living!

can starting your day with wheat make you eat too much?

I had a client come in last week asking to help her with weight loss and getting leaner so she can maximize her efforts at the gym, and allow her to compete in fitness competitions this April.  After reviewing her food logs, it looked like a few things may be contributing to her carbohydrate/ wheat heavy meal plan.  You may also find this to be one of your issues!    

The first issue I found was that breakfast was a bit too late.  This is common with many people where they sleep in during winter months, and eat breakfast when they get to work.  It is convenient, but this sets you up for eating more food as you feel hungry most of the day.  The body goes into its conservation-like mode and tricks you into being hungry more frequently trying to catch up from that missed meal.  Although it may not seem like a big deal to eat at 8:30 when you got up at 6, that delay of 2.5 hours makes you more hungry all day.  You snack all day even though you really don’t want to.  Try to eat breakfast within an hour of waking up, or within 30 minutes after your early morning workout session.

Second, it might be what you are eating that sets you up for eating more.  Those who eat wheat

Oh, but this is Whole Wheat bread…yum??

based breakfast (i.e. toast with eggs, wheat based cereal with milk, bagel, etc) tend to eat more throughout the day.  Why?  Although wheat is touted as a healthy grain, it can spike your blood sugar more than other grains.  If you read The Wheat Belly, it indicates that blood sugar rises are higher with wheat consumption vs. other grains or even a regular potato!

Great read on why to eliminate wheat! I have an extra copy if you wan to borrow!

In The Wheat Belly, Dr William Davis writes: ” The amylopectin A “complex” carbohydrate of wheat, …, raises blood sugar to sky-high levels. … Two slices of whole wheat bread raise blood sugar higher than 6 teaspoons of table sugar. (And, no, it does NOT mean eat white bread!)”…

” If you eliminate the foods that trigger exaggerated blood sugar and insulin response, you eliminate the cycle of hunger and momentary satiety, you …are satisfied with less.’  Wheat IS that food that triggers huge blood sugar swings and creates the endless need to keep eating ‘carbs’!  Eat some bagel now, eat a sandwich later, grab a handful of pretzels in between or a danish.  Oh those donuts were calling my name!…it just keeps going.  All day you spike drop, spike drop the blood sugar.  Like a yoyo.

I had one client years ago, who could not get to his ‘racing weight’ until we eliminated wheat.  With wheat being a staple in a cyclists and most athlete’s diets, he would start with a bagel after training, then could not stop eating wheat based ‘carbs’ until he had consumed the whole bag of bagels. Then his daughter’s cookies then more crackers and cookies until he went to bed.  Once off the wheat, the  endless addiction to ‘carbs’ stopped.  He was able to eat normally.  And he was able to reach his race weight easily.

After a clients first week, she has reported that she is more satisfied with her gluten/wheat free breakfast.  She is also less hungry having breakfast at home rather than eating at the office!  I will try to keep you posted on what happens after our next session.  All interesting things for you to consider when you cannot reach your weight goals.  It might be as simple as timing of breakfast or changing what is for breakfast!

For more information about wheat free nutrition plans, or other nutrition plans for athletes, please visit www.n-im.net.  Or if you have a question and need an answer, email me and I will write about it in an upcoming post!

junk food for optimal performance?

As a sports nutritionist, I work with athletes and every people to help them achieve their goals of health, faster, leaner, less body fat and less fatigue along with better recovery.  The common link with my clients is they are willing to make a change (at least initially) but fall back into older well formed habits of eating and taking care of everyone else but themselves.  When we try to help ourselves first, we can then be able to help others later (kind of like the inflight recording about your oxygen mask…..put yours on first, then help your children and others near you).  One way to take care of yourself is to take in better nutrition.  This will help in many aspects of life, including everyday office tasks, learning, and athletic performance.  Junk in, and well, you really should not expect stellar results.

the new Detox Plan For Athletes is available! woohoo

To help you with your daily and athletic performance, we have to look at the fuel you use.  I am going to paraphrase a bit from the post at http://sportechservicesinc.com/ where they use the analogy that our bodies are high performance vehicles.  We are designed to be using high quality fuels (foods free of toxins, preservatives, artificial sweeteners, processed additives and hydrogenated fats).  We are not designed to work at high performance levels using low grade fuels (low grade fuels include processed foods  those that look like real food, but are not real).  Over time, your high performance engine will get ‘gunked’ up with the additives, toxins and impurities. Your engine will be sluggish, recover poorly, concentrate poorly with slower reaction time and most of all, not be able to exert a lot of energy for a prolonged period of time!  Your engine runs inefficiently on low grade fuel.  Your engine will not have a high output for long periods of time and will wear out quickly.  It will require a lot more tune-ups (or cleanings) and when it does break down, it will be a lot sooner than you expect.  And a lot of work to fix it!  I know from my own car (1997 Volvo 850 that once I switched to hi-grade it ran so, so much better with fewer maintenance problems.  And I thought I was saving money with lower grade fuel – but paid more in maintenance and repairs!!)

When we eat junky quality food, we probably are not thinking of it as performance fuel.  We just throw it in and hope it works well enough – it was less expensive and convenient!  Over time, we spend more energy fighting the toxins and junk from this poor quality food that we have little left over for the actual activity we are about to do, or we get sick because the body has no more defenses left over to fight actual viruses or foreign invader.  The body (engine) spent all its energy on digesting and trying to eliminate the toxins from the food we eat!

So what are you to do?  Well, just like with your car, don’t switch from low-grade to high-grade overnight!  This can cause your body to react with releasing those toxins so fast, you think you have the flu and decide healthy eating is not for me.  As athletes, these toxins are released as you lose body fat, too.  Fat cells are where your body stores toxins – and in the liver. As you start to burn fat in training, those toxins are released into the blood stream and can cause short-circuitry in your daily performance.  Yeah, sign me up!  Maybe not what you expected, but your performance will suffer if you keep putting in the junk.

You can definitely start with a detox plan, but choose one that uses more real foods, and eases you into healthy naturally but no necessarily overnight.  I just finished the Detox Pan For Athletes which allows you to continue training while you ‘clean up your fuel’.   It includes more vegan proteins and some animal proteins, but only high quality wild meats -not farm raised (unless it is your local farmer!) which are needed for recovery.  It includes root vegetables as a carbohydrate source, but also allows for non-wheat grains, too in your post-workout recovery meals.  There are plenty of healthy fats, too but most importantly, it is a transition into healthier eating with menu plans, 40+ recipes and more.   I have not seen a program like this which is why I chose to create it!  Much easier than the ‘hard-core’ 2 Week Detox Plan I offere, but more to gain from than the Mini Detox Plan (great for a week or less!).

Choose the one that suits you the best!  As athletes, we always strive for performance gains….changing your nutrition is a big part of that gain (energy, strength and stamina not weight!).  Make 2013 the year YOU choose performance as your healthy focus and use real food as your performance fuel!

If you find recipes or detox plans I should review, please feel free to share them with me!   Or reach out for questions about performance nutrition at http://www.n-im.net or on Facebook Nutrition In Motion.

Joanna Chodorowska, BA, NC, TPTH is the founder of Nutrition In Motion, LLC specializing in sports nutrition for the endurance athlete using real foods for real performance results.

resolve to embrace this year!

years come and go, and every end of the year we try to resolve what we want to try to do better next year.  sometimes this includes losing weight, getting more healthy, increasing speed running or cycling, be consistent with training, start saying yes to you and not everyone else.  sound familiar?  sounds a bit harsh that resolve word – and it is!

re·solve

transitive verb

1   obsolete : dissolve, melt

2  a : break up, separate <the prism resolved the light into a play of color>; also : to change by disintegration

    b : to reduce by analysis <resolve the problem into simple elements>

    c : to distinguish between or make independently visible adjacent parts of

    d : to separate (a racemic compound or mixture) into the two components

so you are trying to separate yourself from some nasty habit you acquired.  why not change the mindset this year to Embrace a new better-for-you habit.  when it is all about deprivation and separation, you have  a much harder time with actually making this permanent. you crave what you are not supposed to have!  (just like when you were a kid – ‘don’t do that’ meant ‘go do it’ to you. or ‘let’s see if i can get away with it?’  rules are meant to be broken, right???)

instead of saying ‘i will not eat junk food ever again’, you may want to try ‘i will eat less junk food’ or ‘i will find healthier versions/ alternatives of my current junk foods’.  with this new way of thinking, you are not forcing deprivation but rather an adventure with food.  It may be rather exciting to look for healthier alternatives!  you might find it fun to cook new ways to make your current meals healthier.  you may hire a sports nutritionist who can help you make these adventures realistic or help you with where to start!

em·brace

verb \im-ˈbrās\

transitive verb

1  a : to clasp in the arms : hug

    b : cherish, love

the new year should be about embracing new things that are healthy.  love the new you are creating!  love who you are where you currently are!  love yourself and choose to create new habits that help nurture you, help you attain your healthy weight, sleep better, be in better moods and of course, habits that make you train stronger and look younger, too!  surround yourself with those who support the new you and say farewell to those who no longer serve but to bring you down.

embrace your healthier happy self.  do what makes you happy, even it is as simple as running outside in the first snow to make a snow angel (and you are not even wearing the right clothes for it!), do what makes you feel good.  embrace it, love it and Happy New Year!

for more information about sports nutrition coaching, cooking and programs including Detox Plan for the Athlete, please visit Joanna Chodorowska at http://www.n-im.net