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