7 Nutrition Tips For Resolution Success!
Who else made a health resolution this year and wants the most bang for their buck when it comes to choosing the right foods for their bod? With so many awesome options on the table and thousands of opinions flooding the web, a gal’s got her work cut out for her deciding just which of the latest super foods and super trends will give her the best results, in the shortest amount of time. Welcome to part one of our big New Year Health & Fitness Face Off… time to find out what really takes all in the battle for top health contender.Gladiators, are… you… READY!
1. Juicing vs Blending
Juicing delivers a powerful dose of live food, nutrients and enzymes to your system, making it a super efficient way to nourish your body. Vegetable juicing in particular is a strong detoxifier and potent cleanser of the liver and digestive tract. However, most methods of juicing nix a lot of fibre from the fruit and veg, meaning you get a sugar hit without the fibrous components of the real thing and may be in for a blood sugar rollercoaster. This is particularly true of fruit juice – one glass of fresh squeezed apple juice has about the same amount of sugar as a glass of coke, which isn’t great and when you think about it, it takes 3-4 apples to make a small glass of juice and who would eat 4 apples in a row!?Blending is easy to do, just whizz and go! The fibre remains intact and blended ‘smoothies’ taste delish and are easier to digest than regular food. Because you can add protein and good fats (raw egg, protein powder, nuts, avocado, coconut oil) and the fibre is preserved, you’re less likely to ride a sugar high and come crashing down later. But there’s a catch – not only are blended drinks often high in calories (one of our fave healthy smoothie shops has drinks packing a 900 calorie punch!), you’ve also gotta ‘chew’ your smoothie by swishing it around in your mouth in order to get the benefits. Although that creamy drink looks like a liquid, it’s really not! Your body needs to go through a proper preparation process in order to digest properly. Skip this step and you could end up with a girl’s worst nightmare, a bloated belly!BUF VERDICT: If you’re sticking to veggie juice alone, juicing rules the roost but as soon as you add higher fructose fruits into the mix, blending takes the cake! Our top tips: add a little olive oil and lemon to your morning veggie juice and throw some avocado, coconut oil, or chia seeds into your smoothies for all the health benefits, minus the sugar crash.
2. Cooked Food vs Raw Food
Raw food has more live enzymes to kick start digestion, often has minimal calories (100g of spinach adds a teeny 24kcals to your daily intake) and packs a powerful nutrient punch but can be hard to break down for those whose digestion isn’t in tip-top shape. It’s also pretty tough to maintain a 100% raw food diet for a long period of time.Cooked food can be easier to digest and a few foods (like broccoli and tomatoes) are actually more beneficial eaten cooked than raw! Some cooking methods kick butt over others, for example slow cooked or steamed meals retain almost all their nutrient value, whereas frying, baking, boiling and over-zealous BBQ’ing removes a lot of the good stuff and can even cause toxicity in your body.BUF VERDICT: It’s different for everyone but if your digestion can take it, a predominantly raw diet is a winner, simply because raw foods contain a lot of live enzymes that support proper food metabolism and also make your digestion work harder, meaning you burn more calories to process them (bonus!). The easiest way to make sure you stay on your body’s good side? Make sure every meal has a component of raw or lightly steamed plant foods and eat those first, to get your digestive enzymes cranking. Include a little cooked food too but prepare it gently, without burning. Easy!
3. Fish Oil vs Krill Oil
Fish Oil is widely recognised as one of the most important ‘everyday’ supplements to take for optimised health and fat loss results. The studies on fish oil supplements are countless and according to John Berardi, who heads up Precision Nutrition, taking just 6-10g per day can increase your Base Metabolic Rate by up to 400kcal! That’s almost a whole family block of Lindt dark choccie. Cons? Only if you’re allergic to fish/seafood, or avoid animal productsKrill Oil is the new kid on the block when it comes to Omega-3 supplements and boy does it pack a punch! Depending on the brand, it’s suggested to be up to 48 times more potent than regular fish oil and early research shows the fatty acid structure to be quite similar to the way fats are combined in our bodies, making it more quickly absorbed than fish oil and very easily digestible. It also contains a very unique and effective antioxidant called astaxanthin, which fish oil lacks. However, as krill is a fairly new supplement, there’s not much independent research to support its benefits quite yet.BUF VERDICT: We’re keeping a close eye on all things ‘krill’, particularly because it tastes less fishy and provides such a strong antioxidant boost (anything that fights wrinkles is a friend, right!) but for now, simply because it’s a sure bet and one of the only supplements proven to fight flab and improve health, fish oil is our winner. We’re very interested in the new range of algae supplements coming on to the market too – vegan friendly and high in Omega 3s, they could take fish oil’s place at the top soon!
4. Sourdough vs Gluten Free Bread
Sourdough bread is much healthier than other, more yeasty wheat varieties. It’s more easily digestible, less ‘gluey’ for your insides, contains live cultures and allows for effective nutrient absorption. But for those who are coeliac (1% of the population) or even gluten intolerant (up to 50% of Aussies, eep!), sourdough will still have a lot of the negative effects of regular ol’ bread. Yep, it’s still a very dense/heavy source of carbs too. Le sigh…Gluten Free breads come in all kinds and qualities. Some taste great, some taste pretty horrible but importantly, all are free of that sticky little inflammatory protein, gluten. Great for those of us who might be intolerant, or who just want to keep our skin glowing and digestion humming. However, the problem with gluten free products is that in order to add taste and texture to their faux-bread, bakers will often add salt, sugar, or more simple starches to it in order to boost flavor and texture, meaning the end product may have less fibre, less health benefits and create more of a blood sugar spike than regular bread.BUF VERDICT: OK, this one depends on the person eating it and the quality of the GF bread. If you can find a good, grainy, G-Free bread full of health-giving whole grains like buckwheat, plus seeds like chia and pumpkin then YES it’s cool to go gluten-free and give your bod a break. But at the end of the day, if you’re not intolerant, sourdough has more fibre, really beneficial cultures and is easily digestible for those who don’t suffer from gluten intolerance. Oh, and it tastes better too! Just remember, whatever you choose, bread really isn’t an, ‘every meal’ food for most grown women… consume a piece or two every few days and aim to use fresh fruit, veggies and wholegrains as your main carb sources instead.
5. Quality Control vs Calorie Control
Quality Control means eating what you feel like, when you feel like it but making sure you’re always eating the best quality version of that food and in an appropriate portion. For example, feel like fish and chips? Order grilled fish, a side salad and baked potato. Need a choccie hit? Fine, but go for a small portion of good quality dark chocolate, rather than a mass produced and sugar packed Mars or Snickers. Need a savoury hit? Skip the potato chips and reach for a small portion of raw or activated nuts. Yum! The only downside is that you need to have a little self control. Too much of a good thing is still, well, too much!Calorie Control means sticking to a calorie controlled eating plan to create an energy deficit in order to lose weight. On this kind of ‘diet’, you don’t worry so much about what you’re eating but rather, how many calories your food contains. This is good in theory (if you’re eating less calories than you’re expending, you’ll lose weight – it’s simple science) but with minimal focus on the kind of foods you’re putting in your body, or carefully considering nutrients and food sources, it’s not a great long-term plan and you could end up with nutrient deficiencies, or may regain the weight you lost… and then some! We KNOW white rice crackers with vegemite have less calories than a ripe avocado but what’s going to be better for your body? Go for the avocado every time girls!BUF VERDICT: Quality Control. Don’t be lazy, learn about food, become a student of nutrition and take control of your health, for good.
6. Superfoods vs Veggies
Superfoods are highly nutritious, micronutrient packed additions to our diets. And for the most part, they taste delicious! Excellent to include if you have both the time to learn about them and importantly, enough cash to keep your cupboard stocked – forking out $10 for a small bag of goji berries isn’t everyone’s idea of a bargain!Veggies are, well, everyday must-haves. Fibre and vitamin packed, alkalising and crucial for immune function and general health, as well as a great, low calorie way to fill your plate and get your skin glowing. Not always exciting, not always the most delicious thing on the menu, but affordable and, well, kinda essential.BUF VERDICT: Does anything ever really win when pitched against vegetables? Nope. Unless they’re organic vegetables, of course. Sorry superfoods… guess you’re not the most super of them all after all!
7. Coffee vs Tea
Coffee can be a great tool when used at the right time. Drink it before exercise and you’ll get an added energy boost, feel psyched to train and maybe even blast through a few extra kcals. But drink it post-workout and it has the opposite effect, upsetting natural cortisol levels and encouraging your body to store fat on your tummy (eek!).Tea, particularly green tea, provides a little caffeine boost alongside a number of antioxidants that can help with post-exercise recovery, alertness and fat burning, without the ‘crash and burn’ properties of coffee. The downside? Some studies suggest that tea can interfere with the absorption of iron from non-meat sources, such as plants and grains, so vegetarians with low iron levels should use sparingly, or switch to herbal, non-caffeinated teas instead.BUF VERDICT: Simply because it has benefits for just about everyone and contains a wealth of antioxidants, our vote goes to green and herbal teas. Coffee’s ok for some people, or if you use it solely as a pre-workout boost every now and again, but for the majority of women, overuse just adds to stress, anxiety and digestive issues.