Sports Nutrition & Healthy Eating with MORPH FITNESS

If you've ever thought about sports food or nutrition, but you've been too confused by all the different products, the science, what to take, when to take it, etc, take 5 minutes to read this article. It will help you make the correct choices to achieve your goals.

Modern research shows that sports food can speed up fat loss, improve athletic performance and make it easier to build muscle and gain weight. No matter what your goals, the correct use of sports food will help you reach them faster and with far less effort.

Here are just a few examples of how sports nutrition can help you.

Are you having a hard time losing weight?

It can be extremely frustrating to follow a boring and tasteless low-fat diet for weeks on end, spending hours in the gym, and then step on the scales to see you've lost only a few pounds! No food will help you lose weight if you're pigging out on fatty foods and sitting on your backside watching TV. You need to be following a healthy low calorie diet and exercising, whether it's running or lifting weights down the gym. Sports food will make the process a lot faster and easier. Fat burners work in one of three ways – increasing the number of fat calories you burn, reducing the storage of fat, or helping to you to shift those last few stubborn pounds of fat.

Do you spend a lot of time travelling and find it hard to eat well?

If you do a lot of travelling as part of your job, you probably rely on fast food outlets or soggy sandwiches for your meals. Instead, put a few high protein meal bars in your car or your bag and you'll have instant access to a healthy high-protein, calorie-controlled meal (usually around 220 calories each).

Are you trying to gain muscle, but you're disappointed with the results?

Without enough protein and calories in your diet, you won't grow at all, however hard you train. High protein powders make it easy and simple to get enough protein, creatine and calories, which are essential if you want to pack on muscle, without the hassle of cooking and preparing lots of food. Maximuscle's weight gain formula Progain, for example, is specially formulated to help you gain weight and pack on muscle, with the least chance of gaining fat, over other weight gain products. Over the course of a week, one daily serving of Progain, along with your normal diet, should help you pack on almost a pound of weight, each and every week! By training hard in the gym, all of this weight should be solid muscle!

Are you lacking energy, feeling a bit low, drained?

If you want more energy, zest and mental sharpness, one of the most important steps you can take is to make sure you're getting all the vitamins and minerals your body needs. In one survey, 4 out of 10 women had a weakened immune system due to a deficiency in selenium, zinc, and five other key vitamins – without them even realising it! In another study 9 out of 10 hard training athletes were found to be deficient in iron and zinc, key nutrients required for energy, strength, repair and growth! A strong vitamin and mineral supplement provides insurance against most common vitamin and mineral deficiencies, the colds and fatigue that come about when you're depleted.

Note

It is worth consulting your doctor before you start taking any high dose vitamin and mineral supplements that you are unsure of.

Healthy Living

  • Take the stairs as often as possible avoid lifts – walk down and up escalators.
  • Carry shopping home instead of getting in the car or taxi.
  • Encourage children to walk to school instead of getting bus or getting a lift.
  • Up the tempo of cleaning the house and general house hold duties.
  • Try and wash the car once a week.
  • Cut the grass once a week.
  • Fidget as much as possible.
  • Take the children to the park with a ball and play a game.
  • Take the children swimming and join in.

All these extra activities will add up to extra calories burnt during the course of the week.

Healthy Eating

  • Drink at least 2 litres of water per day.
  • Cut down on tea, coffee and sugary drinks.
  • Eat a good breakfast – try porridge or muesli and low GI fruit – apples, pears, berries, mango & kiwi. Eat with low fat bio yogurt.
  • Eat five portions of fresh fruit and vegetables a day to make sure you are getting enough vital vitamins and minerals. If you cannot eat the fruit, try making a smoothie or a vegetable juice were you can get you five portions in one glass!!
  • Cut down on alcoholic drinks. Try and have just one glass of wine (preferably red) just once a day with your dinner instead of two. That would save 110cKal a night or 40,000 Kcal a year equivalent to about 6 kilos of fat.

Brief Guide for Healthy Living and Eating

Top Ten Reasons to Eat Fruits and Veggies

  1. Protect you from diseases.
  2. Enhance meals with bright colours, flavours and textures.
  3. Protect your cells with naturally occurring ingredients.
  4. Offer a variety of choices – fresh, canned, frozen or dried.
  5. Give your meals and snacks great taste.
  6. Promote fitness and trim calories.
  7. Keep your teeth and gums healthy – nature's toothbrush.
  8. Provide a snack to eat at any time.
  9. Supply vitamin A, vitamin C, fibre and water.
  10. Provide nature's fast food that's easy to eat.

Healthy Eating

  • Eat plenty of oily fish, such as salmon, tuna, mackerel and sardines, as they contain healthy oils (monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats) and they provide the body with energy, vitamins and minerals and are a good source of protein.
  • Try and avoid processed foods, cakes, biscuits and crisps which are packed full of the bad trans fatty acids and saturated fats that will just clog up your arteries and veins.
  • Try to steam fish and vegetables to keep in the goodness, and avoid buttery and creamy sauces which really pack in the calories, e.g. curry with a sauce.
  • Try and cut down alcohol consumption, keeping it down to around eight units a week (one unit is the size of a medium glass of wine).
  • Try and eat starchy heavier meals at lunch time and light vegetable and protein meals in the evening. Do not try and cut down on the quantity you eat, rather fill it up with more vegetables. Snack on items such as almonds and brazil nuts but be careful; these contain healthy fats, vitamins and trace elements, but are also very high in fat. Almond nuts have been proven to actually lower cholesterol* with out causing weight gain.
  • Try and eat foods that are lower on the GI scale, so that you will feel you have more energy for longer as the lower GI foods release their energy into the blood stream at a much slower rate, giving a more gradual rise in blood glucose levels. Contrast high GI items, which give a sudden rush blood glucose and an energy peak that does not last very long, making you feel hungry again sooner.

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*In August of 2004 the University of Toronto in Canada completed a three-month study on patients who had a 263 milligrams per decilitre of cholesterol in their blood and found that eating 2.5 ounces (73 grams) of raw, unblanched almonds daily lowered their cholesterol by 12%.