Nutrition Programming
Nutrition programming follows along with the Habit Change programming, which is elaborated further HERE and HERE.
However, here is an overview of the specific nutritional habits you should look to obtain with a nutritional program and how you can go about successfully obtaining them.
1. Eating proper servings of your three main macronutrients every day.
Macros we care about at Flex Fitness are Lean Proteins, Healthy Fats, Colorful Vegetables, and Smart Carbs.
Proper servings are based on gender and body type:
*depicts servings per day
Serving sizes are determined using the “Hand Method.” This is using your open palm, fist, cupped hand, and thumb to measure serving sizes. This way you do not need to carry around a scale wherever you go.
- 1 Serving Protein = open palm
- 1 Serving Veggie = balled fist
- 1 Serving Fat = thumb
- 1 Serving Smart Carb = cupped handful
When attempting to get your total macros per day, it is best to ramp-up into it. This means to start by requiring yourself to get smaller than desired daily totals. Then increase daily serving requirements systematically (approximately every 2 weeks) until you get to the daily requirements desired.
Also, start with one macro, then add the 2nd, then the 3rd, and finally the 4th. Don’t start with all four at the same time. Make sure you learn best practices on getting one particular macro into your diet before you add the next macro.
Additionally, it is good to include requirements to help you to build a macro balanced plate, which will not only help you get you daily macro amounts but teach you to craft a well-balanced single meal.
2. Eat Only Whole Foods
Eating quality, whole, unprocessed foods is a very big factor in ensuring that the macros you eat will truly help you to become healthy. Chemically enhanced, refined, processed, hyper-palatable foods are downfall of most bad eating habits. They lack nutrients, they cause us to eat more by messing with our satiety cues, they are full of salts and refined sugars which are responsible for numerous health issues, and more.
Therefore, your nutrition plan will need to help you learn to look for and incorporate whole foods into your daily eating. This includes removing all refined and artificial sugars.
3. Proper Hydration
Drink 2L (64oz) of water per day. Simple enough. Your program should measure your water intake.
4. Calorie Free Beverages
Drinking a majority of calorie free beverages will help you maintain caloric intake and reduce you intake of artificial sugars. Reducing alcohol, sports drinks, sodas, and double caramel macchiatos will reduced you caloric intake by an astronomical amount.
Stick to water, black coffee, seltzer water with natural fruit flavorings, and unsweetened tea.
5. Awareness & Control
Becoming aware of what you currently eat and when you eat it is vital to helping you to see where you can improve and where you are already successful. Also, you won’t always be able to make the 100% most healthy food decision, but learning how to make a healthier food decision help to not only keep you healthier but learn how to apply choice in your food decisions. This awareness is gained by tracking and monitoring what you eat via a food journal.
6. Healthy Food Relationship
Eating is not just a physical thing. We all have a strong emotional and mental relationships with food, both good and bad. We eat for culture, nostalgia, comfort, security, grief, happiness, etc. We need to understand what those relationships are for us and how to celebrate food but not use it as a crutch.
It takes time to obtain these habits and skills, but once you do you will be able to apply them in any situation, at any time, for the rest of your life. So do not rush. Start with a small piece of the big picture and add to it one by one about every 2 weeks or so.
YOUR IN LUCK!!!
Flex Fitness OT’s Nomadic Physical Wellness System (NPWS) has already done all of this for you…
LINK: Learn more about the NPWS
LINK: Sign-Up Today
LINK: Get 12 Free Body Weight Workouts with audio coaching, demo videos, and musical encouragement
