April Challenge Comes to an End

Well, the April 'Abs are Made in the Kitchen' Challenge is over tonight. I can't help but feel a little sad because though there were days when it was difficult, it was also fun to know a ton of people were going through the same challenges and making healthy diet choices this month.

Now, as I said at the beginning of the month, the purpose of this challenge was not to do it and then forget it. Neither was it to stop eating everything forever. The purpose was to learn how certain things we eat and drink affect our bodies, and figure out ways to modify our diets to eat less of these items and eat more of the healthy ones.

That said, here are a few nutrition tips we should have gathered this month. Hopefully, they can help you in your journey as they are helping me in mine.

• Most oils contain about 120 calories per tbsp. Where possible, limit the amount of oil you bathe your food in or limit the amount of fried food you eat to reduce the unnecessary calories we accumulate from oil. You can also make less calorie-heavy substitutions for oil.
• A lot of the processed foods we eat tend to contain a lot of ingredients that have little or no nutritional value, and may actually be pretty bad for the body. Trying to eat more whole natural unprocessed foods helps us to get the nutrients we actually need, stay healthy, and lose weight or build muscle the right way.
• In the battle of complex carbs vs. simple carbs, complex carbs wins in allowing the body stay fuller longer, which means you eat less overall. Also, complex carbs do not have the tendency to dramatically spike your blood sugar up and down like simple carbs do causing unnecessary cravings and binges.
• Our bodies are mostly made up of water. So we should be drinking a lot of it for all our organs to function optimally. Drinking 'water substitutes' like soda and alcohol can actually sometimes serve to dehydrate us and so we should limit their intake and properly hydrate with more water when we do drink them.
• PAY ATTENTION TO THE LABELS OF THE FOOD YOU EAT! When in doubt, Google or ask!

Cheers Eights & Weights!