Portion Distortion, The final week of Girl Talk

We are now into the final week of “Girl Talk” Fitness camp. The final day of the camp was understanding portion distortion and peoples perception of a portion size as compared to what a true portion size looks like! Have you ever gone to a fast-food Japanese restaurant and eaten the whole box of food and then wondered, “wow, what kind of portion size was that?” Well, here is the breakdown, half of the box contained rice, and in the other half, 2/3 of the box contained protein, and the other 1/3 contained the carrots. The carrots are the healthiest things in the box, but yet are seen in the least amount. Here are some comparisons to use when you don’t have measuring cups, are eating out or at a social event!
- 1 cup = baseball or a female closed fist
- ½ cup = light bulb
- 1 tablespoon = poker chip or half a golf ball or your thumb top
- 1 oz = 1 dice
- 3 oz meat = deck of cards or palm of hand
- 1 oz lunch meat, 1 pancake = compact disc
- 1 medium size fruit = baseball

The TNT Health Educators had the girls pour a bowl of cereal that they would have consumed in the morning. We then compared what they were eating with that of a real serving size of cereal. This will often times shock most people! So next time you are eating cereal, measure it out because I bet you’ll be surprised by the actual serving size you are consuming. If you have any questions about portion distortion and for more comparisons for portion control contact TNT at 1-704-549-9550 or visit us at http://www.tntgetfit.com/!

How important is stretching?!?

If you’ve been following along these past couple of weeks, you know that today’s blog is the overview for the 4th day during the “Girl Talk” camp! This day was focused on the importance of stretching and exercising at home with simple, but effective exercises.

Just because you see people working out in the gym doesn’t always mean they know what they are doing? They might not know the importance of stretching or the correct way to do exercises. If you don’t stretch, then you can pull a muscle or a group of muscles, which can put you off your feet for one or more days. Stretching helps warm your muscles before you start lifting or engaging them in activities that would take more energy than everyday movements.

Once the importance of stretching was covered with the girls, we went over a few exercises you can do at home and emphasized which muscle groups they worked. Since, showing you these exercises is not really possible, here is a descriptive way to tell you what muscle groups they work. These are all simple exercises that help with toning up your body. Do each of these exercises 3 times each, with 12 reps each time.

Chair Dips – This works your triceps and shoulders.

Bicep Curls (with canned food or water bottles) – This will work your biceps and forearms.

Push-ups – This classic exercise works your chest, back, abs and triceps.

Lunges – These works your glutes, quadriceps, hamstrings and hip flexors.

Wall-sits – This exercise works your glutes, abs, quadriceps, and hamstrings.

Crunches – These work your abdominals.

Now that you know the importance of stretching and some exercises you can do at home you can now try them out. To add some cardio to your toning workout you can do jumping jacks, jump rope, and jogging in place for a minute each repeating them 3 times. These are all simple exercises that are very effective and can do wonders for you if you can’t make it to the gym.

For more information on stretching and exercising, contact TNT at 1-704-549-9550 or visit us at http://www.tntgetfit.com/!

Mindless and Mindful Eating

Hello Bloggers! As promised, here is the overview of the information from day three of the “Girl Talk” camp. TNT taught the young ladies about mindful eating & mindless eating, along with some fun snack recipes to make.

For mindful eating, each person should be aware of two very important things: their hunger and their fullness. Mindful eating is being conscious of what you are consuming and putting into your body. It is important to eat when you are actually hungry and quit when you are full. Most people sit in front of a television and just eat from the bag or box and often times are not even paying attention to their body telling them, “Stop, I’m Full!!!” and in turn continue to eat, which obviously is considered to be Mindless Eating.

Next, the TNT Health Educators went over Mindful/Mindless eating with the girls, each girl had the opportunity to make healthy snacks from simple recipes. Two of the favorites were; trail mix and “Ants on a Log”.

Here are the recipes for you to make!
Trail Mix: Mix wheat chex mix, rice/corn chex mix, pretzels, raisins, cranberries, cheerios and animal crackers. You can also add almonds or peanuts to the mix if you desire.

Ants on a Log: Take a portion of celery and fill the center with peanut butter, cream cheese, or hummus and place raisins or cranberries on top (Like little ants) and Enjoy!

For more information on Mindful and Mindless eating and questions about these or any other recipes contact TNT at 1-704-549-9550 or visit us at www.tntgetfit.com

Girl Talk Week Two!

So as all you followers know, last week was the beginning of the camp “Girl Talk”, where TNT was partnered with American Heart Association. TNT promised that you would be getting a dose of what was presented at this camp, so as promised, here is a break down of the second day.

The girls learned about how to shop in the grocery store and the most important areas to be shopping in. These important areas are; Produce section, Fresh Meats, Dairy, and Breads (minus the bakery J). The things that should be avoided like; processed foods such as frozen meals like Stouffer’s, cake mixes and brownie mixes like Duncan Hines and Pillsbury, prepackaged meals like Hamburger Helper, and macaroni and cheese and ready to go lunches for kids like Lunchables. These foods have additives like high-fructose corn syrup and partially-hydrogenated oils which can do harm to the body. TNT also went over how to properly read nutrition labels and understand the ingredient list on packages that seem to be unavoidable to young kids. The key to understanding the grocery store is that everything you need to eat healthy is located on the outside border of the store. Most of the time starting with your fruits and vegetables, going through the bread, then the meats, then the dairys and ending at the checkout counter! All the necessities that you need are on the perimeter! This should definitely help with a quick trip to grocery store on your next visit.

If you’d like to have more information on learning how to read a nutrition label, understanding the list of ingredients or to go on a grocery store tour contact TNT at 1-704-549-9550 or visit us at tntgetfit.com.

Girl Talk Camp with the AHA

TNT is partnering with The American Heart Association and taking part in the “Girl Talk” Camp going on at Providence Day School. This is a week long event and each day, the girls, ages 11 to 18, take part in a Nutrition Class and will learn critical information for making healthy choices in life. Over the next 5 weeks, you’ll get to see what each day is like for these girls. We hope that you find this information helpful!

The first day, TNT spoke about the food pyramid and the importance of each food group. Here is an overview of what was discussed:

Calories in carbohydrates, fats, proteins, and for the adults, alcohol. In carbohydrates there are 4 calories/gram, fats have 9 calories/gram, protein has 4 calories/gram, and alcohol has 7 calories/gram. Next we discussed the pyramid and which vitamins and minerals are beneficial from each group and an estimated number of how much of each food item you should consume each day.
· Meat/Beans – (6 oz/day)
· Vegetables - Vitamins and Minerals (4 or more servings/day)
· Fruits – (3 or more servings/day)
· Fats/oils – (7 tsp/day at most)
· Grains/Breads - To give energy (8 oz/day – make at least ½ whole grain)
· Dairy/Milk - To make bones strong and Healthy (3 cups/day)

To get your personalized amount of nutrients you should be getting each day, visit mypyramid.gov and enter in your age, gender, weight, and how much physical activity you engage in each day. From there, you’ll learn how much Protein, Fruits, Veggies, Grains, and Dairy you should consume each day. I encourage all of you to visit mypyramid.gov and explore your own nutrition. You might be surprised by what you find.

For more information on creating your own personalized food pyramid visit
http://www.tntgetfit.com/
or
call 1-704-549-9550

What's in your cereal?

CEREAL BLOG
By: Jessica Finkelstein & Jennifer Gusmer
*Courtesy of Spark People

Every morning we wake up and for most people the first thing we think about is “What should I have for breakfast?” This is such an important question and if your answer is cereal, we have a great guide for you to get the most out of your cereal each morning.

We all know that the cereals found in the grocery store are loaded with sugars and additives, most of which we can’t even pronounce. The boxes have attractive claims on the front claiming “Now Whole Grain” or “Reduced Sugar”, but are they really? Did you look on the back of the box where the ingredient list is and actually see “whole grain” as the first ingredient or look at the nutrition label and see if the sugar is 5 grams or less? Here are some rules that you should follow when shopping for your morning meal.

1) Keep in mind the “Rule of Fives”. There should be no more than 5 grams of sugar per serving and at least 5 grams of fiber.
2) There should be at least 3 grams of protein per serving in your box of cereal.
3) Make sure to look at the ingredient list and read it. The first couple ingredients should be “whole wheat” or “wheat bran”. Just the word “wheat” is not good enough.
4) Read all of the ingredients, yes the entire list, and look for any type of hydrogenated oils, such as “partially hydrogenated soybean oil”. Keep an eye out for artificial dyes and colors.
5) Note to self, if there are ingredients with names that you can’t pronounce they are most likely chemical preservatives that shouldn’t be going in your body.

So next time you’re in the grocery store keep in mind these 5 rules when you go down the cereal aisle so you can purchase your next breakfast. Your body will appreciate it!

Super Mom Application

Fruits and vegetables provide some of the best nourishment of any foods, but they are often the most difficult food to get kids – and adults – to eat. I have two young kids and have recently hit the stage where my daughter Avery, now two, certainly has an opinion about what she eats. Her younger brother, Jake, is only six months old, but will soon have the opportunity to eat real food, too.

Here are a few of my tricks to ensure that my family consumes five servings of fruits and five servings of vegetables a day.

· I either use organic vegetable baby food or I’ll puree vegetables and add to all of my mixes such as muffins, pancakes, French toast, macaroni and cheese, meat loaf... you name it, I add vegetable puree. My husband does not like vegetables, so I have to be creative and this is one way to do it.

· I make a lot of smoothies for the family and add a special ingredient that my family never detects - fresh spinach. Spinach really has no taste and when mixed in a blender along with milk or yogurt, fresh fruit and even some peanut butter or flaxseed, my family gets a well balanced treat. A smoothie mix with spinach also makes for a great summer treat.

· While adding puree or baby food to meals is certainly beneficial and helps ensure your family gets the proper servings of fruits and vegetables, I also think it’s important to keep introducing actual fruits and vegetables to my kids. I’ve found that the way the food is displayed to be key. For instance, a plain apple slice or banana may not cut it for my daughter; she isn’t interested. But, when I add peanut butter to her apples, bananas or pears she thinks it’s a great treat. I also add melted cheese to carrots, broccoli, etc.

· I try and set a good example by eating a lot of fruits and vegetables in front of my daughter and letting her see how much I enjoy them. She watches me dip raw vegetables in a healthy low fat dip and she wants to try it, too. We’ve shared many fun vegetable eating sessions this way.

· I also add chopped vegetables to my homemade breads, omelets and other meals so she sees the vegetables, but they are blended in with other ingredients.

I’ve found great success using these methods. I think it’s important to start good healthy eating habits early on so that kids develop a likeness for fruits and vegetables. It’s also important to keep reintroducing the fruits and veggies that young kids reject and try new ways to serve it. Appetites and tastes can vary day to day, so just because kids turn it down one day doesn’t mean they’ll never eat it. Persistence, creativity and most important, commitment are important for providing healthy eating habits and meals for your family. It’s certainly not always easy, but the rewards are lifesaving.